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How badly is global warming / climate change going? (lemmynsfw.com)
submitted 6 days ago by asdfranger@lemmynsfw.com to c/askscience@lemmy.world
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Is there any reason to be optimistic about it, or are we all doomed? As far as I've looked it up, the more optimistic projections predict a 1-2° global temperature rise in the next few decades, which is pretty bad.

Is it a smart decision to start moving to higher/colder regions yet? What can we do?

And is there a good resource or video essay or whatever for this? There is so much misinformation and fearmongering around climate change. It's a hassle to weed out any trustable information.

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[–] tomi000@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

From humanities perspective: we are fucked and for the next few thousand years the average human wont have as comfortable a life as we had for the past decades.

For you personally: you will more likely be affected passively than actively. What I mean is your house will probably not be blown away by a tornado, but the amount of people it happens to will increase exponentially and so on average everyone will have to pay the price. Food will get way more expensive as crops will be harder to grow, immigration will boom as millions will lose their homes along coasts and flee from areas where living becomes impossible. This will probably lead to fascism booming even harder and wars breaking out all around the world.

I guess as long as you are prepared well enough and dont live in risky areas you will be able to live your life relatively comfortably, just for your kids' generation to suffer 100 times as much as they would have had to if we just paid a little attention as a species.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 41 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It’s mass extinction level bad, but humans probably won’t go extinct. The humans who may live 200 years from now will have a much less beautiful world than we do.

This is the coldest year you will experience for the rest of your life, and this is the hottest year you’ve ever experienced.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

There will be fewer humans, perhaps 5% of what we have now - that’s what I glimpse from all the literature. That is not good news: as life will be much less “developed” as a result.

[–] bryophile@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

Yes I agree on the likely outcome that the world will be "less developed". But this always makes me think that we should choose this outcome rather than wait for it. That way we'll have more control and we may limit some damage.

If we have to go "back", whatever that means, I'd rather do it voluntarily as the urge to always go "forward", whatever that means, seems to be an underlying cause of our problems.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Basically you are arguing for a soft landing of the climate collapse. Most scientists agree to that.

[–] classic@fedia.io 11 points 6 days ago

Whew! Good thing the scientists are in charge

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not sure there is a sensible way to "choose" the outcome of having 5% population.

Reducing the fertility rate already happens on a steep level, even if the fertility rate is reduced to something like 0.1 births per woman, it will still take 50-70 years for that to have a meaningful effect on the population size.

The only way to reduce climate change via population control would be to kill the large majority of the world's population. And we know that it won't hit the wealthy high-polluters.

The other way would be to limit the pollution per person, at least until the natural population decline has gone far enough that we don't have a climate change problem any more.

That's, btw, the only thing that's something of a reason to be optimistic: Climate change is dependant on the population, so if the world population drops back to a few 100 millon, climate change will also go back down comparatively rapidly (in the order of maybe 50-100 years). So if we manage to limit it now, it will likely automatically become a solved problem.

Limiting the pollution now would be quite easy. We'd just have to remove the world's top 1% (preferrably by cutting their wealth down to manageable levels), stop motorized travel, stop globalized production, stop building new buildings, stop any livestock keeping, stop using fossil fuels and a handful of similar things and climate change is gone within 12 years.

We'd basically have to get rid of capitalism for that to happen.

[–] bryophile@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I was talking about choosing less development.

But yeah, I agree on the necessity of getting rid of capitalism for these scenarios to work out

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

So it depends on what you mean by less development. At this point since most of easy fossil fuels have been mined, we may no longer be able come back from a civilization reset. There’s no way to fuel an industrial age.

Consider LED lighting and solar panels. These are vital to have any hope of turning things around but they require a certain level of development of civilization. If we drop below the ability to k produce things like this, we’ve suddenly increased our dirty energy needs. And some people are hoping for nuclear or even fusion saving us but the require even more advanced civilization.

[–] bryophile@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

Hence my phrasing: going back, whatever that may mean, or forward, whatever that may mean.

We will always progress into the future. Going "back" to a more local agricultural society coexisting with nature can also be seen as progress. Progress is not the same as technological advances, we can progress as a society or as humanity. And we probably need a mix of both: coexistance with our environment and technological innovation. A framing of the question being either about progress or regression is utterly useless.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I don’t even see how that is the problem. It’s inertia, literally conservatives, corporate lobbying.

  • many environmental causes started in the 1970s when it became clear this was happening. If we followed through, we’d be ok
  • even today, we have the technology. We can make a huge difference just rolling out already developed technology over the next decade. Maybe it’s not too late.

We’ve known what we need to do and have known for years but it requires change and different corps to profit so we never get anywhere. We need to move forward. According to science. Not to preserve existing business models and profits.

At this point I don’t see how regressing civilization even helps more than moving forward. We have the technology. We can rebuild it.

For example EVs are a small part of the problem. Yes, too little and too late but if we can stick to the 2035 phaseouts, the line starts heading in the right direction. Pretty much the entire developed world will have decreasing carbon emissions at that point. It’s nowhere near enough but at least we’d be headed by in the right direction. Think of it like being in huge debt. We still can’t make our minimum payments but at least we’re no longer adding more and more debt

And we already are in a place where birth rates are far below replacement value. It’ll take a while because humans live like 80 years but as the current large generations die off it will plateau and start dropping. Maybe uncomfortably quickly.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There will be fewer humans, perhaps 5% of what we have now

Not in a mere 200 years. The human population of Earth will peak somewhere around 12B, and then likely stabilize at a few billion below that.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Two forces at work here: (1) humans will get fewer children, leading to leveling off (2) climate change, the exhaustion of resources, breakdown of our ecosystem will lead to hunger, disease and political disruption and culling of our species.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think (1) will have a much bigger impact on the human population than (2). We aren't going to exhaust Earth's resources in 200 years, and it will take much less time than that to switch over to renewables. The transition is already underway, and shows no signs of stopping.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I admire your optimism, but I definitely do not share it . You should read this; https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/facultyresearchandpublications/52383/items/1.0437324 There are many more scientific publications and newspaper articles and assessments about this topic - it looks very grim for humanity.

[–] AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

https://unfccc.int/about-us/reports-highlights/quarterly-updates/un-climate-change-quarterly-update-q1-2025-0

https://unsdg.un.org/latest/stories/climate-summit-2025-scaling-10-solutions-can-still-deliver

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/09/1165897

https://www.climate.us/

Highly recommend keeping up with climate.us, they're good folks.

Have you had much of a background in the sciences? Interested in learning more about disinformation?

[–] asdfranger@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thanks a bunch!

Interested in learning more about disinformation?

Sure, do you have something that'll help me identify disinformation better?

[–] AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Mostly it boils down to taking it slow and, depending on the medium, learning how to tell key signs.

Easiest is keeping to trusted scientific journals and news sources. Longer form media requires more study to determine genuine vs AI authorship and of course bias.

Short form media is often harder, but having a good idea about major regional goals, like certain countries for example that may be using botting to create movement towards a certain topic or belief, can help you to see potential biases.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-to-combat-fake-news-and-disinformation/

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/phase_ii_-_combatting_targeted_disinformation.pdf

https://www.un.org/en/countering-disinformation

[–] asdfranger@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If short form media is twitter takes and 60 second shorts, I have learned to almost immediately dismiss them until supported by more evidence.

And there's also commercial social media algorithms that take advantage of their extensive data hoarding to stagnate and dogmatize opinions.

Mostly it boils down to taking it slow and, depending on the medium, learning how to tell key signs.

Then I guess it's mostly just experience and intuition, like learning how to pirate stuff safely online.

[–] AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

To a good point yea, it's experience based, it's why the top schools are already exposing the topic of disinformation and media literacy to younger generations. Trust but verify is an excellent mantra, take time to properly think through and challenge new information you encounter, keep a change of pace to stay mentally fresh, destressing yourself when possible all work together to keep a healthy learning mindset.

It's essentially a holistic approach to learning and processing.

Unfortunately, geopolitical interests, personal ideology, and everything in-between will make true online objectivity nearly impossible, so learning to best navigate it is pretty much the only approach for now. Besides keeping offline as much as possible.

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 21 points 6 days ago

It's going bad, and worse than we thought.

Seven of nine planetary boundaries now breached:

A major new scientific review, “Planetary Health Check 2025”, shows that seven of nine planetary boundaries have now been exceeded. For the first time, this also includes the boundary for ocean acidification. This means that several of Earth’s life-supporting systems risk crossing critical thresholds, with severe consequences for both ecosystems and societies.

[–] actionjbone@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 days ago (2 children)

However bad you think it is, it's worse.

[–] primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexus 15 points 6 days ago

So much worse. Remember–climate scientists are scientists. They only say what they know. They regularly get caught with their pants down by new ways things can collapse.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Mostly bad but with u certainty and some hope.

  • We passed the 1.5°C threshold that was the goal to prevent the worst effects of climate change for 1-2 years although the threshold is defined as a 10 year average
  • we busted through 7 of 9 extinction boundaries
  • weather is clearly more extreme and impacting more and more of the population
  • climate tipping points have a lot of uncertainty and take place over years so we don’t know until later that we’ve passed one. They are effectively irreversible. There’s a chance we have passed one or more

However carbon emissions have plateaued in quite a few countries. We do have technologies like solar, wind, grid storage, EVs that will have significant impact and are rolling out. It’s not enough and way too delayed but it’s a good start

If we don’t pass any climate tipping points or all the extinction boundaries, we can recover over a century or two

[–] cymbal_king@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

As the other commenters have already shared, things are going poorly. An issue with climate change is that concrete consequences are delayed behind our actions, there is already more warming baked in. But I worry about the focus on the binary good or bad outcome on climate change and the people who say things like "it's too late." (fossil fuel astroturfing pushes this phrase btw). Climate change is not binary and it's never too late for us to try prevent worse things happening.

Despite unfavorable political winds in some developed countries, there's progress in developing nations and, most importantly, India and China. China is spending nearly $1 trillion/year on green energy and infrastructure. They clearly want to dominate the global green energy economy. India is adding big solar capacity too. And solar is also taking off across Africa, where off-grid diesel generators are being directly replaced with small-scale solar systems. Since electricity for solar is now the cheapest form in many areas of the world, it often pays for itself and keeps increasing as an attractive investment.

We thankfully already have the most of the technology needed to address climate change (carbon-free energy, energy storage, better power grids, more forests and less cattle). And green tech keeps getting better, I like the channel Undecided with Matt Ferrell to keep up with tech advancements. But no technological progress will be enough if fossil fuel companies keep drilling. As things worsen, the political appetites will also certainly change.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Mandatory part so people don't come at me as a denialist:

We've done a bad job, close to as bad as we could have. Government policies have been a drop in the bucket, and there's already a lot of backlash to them. Coral reefs are going to go extinct, or close - it's just hard to imagine any other scenario. Coffee and chocolate might get hard to come by.

We've lucked out and technology change looks like it will stop us from digging deeper and deeper. I think we would have otherwise.

But, there is hype in this thread.

Is it a smart decision to start moving to higher/colder regions yet? What can we do?

Waterfront property might be sketchy. Ditto for agricultural property where it's supposed to really dry out. Just for living, as opposed to making a living, though, people already manage in Arizona and Kuwait. Climate change will be expensive and uncomfortable, and I'm already really tired of wildfires, but unless your reaching us from the cyber cafe in your Bangladeshi village you'll likely personally survive.

The main thing I can think of that you can personally do to adapt is be prepared for weather emergencies. You probably know some of the tips to avoid contributing.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 days ago

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 5 days ago

Nuclear war would be so much worse.

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

We've reached a point of no return on many aspects of climate change. Over the decades the climate rhetoric of climatologists has changed from preventing climate change, to damage control.

It's not going well on the latter either...

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

It’s going bad in a place I thought would be more climate proof

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well if you haven't already, the first thing you should do is to stop burning fossil fuels whenever it's in your power to do so.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Please stop putting the blame and solution to single persons. We cannot solve climate change, yet we're continuously blamed for not doing enough

The real culprits and only ones that can solve it is the leaders of large companies and politicians. Neither is interested in doing so, though.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I am not saying that it will solve all the world's problems, or blaming anything on anyone. I'm just saying you should stop burning fossil fuels as should we all.

[–] matilija@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

We should all strive to move in that direction, but acknowledge that there’s no ethical consumption within capitalism and our false choices are often differently bad in subtle ways. I forgive you for not making perfect choices.

A few examples: I live in Southern California and have Colorado River water piped to my house. Should I really wash out plastic peanut butter containers so that I can put them into the plastic recycling stream which is mostly made out of lies anyway? It seems to me that’s likely a waste of water and the plastic is going to end up in a landfill anyway, so it’s better to throw them away directly.

I drive a 15+ year old inefficient gasoline-powered SUV. I love it, aside from the emissions. I could buy a new EV or hybrid and reduce my personal emissions in exchange for the spyware/adware of modern vehicles, but I still wouldn’t send my current vehicle straight to a landfill. It would be sold and either driven by someone else or parted out to further extend the life of other inefficient gas vehicles. Someone is going to drive the vehicle more, so it might as well be me. By not buying a new car, I increase the cost of used cars, and reduce the demand to produce new cars (including lithium mining), albeit both infinitesimally. I believe that’s actually more responsible than upgrading just to feel better about my personal emissions.

“It turns out that moving your investments to a climate-friendly investment option is the single most impactful thing that the average American can do for climate change,” said Alex Wright-Gladstein, founder and CEO of Sphere, which offers a fossil fuel-free index fund. “It's more impactful than the combination of going vegan, never flying again, driving an electric car, putting solar on your house.”

Although it’s likely that the greenest thing you can do for the planet is to eat the rich.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 4 days ago

Yeah I'm more of a "bring your own glass container to the health food store with the machine where you grind the peanuts" kind of guy right now, not so much a "have an investment portfolio that would require major changes to become 'climate-friendy' kind of a guy.

[–] primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexus 3 points 6 days ago

The only good news is we're a lot closer to mass rejection and lynching of the fuckers who did this.