Climate change is upon us....

[jeremyp]

I am reminded of this passage from Mark 4 37:40 -

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

There is evidence that the sun is cooling slightly.
https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming.html
I put my faith in the power of the Creator to help counter the follies of mankind.

I am reminded of this passage from Jeremy chapter 1:

Your god is a fiction. He won't save you.

[Spud]

According to Jonathan Franzen writing in the New Yorker, we are delusional to imagine we can stop or mitigate climate change; we should get real about it and focus on post-apocalypse planning instead

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

We probably could stop it, but there isn't the motivation around the world. If we stopped cutting down trees and flying, became vegetarians (don't the Chinese have a much more veg-based diet?) And didn't have too many children, it could happen.
I've always been taught that it's not for us to tell others how to live, instead we should lead by example..

[Udayana]

According to Jonathan Franzen writing in the New Yorker, we are delusional to imagine we can stop or mitigate climate change; we should get real about it and focus on post-apocalypse planning instead

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

Mostly agree with this article but best post-apocalypse plan is to not have children, grand children and so on.

[Sriram]

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-49760164/climate-strike-what-us-children-are-sacrificing-for-the-cause

A commendable effort by youngsters but unfortunately too little too late.....

I can't imagine how climate change and the uncertainty that it brings will affect the psychology and sense of perpetual life that is so important to life healthy and happy lives.

[Sriram]

Climate change is speeding up (accelerating).......

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49773869


**********

The signs and impacts of global heating are speeding up, the latest science on climate change, published ahead of key UN talks in New York, says.

Sea-level rise has accelerated significantly over the same period, as CO2 emissions have hit new highs.

Recognising that global temperatures have risen by 1.1 degrees C since 1850, the paper notes they have gone up by 0.2C between 2011 and 2015.

Perhaps most worrying of all is the data on sea-level rise.

The average rate of rise since 1993 until now is 3.2mm per year. However, from May 2014 to 2019 the rise has increased to 5mm per year. The 10-year period from 2007-2016 saw an average of about 4mm per year.

The study underlines the fact that wherever you look on the planet right now, the story is the same: human-induced warming is impacting the scale and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves and wildfires.

"Climate change due to us is accelerating and on a very dangerous course," said Prof Brian Hoskins, chair of the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, and professor of meteorology, University of Reading.

***********

[wigginhall]

Labour debating Green New Deal, don't know if they will adopt it.  One of its virtues is offering benefits, e.g., new jobs, quality of life.  But you are up against denial, and passivity.  I think that is changed by emergencies, well, I guess forest fires are an emergency, but we can stay in a bubble in the UK.  More emergencies, I suppose, will happen.

[Steve H]

Humans are much wiser than the Biblical god character.

Precious little evidence for that in your posts...

[Roses]

Precious little evidence for that in your posts...

 

[Udayana]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p645f

Great podcast on climate change fears after Greta Thunberg's UN speech.

What Greta says is scary, but that’s the point. In this episode we speak to David Wallace Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth. David, like Greta, has spent a lot of time going through climate studies and talking to the scientists who’ve measured where we’re heading. In this episode he tells us how much our future remains in our hands.

[Steve H]

Been reading some really vile rubbish about Greta on a thread on Premier Christian Radio's FB page: as I said there, some of them make me think there's a lot to be said for atheism.

[Nearly Sane]

Been reading some really vile rubbish about Greta on a thread on Premier Christian Radio's FB page: as I said there, some of them make me think there's a lot to be said for atheism.

Lots of atheists are horrible to Thunberg. It's not a determining characteristic.

[Sriram]

I don't see what the big deal is about Greta. She is just a young girl who is speaking her mind.  Lots of scientists, activists and even politicians have been saying the same thing for decades.

[Harrowby Hall]

Sriram

Don't you think that there is something extraordinary about a sixteen year old Swedish schoolgirl, reported with Aspergers, being able to grab world headlines?

[Sriram]

This is not about Greta's personality. This is about Climate Change and I still don't see why her involvement should make a difference when all the scientists, activists and politicians didn't make a difference, all these decades.

[Nearly Sane]

This is not about Greta's personality. This is about Climate Change and I still don't see why her involvement should make a difference when all the scientists, activists and politicians didn't make a difference, all these decades.

And yet patently, she has.

[Roses]

And yet patently, she has.

I agree.

[Aruntraveller]

This is not about Greta's personality. This is about Climate Change and I still don't see why her involvement should make a difference when all the scientists, activists and politicians didn't make a difference, all these decades.

Because she is giving a strong voice to the young who feel let down by the politicians and multinationals who have proved to be the block that prevents action being taken by those scientists, activists and politicians who do want to do something. That and our shocking apathy as a society that is willing to allow it to continue just as long as we get the next big best shiny I-phone.*

*Other models are available.

[Udayana]

Presentation is everything.

As the trolls know well:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/02/climate-change-activist-greta-thunberg-targeted-online-trolls/3843196002/

[Outrider]

This is not about Greta's personality. This is about Climate Change and I still don't see why her involvement should make a difference when all the scientists, activists and politicians didn't make a difference, all these decades.

Perhaps because she isn't a scientist or a politician - I think we have to accept that she's an activist at this point.  We've heard the scientists and the politicians, and those of us that were going to listen have done, and those of us that weren't going to listen have come up with the various dismissals.

There's a group out there, though - primarily conservative in nature - for whom family is more important than, say, academic experts spouting research papers, who want to provide their children with all the benefits of a thriving economy.  Those people are suddenly challenged because a child is suddenly saying that's not what they want - and claiming to speak for other children as she does so.  Those people who've dismissed the scientists and politicians for their own drive to give their family what they can are suddenly faced with the embodiment of the possibility they may have got it wrong.

That's why a different subset of people are sitting up to listen when she talks, and why a different group of people are suddenly going on the offensive about it.

O.

[Sriram]

Ok....that may be true.

But what difference all this is going to make at this stage...I am not sure.

[torridon]

There is something reminiscent here about the legend of the little Dutch boy who saved Holland by sticking his finger in the dyke wall and stayed there all night until the adults found him and came to help.

Here we have a little Swedish girl in pigtails, wth Aspergers, to boot, doing what the adults could not, or would not.

For those who see the need for change, she will be forever a hero; for those fighting to preserve business as usual, she must be an infuriating irritation.

[Roses]

There is something reminiscent here about the legend of the little Dutch boy who saved Holland by sticking his finger in the dyke wall and stayed there all night until the adults found him and came to help.

Here we have a little Swedish girl in pigtails, wth Aspergers, to boot, doing what the adults could not, or would not.

For those who see the need for change, she will be forever a hero; for those fighting to preserve business as usual, she must be an infuriating irritation.

Finger in the dyke? 

[Udayana]

There is something reminiscent here about the legend of the little Dutch boy who saved Holland by sticking his finger in the dyke wall and stayed there all night until the adults found him and came to help.

Here we have a little Swedish girl in pigtails, wth Aspergers, to boot, doing what the adults could not, or would not.

For those who see the need for change, she will be forever a hero; for those fighting to preserve business as usual, she must be an infuriating irritation.

As suggested in the Jonathon Franzen article you linked to earlier the chance of preventing climate change or even making a significant difference is really poor. However that is not the point: we will make choices and take actions - it's up to you as an individual whether the choices you make or the actions you take are the right ones or not.

The same message recurs throughout human mythology. Sriram could take the same thing from the Gita.

 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

[Sriram]

As suggested in the Jonathon Franzen article you linked to earlier the chance of preventing climate change or even making a significant difference is really poor. However that is not the point: we will make choices and take actions - it's up to you as an individual whether the choices you make or the actions you take are the right ones or not.

The same message recurs throughout human mythology. Sriram could take the same thing from the Gita.

 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

Oh....so you think I don't care about climate change and am not doing anything about it.....simply because I don't consider Greta as a big deal?!! 

That's a nice one...!!!

[Aruntraveller]

But in reality she is a big deal.

She's done more than you or I to raise the issues of the climate crisis. That is a simple fact.

Why you seem to be slightly miffed by it I haven't the slightest notion. Me, I'm glad she has raised the profile of the issue.