Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[donsutherland1]

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

[Typhoon Tip]

17 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

I hugely agree here Don... with the rest of it as well, but the bolds in particular.  

We all echo this sentiment in our own ways... I began penning the frustration myself several years ago; human's are unfortunately, despite their various acumen and conceits and lordship over this planet, still quite primitively enslaved to the 5 corporeal senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Unless calamity is directly advertised to their personal being via one of these pathways ... urgency is faked.

Stating the obvious, it drafts from biological evolution perfectly. These sense were evolved to make sense of the reality surrounding them. I've mused before, they are akin in many ways to the USB ports that connect the "biological CPU" to the cosmos (for lack of better end expression).  

Global warming does not appeal to these natural senses.  It moves too seductively slowly. I've heard this compared to the "boiling a frog" syndrome.  Well the fire that heats the pot has got to be our own superior adaptation, then - if we were not so mutable ( naturally) it may have already begun that registry.  Since the adaptation is so effective at blinding us from a problem the solution is clear: To put it plainly and simply, humans have to suffer, first, before they move out the way.  Pain, both physical and mental, needs to occur unceasing - else the moment it lets up, humans are quick to resume.   People have to be in a state where not being a piece of shit is a clear salvation from pain. 

It's ironic that adaptation is so superior among the one species causing the problem.  It uniquely feeds back on perpetuating the damage they cause. Fermi explanation?

Not all species adapt as quickly - little does the lay person know, Earth has entered a mass extinction event.  Climate change is both physically observed and calculable in that causation.  Since the rapidity of the change is also mathematically and empirically proven to be objectively humanity's fault, we have become death, destroyers of worlds.  Sorry, but Gita's poetry is unfortunately apropos.

For the rest ... they'll die gasping through their lessening breaths that it's all a hoax, instrumentation bias perpetuating a conspiracy.

[donsutherland1]

33 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I hugely agree here Don... with the rest of it as well, but the bolds in particular.  

We all echo this sentiment in our own ways... I begin penning the frustration myself several years ago; human's are unfortunately, despite their various acumen and conceits and lordship over this planet, still quite primitively enslaved to the 5 corporeal senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Unless calamity is directly advertised to their personal being via one of these pathways ... urgency is faked.

Stating the obvious, it drafts from biological evolution perfectly. These sense were evolved to make sense of the reality surrounding them. I've mused before, they are akin in many ways to the USB ports that connect the "biological CPU" to the cosmos (for lack of better end expression).  

Global warming does not appeal to these natural senses.  It moves too seductively slowly. I've heard this compared to the "boiling a frog" syndrome.  Well the fire that heats the pot has got to be our own superior adaptation, then - if we were not so mutable ( naturally) it may have already begun that registry.  Since the adaptation is so effective at blinding us from a problem the solution is clear: To put it plainly and simply, humans have to suffer, first, before they move out the way.  Pain, both physical and mental, needs to occur unceasing - else the moment it lets up, humans are quick to resume.   People have to be in a state where not being a piece of shit is a clear salvation from pain. 

It's ironic that adaptation is so superior among the one species causing the problem.  It uniquely feeds back on perpetuating the damage they cause. Fermi explanation?

Not all species adapt as quickly - little does the lay person know, Earth has entered a mass extinction event.  Climate change is both physically observed and calculable in that causation.  Since the rapidity of the change is also mathematically and empirically proven to be objectively humanity's fault, we have become death, destroyers of worlds.  Sorry, but Gita's poetry is unfortunately apropos.

For the rest ... they'll die gasping through their lessening breaths that it's all a hoax, instrumentation bias perpetuating a conspiracy.

Great post. Like you, I believe evolutionary biology has a lot to do with how humans respond, including the preference for the status quo over change, and reactive responses over proactive ones.

[rclab]

50 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Great post. Like you, I believe evolutionary biology has a lot to do with how humans respond, including the preference for the status quo over change, and reactive responses over proactive ones.

Thank you Don, Tip. Sadly thought provoking! Perhaps an Electro Magnetic Pulse caused by a rogue high altitude nuclear device or a Solar Coronal Mass Ejection Event, even though not directly related to climate change, might be enough to knock us out of our ‘business as usual’ ennui. 
stay well, as always……

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-physics-based-indicator-collapse-atlantic.html

[tacoman25]

22 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

Yeah, the issue is that failed harvests, catastrophic floods, other major disasters, etc, have all happened many times before and it's really impossible (and intellectually dishonest) to pin any single event directly to climate change. 

Now, if some regions started seeing repeated, mass casualty level heat waves, or as you said rising oceans began causing large scale flooding in major cities, then I think that would grab enough political attention to take serious action.

[donsutherland1]

26 minutes ago, tacoman25 said:

Yeah, the issue is that failed harvests, catastrophic floods, other major disasters, etc, have all happened many times before and it's really impossible (and intellectually dishonest) to pin any single event directly to climate change. 

Now, if some regions started seeing repeated, mass casualty level heat waves, or as you said rising oceans began causing large scale flooding in major cities, then I think that would grab enough political attention to take serious action.

The issue isn't so much whether climate change is creating such events. The issue is how much more frequent, intense, or worse climate change is making such events. There is a growing body of attribution studies that discuss the linkage. 

My point is that much larger and more frequent events than what have occurred or are likely to occur in the near-term to drive a fundamental shift in thinking.  Even, let's say a $500 billion hurricane or a colossal heatwave that claims ten times the lives of the 2003 European heatwave by themselves won't really change the realities of human psychology that anchor human societal inertia. 

[GaWx]

23 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

 Thanks, Don.

 As I assume you realize, crop sizes have overall so far actually been aided rather than hurt by increased CO2:

-GW has lead to longer average growing seasons thus increasing avg crop sizes.

-Related to this, the increase in avg growing season lengths has allowed crops to be grown further north than in the past.

-There’s now increased CO2 for plants to thrive better (the “CO2 fertilization effect”).

-At least partially related to this improved environment, the Midwest has had a decrease in the frequency of widespread droughts since the 1990s.

 Thus, I suspect that one of the reasons that CC isn’t being treated as a major crisis by as many as you’d want is that it has actually lead to more favorable rather than less favorable conditions for food supply, one of the biggest essentials to support animal life. That’s a huge benefit for life on our planet. So CC, though very bad for rising sea level, increased frequency and severity of major flooding events, increased frequency of severe TCs, increased coral bleaching, and an increase in extreme heat related casualties, hasn’t been all bad news by any means. To minimize the major benefit to food supply as well as a decline in extreme cold related casualties would not be considering the full effect of CC.

[gallopinggertie]

9 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The issue isn't so much whether climate change is creating such events. The issue is how much more frequent, intense, or worse climate change is making such events. There is a growing body of attribution studies that discuss the linkage. 

My point is that much larger and more frequent events than what have occurred or are likely to occur in the near-term to drive a fundamental shift in thinking.  Even, let's say a $500 billion hurricane or a colossal heatwave that claims ten times the lives of the 2003 European heatwave by themselves won't really change the realities of human psychology that anchor human societal inertia. 

Exactly this. 

We already are seeing events that are clearly tied to climate change. It might be even more useful to look at major ecological events than individual weather events - things like coral bleaching events, mass kelp forest dieoffs, and the recent unprecedented sargassum blooms in the Atlantic. (All due at least in part to rising SST’s in the world’s oceans). These are signs of shifting baselines that majorly effect which organisms and ecosystems thrive in a given place.

And to be honest, I don’t have much patience for those who can see stuff like that happening and not make the connection to rapid climate change. 

[donsutherland1]

48 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Thanks, Don.

 As I assume you realize, crop sizes have overall so far actually been aided rather than hurt by increased CO2:

-GW has lead to longer average growing seasons thus increasing avg crop sizes.

-Related to this, the increase in avg growing season lengths has allowed crops to be grown further north than in the past.

-There’s now increased CO2 for plants to thrive better (the “CO2 fertilization effect”).

-At least partially related to this improved environment, the Midwest has had a decrease in the frequency of widespread droughts since the 1990s.

 Thus, I suspect that one of the reasons that CC isn’t being treated as a major crisis by as many as you’d want is that it has actually lead to more favorable rather than less favorable conditions for food supply, one of the biggest essentials to support animal life. That’s a huge benefit for life on our planet. So CC, though very bad for rising sea level, increased frequency and severity of major flooding events, increased frequency of severe TCs, increased coral bleaching, and an increase in extreme heat related casualties, hasn’t been all bad news by any means. To minimize the major benefit to food supply as well as a decline in extreme cold related casualties would not be considering the full effect of CC.

Yes. At present, for most crops, gains in production outweigh declines in production. I suspect that modern agricultural practices are helping increase yields at present more than anything else. That could begin to change in coming decades assuming that technological advances don't offset adverse impacts from drought/heat/flood events. With regard to the Midwest, I suspect that the widespread use of irrigation has allowed for greater moisture than would otherwise be the case. That has played out in higher humidity, less frequent droughts, and less intense heat than during the Dust Bowl era there. But even those benefits could be temporary at some degree of additional warming.

[tacoman25]

59 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The issue isn't so much whether climate change is creating such events. The issue is how much more frequent, intense, or worse climate change is making such events. There is a growing body of attribution studies that discuss the linkage. 

My point is that much larger and more frequent events than what have occurred or are likely to occur in the near-term to drive a fundamental shift in thinking.  Even, let's say a $500 billion hurricane or a colossal heatwave that claims ten times the lives of the 2003 European heatwave by themselves won't really change the realities of human psychology that anchor human societal inertia. 

I was largely agreeing with your point.

But it's also fair to point out that because singular events cannot singularly be attributed to climate change, telling people that catastrophic floods are now 15% more likely in their area isn't going to move the needle.

And of course, the science is still very much unsettled on exactly how climate warming is affecting natural disaster frequency, severity, etc. So it will likely take something much larger scale and non-singular to affect political/social change of mind.

[donsutherland1]

52 minutes ago, gallopinggertie said:

Exactly this. 

We already are seeing events that are clearly tied to climate change. It might be even more useful to look at major ecological events than individual weather events - things like coral bleaching events, mass kelp forest dieoffs, and the recent unprecedented sargassum blooms in the Atlantic. (All due at least in part to rising SST’s in the world’s oceans). These are signs of shifting baselines that majorly effect which organisms and ecosystems thrive in a given place.

And to be honest, I don’t have much patience for those who can see stuff like that happening and not make the connection to rapid climate change. 

I agree. At some degree of warming or ocean acidification/deoxygenation, the food chain dominoes will begin to fall. The precise levels where this will occur are uncertain. Even if they were well-established, I don't think that knowledge, alone, would galvanize human society. Unfortunately, if past extinction/mass extinction events are representative, once the food chain dominoes begin to fall, it will be too late to mount an effective response. 

[tacoman25]

56 minutes ago, gallopinggertie said:

Exactly this. 

We already are seeing events that are clearly tied to climate change. It might be even more useful to look at major ecological events than individual weather events - things like coral bleaching events, mass kelp forest dieoffs, and the recent unprecedented sargassum blooms in the Atlantic. (All due at least in part to rising SST’s in the world’s oceans). These are signs of shifting baselines that majorly effect which organisms and ecosystems thrive in a given place.

And to be honest, I don’t have much patience for those who can see stuff like that happening and not make the connection to rapid climate change. 

Of course climate change is having an effect on certain things. Did anyone say it isn't? We can still acknowledge that and also acknowledge that directly attributing disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc to climate change is not a scientific endeavor.

Now, if research shows that certain events are statistically becoming more common across large regions over a significant period of time that correlates to climate change (and there is a physical reason for it that also corroborates) then you have a starting point.

Give nuance a chance. Or don't. I don't have much patience for those that adopt a rigid, religious, dogmatic mindset.