What would be the closest “we’ve got to change or perish” moment we’ve successfully navigated?
It is possible for us to work together and fix these things.
Edit:
Moving away from leaded gas might be another example.
(CFCs and leaded gas invented by the same dude, fun fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. Quite a legacy...)
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ozone-hole-...
Issue here is that becomes more common and underwater oxygen loss is approaching an “unsafe space” with impacts likely irreversible within human lifetimes, some of which could persist for centuries.
Coastal “dead zones”, impact of fish food etc.
Can we please snap out of it and use something like if not common sense but at least a Fermi approach? Or did he die in vain?
“Plasma Tunnels Reveal How Dying Satellites Fall to Earth” (ieee.org)
Banning CFCs perhaps?
If you want to go older and more localised you could look at forestry and fisheries laws. Sometimes we self-regulate and form a stable state, other times we over-extract until collapse
I wouldn’t underestimate human ingenuity when there is a clear problem. Things like this, it’s still hypothetical. Climate scientists can raise the alarm or whatever but have no credibility, certainly not when the proposed solution is some kind of global authoritarian communism, and it always is.
I’m upset that we don’t put more into carbon capture and other technological solutions now and waste all our time on some proxy political battle, but that’s where we are. When things get really bad we will build a solution.
I.E. avoiding population collapse due to lack of ecosystem carrying capacity? Eliminating famine? etc.
pstuart•42m ago
satellites•37m ago
Avicebron•33m ago
I'll pick on the US, because blaming India and China will incite their little public defenders to bury the thread.
The Gulf of Mexico is currently downstream of the US's crop production which dumps nitrogen and phosphorous into it, which is bad and causes problems like the article attempts to illustrate.
pstuart•27m ago
As you should. The current administration is partially owned by the fossil fuels industry and is literally paying to destroy existing and planned renewable energy sources.
The agricultural runoff problem is an ecological crime scene. We could solve it if we weren't so corrupt.
budsniffer952•24m ago
There is no hope unless we decide to do things globally. And until you are willing to "compel" countries who don't play along, it's not happening.
So, no, shaming people or telling them to be afraid will not help.
Avicebron•23m ago
The point is being deranged about the current admin doesn't help the scenario. Every team (political group) fucked up royally, continues to fuck up, and only cares about how much money businesses are putting into their second home or their kid's trust fund.
lstodd•19m ago
who could have thought, eh?
piskov•28m ago
For example, I clicked on the random link in that paper (referenced as a proof of river oxygen decline) — the article was not even based on some actual data log but fucking deep learning model (which may or may not work)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01793-3
budsniffer952•27m ago
Do you think climate change wipes us out before some other natural disaster?