Maybe more like…goes down a bit in well-developed countries, in areas that are not already prone to natural disasters. We’re already losing people to the heatwave again. Last year, Europe lost a little over 61k, this year it’s 3 entire degrees below that. Heat waves are natural and would be happening regardless. Climate change makes them leagues worse than they would have been.
Myself, personally, I live in an area that is typically protected from the worst weather. We do get snow, but most of it ends up being waylaid by the mountains and I feel sorry for those who live there rather than in the plains. The area does get at least one hurricane every year, but it’s deflected by the coastline of the Outer Banks and I have no idea what kind of person still wants to live there, but they’re a trooper as well.
Hurricane Florence in 2018 was the first time in my life I have ever seen a hurricane come this far inland, and they are continuing to do so. For obvious reasons, I do not like this.
The earth isn’t going to shut off like a simulation tomorrow, it is just going to be a slow and steady burn. Which is the biggest reason nobody is doing anything about it – we’re wired for immediate threats. This will never be immediate. The human race is currently the boiling frog, acclimating to their new life in whatever happens to happen.
You would seem to suggest it’s a matter of an annoying loss of comfort, and it’s already not that for millions of people. Rising oceans and harsher cyclones blowing seawater inland have turned the soil and water supplies in Bangladesh increasingly salty. Enough that the salt-water resistant mangrove trees the area is famous for are experiencing a shift in biodiversity as those species with a lower tolerance are beaten out by more resilient competitors. Loss of habitat aside, we’re about to test out exactly how resistant tiger kidneys are to drinking that.
Available drinking water is hard to come by and repeatedly bathing in saltwater causes miserable full-body rashes. Building farms on floating river rafts is an older technique there that addresses the flooding a bit, but the salinity of the river water and the worsening heat are still having their impact on crop failure anyway.
I think that could be understandable, to be honest. Even just this (apart from where I live) is all stuff I came across scrolling news articles or random tweets. It’s not something I go out of my way to look for every day. Why? Because it makes me feel really bad and there’s nothing I can really do about it. If I could chuck a lemonade over there or ask people to kindly stop drone striking each other, I would. All it accomplishes is causing me more hopelessness than what I already have.
Which is likely why a lot of other people don’t devote a lot of research to it either. It takes a very specific person to voluntarily devote yourself to feeling really really bad, and that kind of interest in events only spreads to the masses when it’s unavoidably happening to them. It’s not anywhere close to idyllic, but most of human nature isn’t and (especially in the face of the internet) we end up whittling things down to our own personal well-being in order to make it manageable.
Maybe more like…goes down a bit in well-developed countries, in areas that are not already prone to natural disasters. We’re already losing people to the heatwave again. Last year, Europe lost a little over 61k, this year it’s 3 entire degrees below that. Heat waves are natural and would be happening regardless. Climate change makes them leagues worse than they would have been.
Areas like Ireland that get a lot of rain are experiencing a dangerous amount of flooding. Areas in the middle east that typically only see rain during the monsoon season are experiencing an even dryer, hotter dry season followed by a much stronger rain that causes increasingly destructive flash floods.
Myself, personally, I live in an area that is typically protected from the worst weather. We do get snow, but most of it ends up being waylaid by the mountains and I feel sorry for those who live there rather than in the plains. The area does get at least one hurricane every year, but it’s deflected by the coastline of the Outer Banks and I have no idea what kind of person still wants to live there, but they’re a trooper as well.
Hurricane Florence in 2018 was the first time in my life I have ever seen a hurricane come this far inland, and they are continuing to do so. For obvious reasons, I do not like this.
The earth isn’t going to shut off like a simulation tomorrow, it is just going to be a slow and steady burn. Which is the biggest reason nobody is doing anything about it – we’re wired for immediate threats. This will never be immediate. The human race is currently the boiling frog, acclimating to their new life in whatever happens to happen.
You would seem to suggest it’s a matter of an annoying loss of comfort, and it’s already not that for millions of people. Rising oceans and harsher cyclones blowing seawater inland have turned the soil and water supplies in Bangladesh increasingly salty. Enough that the salt-water resistant mangrove trees the area is famous for are experiencing a shift in biodiversity as those species with a lower tolerance are beaten out by more resilient competitors. Loss of habitat aside, we’re about to test out exactly how resistant tiger kidneys are to drinking that.
Available drinking water is hard to come by and repeatedly bathing in saltwater causes miserable full-body rashes. Building farms on floating river rafts is an older technique there that addresses the flooding a bit, but the salinity of the river water and the worsening heat are still having their impact on crop failure anyway.
That’s a great post. I can’t add much to it, a lot of that info is new to me.
I think that could be understandable, to be honest. Even just this (apart from where I live) is all stuff I came across scrolling news articles or random tweets. It’s not something I go out of my way to look for every day. Why? Because it makes me feel really bad and there’s nothing I can really do about it. If I could chuck a lemonade over there or ask people to kindly stop drone striking each other, I would. All it accomplishes is causing me more hopelessness than what I already have.
Which is likely why a lot of other people don’t devote a lot of research to it either. It takes a very specific person to voluntarily devote yourself to feeling really really bad, and that kind of interest in events only spreads to the masses when it’s unavoidably happening to them. It’s not anywhere close to idyllic, but most of human nature isn’t and (especially in the face of the internet) we end up whittling things down to our own personal well-being in order to make it manageable.