zlacker

Humanity is quite resilient. I’m confident that we’ll survive. However I’m much more pessimistic about technological civilization surviving.

>>adrian+(OP)
There’s more than just humans and their tech here to worry about though. I get so depressed when I hear people describe the gravity of climate change only in terms of the chance of survival of us humans.

>>wkjagt+U4
Mass extinction events have happened many times before. The tragedy here is that it is the first preventable mass extinction event. If speaking about it in self-centered terms gets people to act then we should do it. Pragmatism is essential.

>>wkjagt+U4
If climate change didn't affect humans we wouldn't care. Did we care when the skies started to glow at night due to air pollution and destroyed the ecology, or the importation of European honeybees, or effects of toxins on fauna. No it was "marvelous" a "triumph against nature".

The ONLY question to most people is: what will happen to me from it, if it will, why me changing anything will help?

>>graphe+M5
I’m not disagreeing. This is exactly how it is. I’m just saying that this way of thinking (not yours, but the one you describe) is depressing.

>>wkjagt+x7
You can make it a bit less depressing by thinking on the scale of the universe. Life on this planet has at most a billion years left, after that it's gone even if humans never existed. Humans are likely the only species that can save anything from this planet for the trillion years of life that is possible in the universe after this planet is gone.

>>adrian+(OP)
That's the only silver lining. Finally people stop staring at their phones, and restaurants get rid of this QR-code nonsense.

>>willis+y5
> The tragedy here is that it is the first preventable mass extinction event

I think that being responsibles for it is even more of a tragedy.

>>adrian+(OP)
I get what you're saying. Although I find that referring to humanity as a collective, or using "we" as in "we are in this together" in discussions like these runs the risk of homogenising human societies into one, even though a large part of humanity's historical impacts on the environment has been heterogeneous (i.e., industrial revolution beginning in Western societies). You can find the same criticism surrounding the term "Anthropocene" in academic and general settings.

Countries such as Pakistan and Pacific island countries that have contributed the least to climate change are among the most impacted, which is why two questions (among many others) have loomed climate politics over the past 30 years: "Where does the liability fall?" (Ex: loss and damage fund) and "How can I, as a country, be in a better position within a global crisis?" (Ex: disagreement over the global warming potential of non-CO2 emissions due to different chosen time horizons between countries; GWP100 vs. GWP*; this greatly affects carbon accounting in agricultural countries that rely on cattle for instance)

>>throw_+Sf
Honestly curious, why the focus on the QR-code menus? Is that the most important adverse effect of tech?

>>abenga+Dt
Not the most important, it is just symptomatic.

>>wkjagt+U4
The current extinction event is the most depressing part. A lot of environmental changes can be undone, but bringing back thousands of species is impossible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

>>krimsk+Kq
What is your point? My point is, there will be no escape for humanity with no regard to their contribution to the climate change... We are in this together, though 99% of the human population can't do a thing about it.