Global Warming, do you actually care?

Space-Wizard said:
What, the population decreasing? How can you not see the clear association with population growth and atmospheric carbon? Almost all large particles being emitted into the atmosphere are being done so to sustain our incredibly large population. Cut the population by 10%, the emissions will be cut down to a similar number, which would reduce our effect on climate change drastically, preventing a venusian-atmosphere disaster which is a very serious threat, as it would destroy all life on earth.

I don't understand how it's not clear. I'm talking about our world, not an ideal world.

Joshiraku said:
I don't care about the survival of the human race. I care about minimizing suffering, now and in the future.

More importantly, what matters is not so much population numbers, but how much a given population is consuming. A billion Americans would wreck the planet in a matter of weeks, but ten billion Ugandans would hardly make a dent. That's why I think lowering consumption by person, especially in the first world, is a much better solution than population control.

TheConquerer said:
I hate people who don't do shit about global warming because they say they'll be dead before it happens, its lazy and selfish.

All you have to do is not litter in public places or pollute heavily and that's already a great contribution. if everyone did that we wouldn't have such disastrous problems on our hands.

Saki-nyan said:

Not completely irrelevant, since you try to educate me about what makes the world die by saying me not wanting to do something dumb is the cause. Yet all you do is post on a forum. And if what I do is completely irrelevant to what you do, then why did you even point out me doing something is wrong in the first place?
You do nothing to fight against global warming other than writing useless posts on a forum. That doesn't help against global warming, either.

Joshiraku said:

Damn. Is posting dumb stuff on the internet is how hero wannabes save the world nowadays?

Joshiraku said:
I understand perfectly well that, in general, more people use more resources. What I was baffled by is how you plainly stated that we should drastically reduce the global population through radical population control—as if that's easy and could happen without incredible amounts of suffering (present and future). But I see now that you'd be okay with that, if it were to ensure the survival of the human race. That goal is too abstract for me, personally.

Involtus said:

shitpost by day; fight evil by night
it has always been this way in the world of superheroes

Space-Wizard said:
So you don't care if the human race survives, but you do care if they're not happy while they're driving themselves into oblivion? I don't get it.

You can take away all of the little things like energy usage and driving personal vehicles, and there's still that big whopping 30-40% of all emissions used just to feed our ridiculously saturated population, which is enough alone to still head us towards a deadly atmospheric situation.

You can't stop people from eating without them dying. Large scale agriculture is necessary for the population we have, it wouldn't exist without it.

Joshiraku said:
However, between scenarios A and B, I prefer B.

A: A global population collapse presently occurs. Humans survive for another 100,000 years in small numbers, but never re-develop modern technology such as in computing, transportation, healthcare, etc.

B: The population and standards of living stay more or less where they are for another 1000 years, whereupon some radical climate catastrophe wipes out the entire human race.

Joshiraku said:

Where did you get that 30-40% figure? The figures I've seen are closer to 10%. At any rate, how much of that is really necessary? It's surely not necessary, for example, to eat as much red meat (the most emission intensive food, I believe) as we do. See this report for some details.

Wyzdm said:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century."

That's not really a big amount, is it? The increase in temperature causes problems like ice caps melting and hence water levels rising, affects agriculture and some other stuff which is why it's considered a problem (I think). Besides we could just find ways to keep ourselves cooler

Wyzdm said:

That's the thing, I'll be long dead by then. I know you could say your great grandchildren or whatever won't be but that's a long time from now which doesn't make me feel like it's urgent. I only get the motivation to do stuff only when it needs to be done urgently.....The life of a procrastinator.

Wyzdm said:

People who live in places where the land is already below, at or close to sea level will surely care.

Space-Wizard said:
Did you even read that report? Or did you just google something real quick that appeared to support your argument? Because that report is about specifically U.S. emissions, and the united states is not anything close to the entire world. The report also focuses on emissions related directly to agriculture, and not secondary emission sources such as deforestation, transportation and consumption.

The world's direct-emission rate in agriculture is closer to 15%, but when you include the trasportation and processing of food, and the deforestation particularly occurring in South America and Asia to create more land for farming, the number of emissions related to food more than double.

Wyzdm said:

Yeah oh well, nice knowing you xD

Joshiraku said:

Do you have any sources? I'm genuinely curious.

JOAOAA said:
water levels can only be so high so once the ice is gone I reckon people won't complain as much

somethingweird said:
It's getting hotter and hotter every year.

Spooky_Love said:


Good, it never seems to get hot here, year long winter.

Cosmicbeing said:

Funny story my friend began his university studies with an aspiration to help the planet by studying ecology and tackle issues like desertification and global warming, however by the third year he had gone through and tried genetics and microbiology aswell and now just wants money and plans to do a post graduate degree in economics to essentially profit from the carnage he wanted to help at first.