That's how it starts, sure.

Give that state you described another 50 odd years again and things can get worse - the land based glaciers are already greatly reduced, almost gone. The bulky polar ice is retreating a little - but the warming sea surface is the thing, it'll carry warm water and melt more and more ice.

Now it's fun and games for predicting what comes next - the insulation in the atmosphere is still increasing and the same amount of trapped energy that now goes to turning a mass of ice to a mass of water (at much the same temperature) will now turn to raising that same mass of water from near 0 C to about 60 C (roughly IIRC) - speeding up ice melts.

There's also the increasing amounts of water and methane in the atmosphere that come along with rising temperatures, these are much much better insulators that measly old CO2 and will serve to trap ever more energy from the sun.

Geophysically that's how this all goes in the absence of any serious reduction of insulation in the atmosphere.

Climate change itself is not gonna endanger humans as a species, but secondary effects might. Such as wars resulting from dramatic shifts in the value of territories and wars over resources.

> our prehistoric forebears had a lot worse to deal with

Do you mean in terms of climate change? I know some temperatures were different but this was much more gradual afaik, which is no problem for anyone with two feet and a sense of where to go, but they were much more dependent on the ecosystem which struggles to keep up with the speed of today's changes

From what I hear, what we're causing is unprecedented for humans. Not dinosaur meteorite level of course (it's not an overnight change) but an ecosystem extinction event is nevertheless going on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)

I agree with the broader point that we'll survive and the question is more about the amount of suffering we inflict on ourselves and other animals along the way. Just curious if any old human (or even any great ape from the 'homo' genus) did experience worse

Let’s say the end of our civilization and going back to middle age or something like that.

This is… one way to look at the death of billions, the end of nations, and the collapse of society due to the ensuing refugee crises.

Not to forget, we are dependent on the food web. These changes mean species will be wiped out, fishing stocks will crash, and invasive will spread.

Since you are likely in the developed world, tropical temps in Europe would mean refurbishment of houses.

People won’t remember things like the lakes freezing over or ice skating.

One thing. "Longer growing season" is not predicated upon temperature. Length of the day, sunlight, is a hard requirement for some plants. And the further north you go, the less the sun gets up over rhe horizon, even at noon.

So extending the time before frost, won't help many plants reach maturity. The days will be shorter, and when the sun comes up there is barely any light anyhow. Raw "daylight hours" are meaningless here, when the sun only gets barely over the norizon.

One month of June light is like 6 months of December light in much of Canada.

I think thats the wrong level of abstraction. The cold war ended, but clima change will not end.

The conditions leading to the Cold War were reversible, this crisis is becoming very much less so. Despite what the carbon capture techno optimists say.

The cold war never heated up.

Even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, it will take millennia for the climate to return to normal.

Well, they had a point, and we've got pretty close to that outcome. It didn't happen, thus today we're able to discuss the fact that it didn't happen.

There's a lot of worry about the future, and has been since world-ending threats became apparent

However while apocalypse scenarios (Nuclear war, asteroid impact, AI powered biological warfare) are low likelihood, extreme impact, climate change is extreme likelihood and high impact, not just the immediate effect on places like Europe, Canada etc, but also from the conflicts that climate change will drive, which in turn may escalate to those extreme impact nuclear wars.

On a 5x5 matrix, grand extinction events would be a 5 for effect but a 1 for likelihood, putting them in a "medium-high" category

Climate change is a 3-4 on effect but a 4-5 o likelihood, putting them in a "very-high" risk category

There is a lot of desertification of farmland going on, including in the USA.

It gets abstracted away for richer countries as they can outbid the poorer countries for food. In developed economies, most of a particular piece of food's price is not the costs that go to the farmer, but costs that come later in the process, so that cost increasing is also felt less.

Heatwaves on the other hand affect the western countries directly.

When food and water become scare, conflicts arise.

Buy aircon stocks now!

The french government (more pro-business than pro-ecology, but not climate deniers) is seriously planning for how to manage 55C heatwaves around the half of the century.

Because climate scientists agree that's what's coming (except for extreme, immediate reduction of fossil fuel burning).

no, im running on the assumption that the heat will stay at around 35C but get progressively longer, for months at a time countries that have developed around ~20C heat will not be able to cope. many people will die.

This doesn't sound like a serious question

Yeah, that seems like our only realistic solution to the climate crisis.

Yeah it's true, Europe has had heat waves in the past. For instance, in 1540. Also 1779. And also 1906, 1947, 1964, 1976, 2003, 2006, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Frequency? Do I look like a statistician to you?!

Well, this month has been the absolute record temperatures so we can't say what they would think since they never experienced that

It's a good question, in terms of progression of climate change

1960 to 1979 had 6 years where UK temperatures went over 30C in June

1980 to 1999 had 6 years

2000 to 2019 had 13 years

2020 to 2026 has had 6 years so far, and we're only 35% of the way through

The longest period of time from 1960 to 2000 where june temperatures went higher than 30 was two years, reaching 30 in 1975 and 36 in 1976.

2021 was the only June in the last 10 years where temperatures didn't reach that 1975 record.

Every year people complain about the cold, heat and allergies. Even if they live 200 years, it would always be the same.

People get use to it, it goes away, cycle repeats. Nobody remembers exactly unless they had a near death experience.

Why does it matter how humans _felt_?

Why don't you research past heat waves? We're literally setting new heat records nearly every year. This year the heat record in Germany went from 39 degrees to 42. We're even setting night time heat records because of how bad it is. I don't understand the impulse to ignore what we're experiencing right now. What do you gain by sticking your head in the sand?

> Did your grand parents felt the same as you?

They remember a lot more snow and talk about how summers were not that hot. And like, they are otherwise into half of right wing conspiracy theories.

It helps that every other year is a record breaking year.

What action will you take to ensure next year it's only 85F?

You aren't going to "stop eating beef" your way out of this. Addressing climate change requires technical solutions that result in clean energy that is cheaper than carbon emitting sources (in reality, not just due to regulations).

“Stop eating beef.”

Nah we need to stop burning fossil fuels dude.

Ideally we would want a fine particulate that stays high in the atmosphere, and doesn't come down where we need to breathe

How is that a reason to exclude it from the graph? Surely including it in the charts would strengthen the case for regarding it as a long term problem?

Excluding it subtly suggests that global warming is a short term phenomenon.

> lots of wealthy people are anti-fossil fuel.

They're really not. Or it's just perfrmative environmentalism. Because they continue to support to politicians and the system that maintains the status quo.

> Fine if you are Spanish.

Please read the whole paragraph. Transmitting power, which is what UHVDC lines are for and something China builds to transmit power thousands of kilometers from the Western half of the country to the Eastern half where everybody lives, exists [1]. Standard transmission lines lose 4-10%/1000km. UHVDC loses 1-3%/1000km.

Europe loves importing electricity. It's the key to greenwashing. Why not build solar where it's most efficient and import that instead?

> I wonder whether the British government would be so keen on moving away from fossil fuels if it still owned BP?

The UK has spent hudnreds of billions of pounds subsidizing electricity that goes straight into the pockets of the shareholders of natural gas companies and private utilities. Is that better?

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9OcsvNZeB0

They are early. I saw an old prediction for EU temparature

The 2050 temp they had predicted was less than the current heat wave

There are literally hundreds of actions that could be (or in some cases have been) taken. I think the vast majority need to be taken by the government. Individuals mainly need to to support and demand these actions from the government, and punch climate change deniers in the face. E.g.

1. Stick to their plan to ban ICE car sales by 2030.

2. Unban on-shore wind power (Labour did this! Not that anyone noticed...)

3. Mandate solar panels and heat pumps for new houses.

4. Mandate bike lanes for new roads (blows my mind that this isn't a policy).

5. Take distribution into account when paying energy suppliers, so we aren't paying for a load of wind power in Scotland that we can't use (I believe this is being considered).

6. Upgrade the grid so we can get power from Scotland (I think this is in progress).

7. Make car charging infrastructure sane. No apps! Fines for broken chargers. More chargers along motorways. Street-side charging.

8. Stop freezing fuel duty.

9. Mandate OpenTherm (or similar) on boilers and thermostats.

10. Create an open, mandatory standard for remote adjustment of power consumption of things like air conditioners, freezers, car chargers and so on, that must be supported and can be used by power companies to optimise grid usage. Some large buildings do this but 99.99% of things that could do it don't.

11. Offer government backed loans for solar power. There are private companies that do it but they're seen as quite sketchy (e.g. if you sell your house...) so uptake is low.

12. Give office employees a right to work from home one day a week where it's possible (similar to how you have a right to change your hours).

13. Ban patio heaters.

14. Ban especially inefficient cars (e.g. less than 20 mpg).

15. Fix the railways... They are working on this tbf.

Europe and the world in general obviously. 1000 people doed in France due to the heat wave.

Ignoring heat wave deaths, Hormuz crisis has shown us that oil cam be blockaded but the panels and windmills installed on our rooftops can't be blockaded

Even Cuba is setting up solar plants with the help of China.

Philippines is the highest importer of solar panels since Hormuz was blocked. Rest of South Asia is quickly following

Voters also don't care much.

You might say that rich people and politicians have more responsibility because they have more power for making changes, but politicians are chosen by voters, and wealth doesn't make people more ethical

I'm 100% behind it, but would regulation of financial markets and balanced tax policy do for global warming ? Sure heavy regulation of industries and fossil fuels usage but financial markets, im not sure.

Check current renewal deployment figures, China is actually at the forefront, and India is taking the "right" path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1MGJUaxQPk

China and India are installing crazy amounts of solar. I don't know much about Russia.

India is doing industrialisation via solar. Massive solar arrays on top of factories and warehouses.

How the heck is installing solar panels to generate green electricity de-industrilaize?!

Also India is building worlds largest solar park of 30GW

Yeah they will, its literally cheaper now.

The problem wasn't caused by air conditioning, it was caused by burning fossil fuels. Perhaps we could find a way to have air conditioning without burning fossil fuels?

Yes, all that CO2 generated by nuclear power plants and renewable energy is terrible. But I guess if enough people die then Europe's carbon emissions will also go down so it's a win! And thank you for proving my point.

Thanks for exemplifying what GP said

And the consumption habits of the USA are responsible for how many more tonnes of CO2 emissions that are not onshore within the USA ?

The USA was far and away the very worst global source for a very long time, that only changed by offshoring the processing and manufacture that feeds US consumption.

Would they include graphs that didn’t?