Climate change and its ramifications are one of the most heavily debated topics across the globe. One person took to an online forum that’s “always very doom and gloom” to ask a simple question: are we screwed? The answers vary from cautiously optimistic to downright alarming.
Note: Some quotes in this piece have been lightly edited for grammar.
1: Science Isn’t the Problem
“We can predict and track the physical effects of climate change on the environment, but we can’t easily predict how we will react to these changes,” one person says, who thinks it’s not the science we have to worry about; it’s our reactions. “That’s where things get squishy.”
2: Danger Zone
“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of displaced, penniless people streaming north and overwhelming the economies and resources of the ‘cold countries,'” the same commenter says. “We have left behind the doom and gloom of environmental effects and entered a far more dangerous scenario: overpopulation and mass migration in a world filled with guns, viral diseases, and nuclear weapons.”
3: Fact vs Fiction
“Global warming is definitely a concern, but people are throwing around wild theories of the apocalypse on here that border on science fiction writing,” one commenter says. According to them, humans are improving at adapting to extreme environments every year.
4: Check the Reports
An analytical person says it’s worth looking at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. “To sum up, I would say that Reddit often exaggerates the doom and gloom, but the general public/government doesn’t treat it seriously enough.”
5: We’ll Persevere
“As a species? Probably not,” a commenter said about whether we’re doomed by climate change. But life won’t be without its challenges. “That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to maintain a comfortable and livable environment without constant disasters. We must try, though.”
6: Not Doomed Yet
Another individual suggests we’re not doomed by climate change but will face many challenges. “Don’t get the idea that climate change is a threat to the human species. It’s not. Humanity will not be ended by climate change alone.” They say the most significant dangers are from the mass displacements in the coming years.
7: No Turning Back
There’s no going back now, one commenter says. “Most of the work is trying to slow down the rapid damage we are causing,” they continued. “We are not doomed, but we have damaged things beyond fixing.”
8: Looking on the Bright Side
A half-glass-full individual responded to that claim with a dose of optimism. “Why not? Reduce carbon dioxide, and we’ll get more glaciers and ice buildup to reverse sea level rise over time. The temperatures will cool, and, for the most part, agriculture will return to normal.”
9: Change Is Gonna Come
One commenter says we’re not necessarily doomed, but severe change is inevitable, and it will cause what they call the “Great Anthropocene Extinction Event.” They say we’re “more likely to die out from the overcrowding factor caused by more and more tropical & subtropical land areas becoming uninhabitable.”
10: Selfish Tendencies
Humans are looking out for themselves, says a realist. “I’m not concerned for life on Earth. I guess it will go on after we’re gone unless we blow it up. We only truly care about the climate because humans want to preserve their own survival.”
11: Get Uncomfortable
Whatever your beliefs, one person thinks it’s undeniable that life is about to get a little uncomfortable for everybody. “Mankind won’t be doomed, but lots of people will likely be displaced, there will be more frequent natural disasters, and things will probably become more expensive.”
12: All Our Fault
Humans may not fall victim to the next mass extinction, but a history buff thinks it’s likely that we’ll cause it. “There have been many mass extinctions in the past, but it’s sad that we will drive the next one. If you’re fortunate not to be in extreme poverty, live in a non-coastal town, and not get hit by a hurricane or flood, you’ll probably survive.”
13: Drastic Consequences
One commenter does think we’re doomed, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis. “Many Americans and Europeans will be inconvenienced and frustrated more than the previous generation experienced. But for a lot of other people around the world, it will mean losing their way of life, homes, or even lives.”
13: Worse Than We Thought
“Probably,” one person ventured about whether we’re doomed by climate change. They explain that the models we’ve been following are causing climate experts to consider previously discounted possibilities. “So not only do our models predict that we’re screwed, but in reality, we’re much more screwed than our models predict.”
14: It Depends
A practical individual thinks climate change will affect people differently depending on where they live. “Coastal areas are likely to be affected more seriously. There are likely to be distribution of food problems too,” they said. “Developed nations are likely to manage. Oldish, less developed ones, especially along the equator, will struggle a lot more.”
15: No Going Back Now
“We have reached a turning point on our planet that is quickly becoming irreversible, and those who have the power to fix it are ignoring it,” another commenter says. As summers in Europe are already starting to show, “We’re at the start of the climate destruction of life on this planet, to where there’s most likely no way to reverse it and fix it anymore.”
Source: Reddit.
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Is the climate changing? Yes. Is carbon dioxide increasing? Yes. Is carbon dioxide causing climate change? No.
How do we know that is the case. We have to look at the science. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat released from the Earth’s surface at three wavelengths in the infrared spectrum instead of that radiation simply moving through the atmosphere into outer space and being completely lost from Earth’s environment. At two of those wavelengths the radiation is also absorbed by water vapor. Since water vapor is more abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the former dominates the absorption at those wavelengths and carbon dioxide contributes very little to the retention of heat in the Earth’s atmosphere at those wavelengths. The third wavelength of absorption by carbon dioxide is the important one, because no other gas in the atmosphere also absorbs infrared radiation (heat) at that wavelength. How much of the heat energy at that wavelength is absorbed by carbon dioxide is described by Beer’s Law. Beer’s Law says that the absorption is an exponential rather than a linear function. That means 50% of the energy (heat) at that wavelength is absorbed by a given amount of carbon dioxide (16 parts of carbon dioxide per million parts of gases in the atmosphere) and that 50 % of the remaining unabsorbed energy is absorbed by the next 16 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide and so on. Thus, 16 ppm of carbon dioxide absorbs 50% of all the radiation (heat) at that wavelength. Then 32 ppm of carbon dioxide absorbs 75% of the radiation at that wavelength, 48 ppm absorbs 87.5% of the energy, and 64 ppm absorbs 93.75% of the heat at that wavelength. At 64 ppm of carbon dioxide, that leaves only 6.25 % of the radiation/energy/heat at that wavelength that could be absorbed by carbon dioxide, but has not yet been absorbed. At 112 ppm of carbon dioxide, less than 1% of the energy at that wavelength remains to be absorbed. At 160 ppm of carbon dioxide the unabsorbed energy at that wavelength is less than 0.1%. By the time that the carbon dioxide reaches 320 ppm in the atmosphere, it absorbs 99.9999+% of the energy at that wavelength. If the remaining energy at that wavelength were completely absorbed it would be so immeasurably small that it would make no difference in the temperatures that we observe at the Earth’s surface. That continues to be true at the present day with the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere at about 420 ppm. Carbon dioxide is unable to influence climate change at these concentrations. For additional proof, geologic data from a little over 50,000,000 years ago indicates that the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere was more than 10 times greater than it is today due to very high volcanic activity and yet life continued on the planet unabated.