@mightyspaceman sometimes when you start falling you immediately land somewhere safe by accident. That sort of thing snaps you out of previous foolhardiness. (Don't recommend it though because it's a near death experience). We might take a decent hit that makes everyone despise anymore naysaying about doable targets.
@rood mmmmm. I'm not really what you would consider the...for lack of words, steriotypical "greenie" but I have understood the value of general environmental sustainability for a while. Have never been one to litter around carelessly or anything like that, and I've understood the climate problem for a while. Recently been hitting more and more that we'll probably not last the next 30 years, whether it be a solar flare, nuclear apocalypse (most likely) or whatever happens to come along.
In terms of the climate thing, I think subconsciously our brains don't even think about the fact that it is going on. It's just another thing that feels like fiction, something you can't see, so therefore it can't be a direct threat, right? the human mind isn't meant to deal with things like this. Most people care, but if you forget to brush your teeth, how can you remember to lead a lifestyle that will not even make the slightest dent in a problem that wouldn't be solved if even everyone did it at the same time? it's just a huge bystander effect.
Unless we get something like fusion within the next 20 years we are probably screwed. We're a visible plague that can literally be seen from space; and just like a cancer, we're going to kill the host and take ourselves down with it.
@mightyspaceman no, you're clever and thoughtful. But you're dead wrong about people. They truly don't give a damn until something unseats them.
I've been around enough countries and regions to know people don't have the same nervous complexes. Everything you've been told doesn't exist in their worldview. Some are so far less privileged you could slip them into a different timeline and they might not even realise.
I showed a woman a picture of a wombat. "You eat that"
"No."
"I'd eat that"
"It probably doesn't taste good"
"I'm poor, I'd still eat that"
Her worldview doesn't feature conservation. It features making a family and feeding the family.
The entire world group needs something that slaps them in the face extremely hard. It likely won't happen without it.
But if it happens, watch how humans respond very meanly to whatever caused them harm.
Alternatively we could just help them come into a better world, but that's contentious enough to be unlikely.
I personally don't believe the viewpoint of "if we don't do something now, it'll be too late". It's not about being too late, with the right technology we can always reverse whatever harm we did to the atmosphere or other things...but there will always be a permanent scar. And it'll take a damn while to turn things around the other way even as we are now
Add comment