I saw a post on here about all the terrible and volatile things happening in the world, but the climate change wasn’t mentioned.
We all are forgetting that earth is dying. I don’t know what to do. It’s making me sick to my stomach.
I don’t think our species is going to make it. We are too short sighted and tribalistic. It depresses me but I really think it might be game over
the snakes that eat rats in north america are gonna be confused as hell, emerging from the hibernation grounds early, only to be freeze to death within a week. with these bipolar temperatures, we'll be back to extreme cold. they aren't gonna make it back to safety in time. I'm dreading whatever vermin related illness is the result
They survived the dino ending meteorite, they’ll be fine. Humanity on the other hand…
Humans will be completely fine too, we are among the most adaptive species on the planet and can live in various climates
What won't be fine is the global technoindustrial system and the +80% of humanity that will starve when it collapses
You have an interesting definition of completely fine
If humanity will starve then surely humans will not be ‘completely fine’ ?
Need more feral cats
No we do not
that would mean more dead cats in the road :(
and dead birdies
Oh man, poor birds. I'm totally on board with the idea that cats should be indoor only to limit their damage to wildlife (maybe exceptions where they aren't disastrous) but birds also contend with so much reflective glass, and pollution, and habitat loss, and probably other stuff
I wish cities were designed with life in mind!
I saw cherry blossom trees starting to bud and hummingbirds and squirrels fucking around. I don’t know shit about anything but I feel like those mfs should be sleeping or whatever and those trees should still be sticks.
You ain’t lyin, i was chopping up a fruit tree yesterday and the buds we’re already blooming 🤫 and I was surprised that all the birds on my street think it is spring. The animals and plants are all confused. ‘Course we haven’t had cold at all this winter, no snow, except for the mountains, dear god, where is the snow… it has been 45, a lil rain, but no cold.
Big fan of those beet-red, Oakley-clad, school of hard knocks alumni commenting on all of the local weather pages to thank global warming for letting them fire up the grill and the Sea-Doo on Christmas. May they all catch amoebae up their noses out on the lake, Inshallah.
How bleak it feels to still be recycling and conserving water while my city builds two more fucking data centers.
Europe is freezing, even in Italy
That's what a dead Amoc looks like
Was pretty warm up until beginning of December, don't be that guy
This post is so dumb, "now it's warmer, humanity is over"
This isn't *that* atypical for winter, even in colder areas like the midwest. Chicago's mean January max is around 53 degrees for example.
Humans will survive climate change. It will not be pleasant though. What worries me much more than higher temperatures is less overall precipitation. Mitigation efforts are needed now, but we should prepare for deep adaptation
Warming temperatures actually accelerate the water cycle and cause an increase in precipitation
In some areas. Generally areas that are already wet. In other areas, it's causing a rise in megadroughts, such as in the Fertile Crescent and the American Southwest
What is "mean January max"?
The average maximum temperature across all Januaries?
Yes. Per the national weather service's data
It is extremely atypical. Is everyone insane? January was never this warm. It’s barely even snowed. It is not a good sign.
We don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve never screwed with earth to such an extent. It’s absolutely possible things accelerate. We need radical change now . I don’t pretend to be a climate expert, but I can remember snow in January.
Idk what part of the country you're in, but NWS data is accessible to the public. You can track the snowfall on the Nat'l Gridded Snowfall analysis, for example.
Anyway, a cold front is coming soon (check NOAA 8-14 day outlook), but I can name several Januaries like this.
Jan 2024
Jan 2016
Jan 2012
Jan 1998
Jan 1931
Jan 1954
They are becoming more frequent, and some records have been broken in certain areas. But this trend is not that atypical, in most of these areas it's only by less than 0.5 of a degree fahrenheit.
I had this mindset a few years ago, and I can't say reading the historical data makes things better, but it isn't as extreme as people think it is.
So a January in 1930 and 1950 something wasn’t frigid so don’t worry ???I’m not a climate scientist but remember every single Christmas being a white Christmas as a child. I can’t remember the last time it happened in a decade. I don’t even need a winter coat anymore. A decade ago I remember almost getting frostbite.
There’s a clear trend happening and it’s not looking pretty
What is this weird cope everyone has? The Earth is not doing good. It could potentially lead to our extinction or our civilization collapse. Why is no one alarmed?
When you move your argument away from vibes and base it on raw data, you don't stop being pessimistic about it, but you stop dooming about it and understand what's actually happening. I grew up in mostly cold regions of the USA and I can still remember winters where we didn't get snow until January. And this was two decades ago.
There's a trend, it isn't looking pretty, but what you don't do is doom about it, what you do instead is do what you can to take action. Dooming makes people complacent.
there’s plenty of scientist boomers who realize the taking action part isn’t happening and isn’t gonna happen on the scale needed. people have known about this threat for many decades now and gone full speed the opposite direction in that time.
You do know that the IPCC has revised the expected warming trend downwards multiple times in recent years because of how rapid the transition to renewables has been, correct?
That’s not really how the IPCC updates work. They haven’t "revised expected warming downward" because of renewables, what’s changed is the range of possible futures, depending on how fast the world cuts emissions. The actual climate science (like how much warming we get when CO2 doubles) hasn’t gotten less serious.
Renewables are growing fast, which is great, but global emissions are still near record levels. The IPCC’s lower warming numbers only apply to scenarios where we keep ramping up cuts. Right now, the world’s still on track for 2-3 degrees Celsius of warming this century which is way beyond the safe zone.
Exactly. No one is willing to take the radical action that’s needed to prevent the worst of outcomes. Everyone thinks it’s not really a big deal or it’s not even really happening or it’s not actually their problem. Humanity’s arrogance and tribalism will doom us.
We really aren't going full speed the opposite direction. More and more of the world's energy production is renewable every year, and the developing world is adopting renewable energy faster than was predicted. Even in the US with the legislative environment opposed to renewables, over half of the power added to the grid in 2025 was renewable energy. We will also be adding more nuclear in coming years.
i was speaking to the amount of environmental destruction and ramping up of consumerism in the past 50 years. it’s an issue bigger than how we get energy.
While that's true, it's not helpful the way it sounds like it should be. Adding renewable energy doesn't help climate change. The only thing that helps is getting rid of gas-emitting energy sources, but instead we're building more of those too.
There's a very real possibility we reach peak emissions by early next decade. Building the renewable infrastructure now is vital to that process
Renewables are certainly our only way out. I don't believe we are near peak emissions, though. Past trends aren't a good indicator; the number of fossil fuel plants the energy industry is preparing to build for AI data centers is staggering. The only thing that will stop them is a severe recession.
While we still havent reached the top of the bad things happening curve WRT to the weather, there are actually positive trends in terms of switching to renewables and lowering reliance on fossil fuels. This trend is largely driven by pure economics and energy security concerns; not just governments with progressive environmental agendas being in power, so it likely will keep going and accelerate into the future even if rightoids keep winning elections. There is hope yet!
way bigger and more complex issue than energy its how we use it and how we consume
I grew up in southern Ohio and I am pretty old for this subreddits demographics. I caught the tail-end of being able to ice skate on ponds and lakes in the area as a kid. By the early '90s, the ice was often not thick enough. Anyway, less/not scientific but still grounding in a real way, as an adult I was reading biographies of people from the area where I grew up (like US Grant) and they talk about ice skating, how they used the ice, etc.. I read accounts back to the earliest settlers in the area in the 1700s and many of them mentioned this. I've always thought it'd be neat to try to trace the loss of pond/lake ice across the country through biographies and other anecdotes but I'm not an anthropologist or climate scientist. It's complicated by the Little Ice Age but it would still be interesting.
I distinctly remember a very warm January in Chicago in the nineties/very early 2000s where it kinda hovered around sixty for a stretch. Obviously, climate change is partly to do with it, but the Midwest definitely has pretty weird weather at times. I think we also had very little snow that year as well
Someone found a cardinal literally nesting, it was so warm.
This is true. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s very clear that while there are natural variations in temperature, there has been a drastic change in the range of those variations
December was unusually cold in the northeast. We’re having mild(ish) weather now but it’s not out of the norm. The world is like 2.5 degrees warmer than it should be (bad, yes) but everything beyond that is just weather being weather
It was so fucking cold in the tri-state area. 4-5 warm days is fine. It's going to be back to way too cold soon
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I don't really get why this bit of pedantry is so popular, as it's just anthropomorphizing the Earth. Of course "the Earth" can't "die." What people mean when they say "the Earth is dying" is "the Earth's ability to support humankind is dying."
We're also not the only species at risk. I know extinction events have happened many times before, but it's still shit that this one is our fault.
We're just getting even with the plants for the Devonian mass extinction.
It's not tho we'll probably be fine after a few famines
It's really fucking annoying
Well that bit isn't true either. Say the sea level rises a lot, the oceans become more acidic, tons of landslides, hurricanes whatever, all that will happen is insane economic crises as we can't sustain ourselves which will make our population decrease until we reach a new equilibrium, possibly with a slightly worse standard of living, that's all.
You’re right. It just makes me sad because I love our stupid, short sighted, and honestly pretty evil species.
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❤️🙏✈️🪦🔥
I know I’m not supposed to, but in my heart of hearts, I pray the same thing.
Just saying, there's been a 50+ degree day in Philadelphia nearly every January since they started recording temperatures like 100+ years ago. It's not that unusual.
Source: one time I went through the weather records and counted because I was so sick of climate doomer redditors acting like one warm day means anything
Sure variations can be normal. But the range of variation is very clearly changing. Climate stability is being lost
Are you in Chicago too? The Earth probably is dying and climate change is bad, but I don’t think random weather changes is that strange here.
No, this is true. There are always going to be variations in temperature. But what I’m trying to say is that the range of these variations has been rapidly changing.
The climate of earth is very clearly losing its stability. I know my example wasn’t data based. What I was trying to point out is that even the layman can see this loss of climate stability.
Oh, ok. Sorry. I agree. It’s a shame there’s really nothing we can do about the climate. I try to recycle when I can and I don’t ever drop trash on the floor but I guess that won’t make much a difference.
It’s still worth the effort. I try to make to make small changes in my life. I don’t eat meat. I try to take public transit when I can. I try to buy less crap.
But the truth of it is, to really counteract climate change, we need society-wide massive changes. The people who are in charge have no interest in implementing these changes. I think, honestly, your every day man and woman would be willing to make these collective changes. The elite billionaires would never sacrifice one iota of their comfort. They are not forward thinking. They are too busy getting richer off the current system and molesting children to do anything productive.
Chicago was also insanely cold a few weeks ago for December and had a significant snowstorm in October this year, which is definitely fairly unusual. Think it might have more to do with it being the tail end of el nino than anything else
As an ecologist (fake title I know, I'm something esoteric no one knows) I've been resigned to humans being fucked. Though I do truly believe the world will move on without most of us. I have that comfort
How doomed do you think we are?
Very. Especially marginal regions for human life (arid, high humidity, etc.) I work in northern Canada and I've witnessed geological changes within the last five years and it's relatively unknown.
I'd expand more but I'm drunk, maybe tomorrow
What sort of geological changes? Even the most optimistic climate change outcome will include hundreds of millions of people suffering famine, war, and death. This isn’t even mentioning the amount of animal suffering we’re going to see. Mass migration will likely lead to more strife and violence. This is, once again, the most optimistic outcome
The obvious one is permafrost though, but the implications aren't quantified beyond methane release (sloughing, red rivers, heavy metal leaching) but also CO2 climate forcing is about 10-20 years delayed, so we're currently living through the consequences of ~2005 emissions levels.
The caveat is my specialty is vegetation sequestration in relation to wildfire, I'm not an atmospheric scientist so yeah
e. I'm regarded and didn't say, the expanse of wildfires is absolutely fucked and NOT RELATED to fire suppression as it is in the US. NOT THE SAME CAUSES!!! IT'S FORCING FROM CLIMATE CHANGE in my region
wow i never considered the effects are delayed... thats really fascinating and also yeah were fucked
I almost had a stroke yesterday when I heard sparrows chirping. It was 4 degrees in Toronto, yesterday. Everyone I mentioned it to just talked about how great the weather has been. We are doomed.
Bro it's been in the 70s for the past week where I live. It was like 68 on Christmas, it was humiliating
I swear I remember grass in the Midwest being "dead"/yellow at this time or even earlier back in the day. Now it's still all green.
look on the bright side maybe something better will evolve in our place in like a million years
Honestly, I’m losing hope in the species. Apes were never it. Maybe the dolphins are wiser.
They are getting high on pufferfish by torturing it before eating it and rape their way through the marine ecosystem. In my opinion parrots and crows are the wisest creatures on earth
im rooting for the cephalopods
We will rise…
Wow just like us
Ummm… this is a bunny sub. The bunnies shall inherit the earth
Australia is on fire again. I'm sitting here thanking God for my evaporative AC
Doom doom doom doom doom doom
This subreddit is not dooming enough
Have we considered that humanity as a species will go extinct because it will be 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter by 2100?
What else can we doom about? AI? Nukes? This is definitely productive and useful
Some predictions say 5°C. It could even be warmer(or less). People put this in context of oh it’ll be a few degrees warmer in the summer and in the winter. That’s not what it’s gonna be! We are talking civilization collapse. You think immigration is bad now?
I think this general attitude that you’re showing really displays human arrogance. We are tampering with things we barely understand and are certainly far outside our control
Well I think you have a layman's understanding and don't know what you're talking about, coupled with the radical doomerism of social media
I think you have zero understanding of climate change and the average man’s blithe arrogance about the situation
Feel free to explain the intricacies of why the world is going to end
I’ve said I’m not an expert. But anyone with eyes and some honesty can see the climate is changing. We don’t know how warm it could get. We are doing very little to counteract it. It could lead to absolute nightmare situations. 5° warmer is not a minor inconvenience. It could lead to famine, drought and massive migrations. And that’s assuming it really is just 5°F and not more.
The nonchalance is what drives me insane. Don’t you care about the world we are leaving the next generation? You’re so certain it’s not a big deal? This is why I’m “doomer” about it. It seems like the majority of the population handles the news about climate change this way. They don’t care. They don’t understand. they don’t think it’s their problem. Any suggestion of radical action to counteract climate change is never gonna happen.
I didn't say it's not a big deal. It's a big deal. But how exactly is posting about it causing humanity's downfall on r/redscarepod helping? It's not, and I think people tend to perceive just complaining about a problem as actually taking action towards said problem. Like with AI, people think just complaining about AI taking the jobs of corporate graphic designers will do jack shit to protect those jobs.
And being hysterical about the problem of climate change just pushes away normies who don't really care about it. Humanity will in some way or another deal with it whether through technology or adaptation. So acting like it's this secret new threat that will literally exterminate all of mankind, and is something novel that no one else is talking about and not something literally everyone else has heard about through e.g. school or goddamn animal planet is neither helpful nor interesting.
“Humanity will in some way or another deal with it”
Where does the confidence come from?? it’s honestly baffling to me. We’re not dealing with it. We are ignoring it. How are we so sure we will successfully overcome this obstacle once it gets even worse and we have even less resources to deal with it? Maybe this is the great filter that answers the Fermi paradox. And maybe our species will just be one of the many that cannot overcome it. That’s likely the case. Why would we be the special ones?
Maybe you’re right that complaining about it doesn’t do anything good. But lots of people are complaining about the general awfulness of the news. However, I feel like everyone is forgetting The Big Awful news of climate change.
And I know so many people who think like you. I don’t understand it. Where do you get the confidence? It seems based in ignorance and nothing to me.
Good questions. For one, renewable energy tech has rapidly advanced in the past 10-20 years. It will probably be cheaper to use renewables than digging fossil fuels out of the ground by... actually it seems already that might be the case, or will be the case very soon. And renewable tech will continue to improve.
Second, I promise you that if humanity faces an extinction level event it will move heaven and earth to prevent it. The reason corporations and the government aren't taking action is because they can get away with it right now. But the extinction of the human race actually is not good for corporate governance strategy, and may affect the bottom line (citation needed).
Third, the problem of climate change isn't actually so complicated. The problem is simply that greenhouse gasses don't prevent high wavelength radiation from the sun from entering the earth's atmosphere, but does prevent the radiation from leaving when it hits the earth and bounces back as lower wavelength infrared radiation. There are in fact a lot of proposed solutions, but most of them are either too expensive or costly in some other way for international bodies to bite at the moment. But they would if the benefit outweighed the cost.
Could we potentially replace fossil fuels? Sure. But we wont. Right now renewable energy quite frankly is not enough. We don’t have the capacity to store it and utilize it on a regular, continuous basis. We would need to switch to nuclear power. That’s honestly what we had to do like two decades ago. But there’s zero will to do this.
The current elites have zero motive to change. They are staying very very rich off the current system. You overestimate the intelligence of the people in charge. Yes they don’t want to go extinct. But right now the system is working out very nicely for them. There may be a point where it’s too late to turn things around. There is no guarantee we will have the resources or the advancements to counteract climate change if it continues to worsen in the decades to come.
Even if it’s not too late, and humanity gets its act together in that final hour, the human suffering that will come from just a 2 degree warmer world is almost unimaginable. This is not even touching on the suffering animals will go through.
doomerism sucks but this smug thought of "ummm actually nothing will happen" is 100 times worse
The poster said humanity was going to go extinct, which is a stupid claim
Would love to be able to cheer you up, but the main thing I learned from Covid is that we are absolutely fucked on global warming.
It's cold af here in Poland. The last winter was way more manageable.
idc I’m gonna enjoy walking in the temperate overcast instead of dooming.
It’s been an early and snowy winter here in central east Canada. Though the trend is towards warming I remember over 10 years back now that it was shiny and 20c in the 24th of December and this year it was -14c so it seems mostly just random.
Damn I read this as if you meant it in a positive way, like "at least it's not too cold!"
Chicago based?
I’m also terrified and bothered by the second consecutive super mild winter we’re having in the SE but was slightly heartened to learn the highs we’re close to setting records for are from the 1940’s. Not sure what anything means but it lowered my blood pressure a little.
We’ve been in La Niña, which means a milder winter.
It’s El Niño now
No it’s not
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
Is 50 degrees hot or cold? I have no understanding of Fahrenheit, I’m not sure if 50 degrees is good or bad.
Also, isn’t it supposed to rain in January?
It’s way too warm for my neck of the woods in January. It should not be raining here. Obviously there can be variations in temperature that are normal. But there’s a very obvious change in the trend of that range.
Makes sense, I’m in the UK so rain is expected in Jan
You should be far more concerned about nukes
I am! I actually think that when climate change peaks and we are fighting over the last viable resources on earth, we will resort to nuclear weapons. Realistically, this is how we go extinct.
Holy fuck 50 degrees is completely inhospitable. It's raining???
Tribes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. People have formed them since we first walked the earth
Climate change is not real
Yeah oil companies repeatedly caught lying about it are just having a bit of a laugh fooling the dim, like the US gov about UFOs
And it was 17 in early December I thought we had global cooling. My head is spinning