WE'RE ALL DED
We are currently conducting a massive uncontrolled experiment with the Earth's climate system that may not give us the results we want. Outlook ranges from bad to really bad, although there is still some hope that we can survive. The rich countries (who emitted the most in the past) are in a better position to survive/mitigate the effects as well as transition to appropriate technologies.
Extinction?
I think we have to accept it as a real possibility.
Guy McPherson is a believer in abrupt climate change so he's an extremist, but he probably does a lot to shift opinions. He's mostly a collater of scientific reports (accused of cherry picking) from elsewhere, but has this really good summary which he updates with new info:
http://guymcpherson.com/2014/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
Here's his list of feedback loops (I think it's up to 31 or something now). the major two are arctic sea ice melting which results in the dark ocean absorbing energy instead of the white ice reflecting it and methane release from permafrost melting since it's a faster-acting and more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (which has a 40-year time lag which means we are running on emissions from the 1970s) and also released by fracking and natural gas leakages:
http://transitionvoice.com/2013/08/19-ways-climate-change-is-now-feeding-itself/
He thinks 4C is enough for extinction and due to belief in abruptness thinks we will all be dead by 2040. My outlook is similarly but not quite as pessimistic: by 2100 50% extinction 40% total civilizational collapse 10% capitalist world-ecology dies slowly and technology somehow saves enough of us for civilization to continue post-industrially (2-4 billion still around).
A lot of the severity is difficult to predict and many of the people in political power right now will be dead or old as hell by 2050 when the effects (which are increasingly noticeable everywhere, I'm in CA droughtland) will get nastier.
5 things jump out at me:
1. globally we are still accelerating our use of fossil fuels. we have slowed the rate of acceleration but we are still adding people and cars.
2. peak oil is really bad for industrial civilization and any widespread rollout of renewables depends on massive energy inputs from oil during the transition.
3. Habitat and species destruction make civilization less resilient.
4. scientific studies keep coming out that are more pessimistic, not more optimistic.
5. phenomenon of scientific reticence has been studied, ie most climate scientists slightly soft-pedal their results because of pressures political and due to the naturally cautious tendencies of the scientific community.
Questions
1. What does this mean for politics and future political structures?
I have no idea... this is the part I'm struggling with. Reconciling political projects/responses/ideas to this is difficult so help me out.
Here's a really interesting analysis by Marxist ecological economic historian Jason W Moore about how what he calls the capitalist world-ecology (not separating man from nature) depends on the Four Cheaps: "food, labor-power, energy, and raw materials" which are renewed by producing (discovering, eg New World, etc.) and exploiting frontiers. Now that very few frontiers are left, and peak oil means the end of cheap energy (oil's portability and energy/weight ratio are unmatched), he argues the gravy train is coming to an end.
http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/Moore__The_end_of_cheap_nature__2014.pdf
If, as he and many others have plausibly argued, capitalism and global warming are linked, how do you solve one problem without solving the other?
While there is a lot of overlap between environmentalism and leftism, there are also a lot of groups who don't seem to grasp that connection. Greenwashing and the environmental track record of the USSR come to mind as obvious strawman reasons for the gap, but it's a gap that can and must be bridged. Although there's also slim hope of solving both problems in time anything helps...
2. What kinds of political formations will survive and prosper?
It really depends again on the severity (magnitude, timescale) of the problem and the future climate geography (Pacific Northwest, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia seem well positioned).
It seems likely that if people survive there will be states, gangs, city-states of some sort around but idk
Ecosocialism depends on the survival of states? or does it?
Anarchist gangs roving the cracked earth of the German Desert?
neoFeudalism (with drones) due to lack of oil meaning farm labor comes back big time?
small tribal groups of neoprimitivists (in the real sense) scavenging the remains of cities?
3. What Skills Do I(We) Need?
If civilization collapses those who are prepared are more likely to survive.
There is a huge array of responses that are popular and might or might not be useful: localism, DIY, sustainable ag/permaculture, survival training, off-grid living, etc.
There's a big right-wing collapse preparedness industry solidly based on selling guns, gold, and food pallets. Although they seem to think it will happen for entirely different reasons, they might just be the militias that form little statelets.
My friend wants to start a permaculture farm somewhere (lol) and I joked that I would be head of security since he is too liberal to own a gun. "If it got that bad I'd rather suicide"
His attitude points to a basic problem, being raised in and dependent on technology and civilization makes it difficult to imagine the transition and preparation. There are also a whole lot of technologies that are dependent/interdependent (nuclear reactor maintenance might be a problem) in a "suite" or what Lewis Mumford calls technics. The popularity of some of the transition skills that might be useful (food preservation/canning also has a craze) suggests that others in society see a grim future as well (or maybe the present economic crisis also makes it popular).
These two blogs are really interesting, about old technologies that might need to make a comeback and imagining the future:
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
Insurance companies are already pricing future global warming-related disasters in.
The Pentagon is certainly prepared (from 1st article):
It’s not merely scientists who know where we’re going. The Pentagon is bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks, as reported by Nafeez Ahmed in the 14 June 2013 issue of the Guardian. According to Ahmed’s article: “Top secret US National Security Agency (NSA) documents disclosed by the Guardian have shocked the world with revelations of a comprehensive US-based surveillance system with direct access to Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants. New Zealand court records suggest that data harvested by the NSA’s Prism system has been fed into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance whose members also include the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.” In short, the “Pentagon knows that environmental, economic and other crises could provoke widespread public anger toward government and corporations” and is planning accordingly. Such “activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis — or all three.” In their 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, the U.S. military concludes: “Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating.” The global police state has arrived, and it’s accompanied by a subtle changes in Earth’s rotation that result from the melting of glaciers and ice sheets (i.e., climate change is causing Earth’s poles to shift).
Mao Zedong: May you live in interesting times...
Me: 
I'll take the challenge.
Global Warming is invisible (except indirectly through it's effects).
It's everywhere (and it's out to get you)
but we don't have an ecofascist world government capable of forcing people to reduce emissions. And if we did it'd have to use a lot of emissions to project power globally (see US Imperialist War Machine)
By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.
Oil your nation doesn't burn is gonna be burned by some other nation who doesn't give a damn about global warming. See export of manufacturing sector from US to China (emissions they produce instead of us, even though they're gonna ship the crap here for us to buy)
People are personally incentivized against changing their ways.
It's slow and lasts a long time (unless you believe the abrupt theory). Frogs boil in pot or whatever
It's "in the future" and corporations measure their profits quarterly and governments only care about the next election.
TG posted:my favorite part is how we used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels so even if some species develops intelligence after were gone theyll never achieve a society as technologically advanced because its really hard to jump from a windmill or steam power to solar cells
read my evangelion steam Punk fanfic to find out how fukcing wrong you are about steam
lol don't worry guys, america will be able to plunder the world of it's dwindling resources just fine
also australia doesn't seem to change much from it's current desolate dryness, so they'll probably be fine, as long as they can attack the boat people
dipshit420 posted:also australia doesn't seem to change much from it's current desolate dryness, so they'll probably be fine, as long as they can attack the boat people
they're actually gettin hit really hard im pretty sure, I've seen a ton of Australia specific stuff that's really worrying. IWC burnt to death when he went out at midday to throw rocks at abos
NoFreeWill posted:Here's his list of feedback loops (I think it's up to 31 or something now). the major two are arctic sea ice melting which results in the dark ocean absorbing energy instead of the white ice reflecting it and methane release from permafrost melting since it's a faster-acting and more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (which has a 40-year time lag which means we are running on emissions from the 1970s) and also released by fracking and natural gas leakages:
inspired by COrn, to model this I'm remakeing SimEarth: The Albedo Simulator. Wish me luck, 'zzoners.
TG posted:my favorite part is how we used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels so even if some species develops intelligence after were gone theyll never achieve a society as technologically advanced because its really hard to jump from a windmill or steam power to solar cells
they were building solar powered steam turbines in the 19th century
conec posted:lgp sama.. i shall apply to an MA program at University of Toronto
congratulations. UofT is almost as good a school as mine. GO GOLDEN GAELSSSSSSSSSS
conec posted:golden gaels look like the minions from despicable me ROFL
there is a fight song which queens people sing and i always hated it but a few years ago i was with a bunch of alumni at my sister's wedding and i did the little dance and everything.... 
littlegreenpills posted:.custom270205{color:#1A1A6B !important; background-color:#A7B1BA !important; }TG posted:my favorite part is how we used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels so even if some species develops intelligence after were gone theyll never achieve a society as technologically advanced because its really hard to jump from a windmill or steam power to solar cells
they were building solar powered steam turbines in the 19th century
The french guy who invented the solar steam engine created it with a grant from the French government to deal with Peak Coal but then they discovered oil.
Superabound posted:fuck, and here i was, like an IDIOT, thinking i was going to live to see the year 2100
yeah... what's this 'we' shit kemosabe???
Barbarossa posted:i think that global warming is not a problem but rather a solution for the ~elites~. The conditions created will be ideal for strengthening government control of all of the necessities of life, create massive death tolls, and sweep the world of billions of people and lead the nations of the Earth to destroy each other in desperate bids for survival. All that will be left will be the super rich in their enclaves and the survivor-slaves that they choose to employ. Is there a super nintendo game that follows this storyline that I can relate to?
TG posted:my favorite part is how we used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels so even if some species develops intelligence after were gone theyll never achieve a society as technologically advanced because its really hard to jump from a windmill or steam power to solar cells
iirc most sketchy calculations still show that if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe any given world inhabited by intelligent life would likely have been inhabited by intelligent life at some point previous as illustrated in the Hollywood feature film The Creature From The Black Lagoon.
getfiscal posted:Superabound posted:fuck, and here i was, like an IDIOT, thinking i was going to live to see the year 2100
yeah... what's this 'we' shit kemosabe???
Hey Don, quick note: I see the ref here but you're using it wrong. The joke is that the lone ranger and tonto are surrounded by hostile Indians and the lone ranger says I guess we're done for and tonto drops the usual kemosabe to say "what you mean 'we', white man?" While I still "get" the ref and using tonto's catch phrase calls it out, it's kind of contrary to the point. Again, you're doing good work and I don't want to imply otherwise but that might be helpful for you. Namaste.