What's amazing to me about this article is the realization that so many landmark milestones are falling to climate change, and we're not hearing about them at all.
I'd say I hear about the climate crisis, but it's always heavily politicized (a problem the article notes). I work in the electric utility industry, and I see a lot of articles espousing some fix. It's the same corporate problem: It's better for us to do nothing than for one of my competitors get an advantage over me. Nobody wants to give up their fight, even if it means losing the bigger climate change fight.
Humanity is adaptive and intelligent. We'll figure things out, or we will die trying. I trust the judgement of our whole system more than my own, or any other individual's judgement. Society isn't stupid, and it will fix the problems when they come up.
I actually agree with you on a macro scale - I think humanity will adapt just fine to survive. > Society isn't stupid I don't agree. History is filled with examples of societies that failed to adapt to changing circumstances and died out. There are also examples of standards of living and education going down as conditions change. While I agree with you that humanity as a species will be just fine, global warming very well may cause some large changes to the social order.
Agreed. Instead, I should say that humanity isn't stupid. However, I do think that we are rapidly reaching a point that "society" and "humanity" are the same thing. We are very nearly unified in the modern age, and slowly working to a world where we are entirely "one people" in that we work together for the common good of all.History is filled with examples of societies that failed to adapt to changing circumstances and died out.
"common good" of all is still depending on the infrastructure in place. Mind games and moral conversation is great, but the bottom line is we (humanity) require set of basic needs to support life, let alone sit on a computer and have discussions like we do. Humanity isn't stupid, but knowledge is all relative. One thing is for certain: eventually the goldi-locks zone that Earth is in will change. Eventually life as we know it will not be sustainable. Statistics show we are merely approaching another apocalyptic event: natural disaster/meteor strike blah blah blah. As big of a problem as climate change is beginning to show across the planet (believe me, I see it everyday by the glaciers I wake up and work near), we are facing more immediate problems. One's that are also more influential in the adaptation to a new lifestyle in flow with the turning of our globe: our global financial system. That is what needs to be fixed ASAP. and fixed doesn't mean forced into a set of laws and rules by any central governing body.... that doesn't scale. We are too fucking smart and manipulative to let rules from a position across the planet to tell us how to live our lives.
Common good does depend on the infrastructure. That stuff exists today, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. If the whole world collapses than it's going to collapse, we'll have bigger problems than worldwide unity on our hands. Life as we know it has been unsustainable from day one. We move forward, we make changes, that's how we survive, not by trying to make a single system that is stable always and into the future, but by making as robust a system we can that lasts for today, and being able to change that system as tomorrow arrives. Every generation will face a problem like global warming. As our parents faced nuclear annihilation, and their parents faced world wars and supply shortages, our way of life is always under threat. Statistic show that these events are possible, but are so unavoidable, so damaging, and so unlikely that we really shouldn't worry about them. People, again, are smart, and if society isn't reacting to a problem you feel is a big deal than it's more likely the problem isn't a big deal, rather than that the problem is being ignored and will kill us all in a few weeks. That is assuming, of course, that you have spoken your mind and made yourself heard. On subjects like global warming, plenty have. On the subjects of global fiscal systems, plenty have. Problems will get fixed when they need to be fixed, not before, and not after.One thing is for certain: eventually the goldi-locks zone that Earth is in will change. Eventually life as we know it will not be sustainable.
Statistics show we are merely approaching another apocalyptic event: natural disaster/meteor strike blah blah blah.
you're right. We're all going to die sometime. Smoke while you got 'em.. the problem is down the road, let's have it be handled by those when the time comes. Unless we get to a type 1 civilization soon, we're going to repeat history unlike any of our parents, grandparents, or great grandparents (etc.) have experienced. You don't need a union to agree upon the laws of nature. There are such basic means of universal wealth that have gone underappreciated in recent years, the concepts of self-government have been run amok by our own societal values, and impractical whims. You don't seem to understand the bubble the modern world is in right now. Or you are just writing it off and holding faith that you'll ride it out in your own blanket of security. Why don't you watch the big short till You have it memorized, or explain to me how the sub prime mortgage crisis that forced a worldwide recession wasn't a big deal... Since "no one" was talking about it. Forgive me. I am an optimist, who is faced with knowledge that is going to lead to the hardship (or worse) of MANY, MANY, people. It gets to me at times. You can debate hypotheticals, but what I am sharing is real, and I ask you to come back after studying the correlation with finance and innovation. Pressure is required to ignite powder, after all.
It's not that we are going to die sometime, it's that the nature of our economy/world is always changing. Today our major issue is global warming, tomorrow we may face a different one. The worldwide recession is part of a very long-founded normal cycle of boom and bust. It was actually managed pretty well by governments and people, and the world is chugging along much as it always has. We found an issue, we suffered consequences, we fixed them, we move on. That's the pattern we've followed for ages, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis was one such issue. Learn from failure, don't endlessly protect against it.