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‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost - iPolitics (www.ipolitics.ca)

submitted 3 weeks ago by asg101@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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How to say Marx was right without saying "Marx was right".

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[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 207 points 3 weeks ago

Let's be clear about something; climate scientists almost universally agree that there is no such thing as "winning" or "losing" the fight against climate change (Suzuki, for the record, is a zoologist, not a climate scientist). This isn't a game, there's no referee, and no one gets a trophy at the end.

The battle against climate change is about mitigating harm. The worse we do, the more harm there will be. But there is never a point where it is "too late". The car is going to crash, but the sooner you hit the brakes, the less damaging the impact will be. Everything we do to push the needle will save lives. There is never a point where we get to throw up our hands and succumb to the comforting fantasy that it's "too late" to change anything.

I have a lot of respect for Suzuki, and I don't blame him for feeling defeated with everything that's happening, but spreading this kind of message is, dangerous, damaging, and flies entirely in the face of the science.

[-] yucandu@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago

Back before George W Bush directed NASA to call it climate change, it was called global warming, and you can definitely win against that - by stopping the earth from warming. That's unwinnable due to feedback loops that have now begun.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 27 points 3 weeks ago

Does not remotely address my point. We can always - always - work to reduce the harm caused by climate change.

The point where the harm could be reduced to "none" is decades past us. If that's the point where you give up then fuck off. Climate change is actively causing harm as we speak, and it is still worth fighting. We can still make life better for ourselves and future generations.

The notion that climate change is some kind of runaway engine that will continue amok without any further human input is nonsense. Yes, I'm aware of ideas like "Permafrost methane bombs" and I've also done enough research to be aware that only a small fringe of climate scientists actually support those ideas. They're flashy and exciting and get big press, but they are not widely accepted climate science.

What climate science shows is that the climate actually responds faster to reductions in CO2 than our older models predicted. That means that debacarbonization can have real and meaningful positive impacts beyond what we previously thought possible.

There is real damage already done, and there is damage that we cannot undo, but there is never a point where the problem goes beyond our input. The climate fight is always worth fighting.

[-] chunes@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

"Too late" implies civilization collapse to me. That's pretty much guaranteed once the warming we're locked into happens.

[-] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 weeks ago

Suzuki is and always was just a mouthpiece for corporate masters. Controlled opposition to steer public opinion. He is not and never will be a climatologist. His message is one of defeat because his backers want us to give up.

Suzuki can kiss my white ass.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Sort of? I don't think he mentioned tipping points anywhere in there, it was pretty non-specific and ranty, but if we've passed a tipping point it becomes less a matter of applying a brake and more of actively causing massive climate change in the other direction. Failing that, the warming trend and other shifts will stop when the Earth reaches a new balance and no sooner.

Nobody really knows where those tipping points are. The Paris thresholds were our expert's best guesses for a "safe" amount of warming.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago

Even if we do pass some kind of "tipping point" (and you need to understand that every tipping point is just an arbitrary line that climate scientists draw to try to draw people's attention to the problem), we can still mitigate the damage. There is never a point where fighting climate change becomes worthless. The less we do now, the greater the damage will be in the future. That's all there is to it. Tipping points are just a way of illustrating that.

[-] GameGod@lemmy.ca 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

every tipping point is just an arbitrary line that climate scientists draw to try to draw people’s attention to the problem

That is completely, utterly wrong. Climate scientists are talking about the physical concept of the tipping point, which is observed in nature and also comes out of their models. In climate, it's the point at which reversing a change that originally happened over decades would take thousands of years. For example, this has been the huge concern with the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which plays a large role in the climate of western Europe: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2791639/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation

Especially read the sections about Stability and vulnerability, Effects of an AMOC slowdown, and Effects of an AMOC shutdown.

My point is, tipping points are absolutely not an arbitrary thing. They are very solid predictions based on the physics of the climate. We don't necessarily understand exactly how close we are, even though we're observing some effects of being close to them, but the impacts of crossing them will make climate change even worse and hence the alarm.

Edit: If anyone reads these links and your eyes glaze over and you don't understand of word of what's written, then you need the humility to listen and accept what climate scientists have been trying to tell you. Some of the smartest people on the planet have been working on this for decades.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago

If that's what we're meaning when we talk about "tipping points", yes, they exist. But as you yourself said, "We don’t necessarily understand exactly how close we are." The idea that passing some arbitrary line like "1.5 degrees" is a point of no return is unscientific nonsense, and that's what the vast majority of people mean when they say "tipping points."

And the point is, none of that changes the need to keep working towards improvement. Every fraction of a degree less the planet heats will make a difference. Even as monumental climate changes occur, those changes can be lessened, their impact reduced, by any amount that we decarbonise the atmosphere.

If you're under the impression that I'm arguing against climate change being real in any way shape or form, or that I'm arguing against it being utterly catastrophic, you've missed my point so badly that you might as well be reading it in a different language. My point is very, very simple; there is never a point where we get to give up.

No matter what happens, every effort to reduce the damage to our climate will save lives. Things can always be worse, and because things can always be worse it ontologically follows that things can always be better, even when the definition of "better' is "fewer people die."

The fight isn't lost or won. Get those concepts out of your mind. Suzuki - as brilliant as he may be - is an idiot for invoking them like this. He's speaking about a very limited, very specific piece of the fight, but he should have understood that the public would take his words entirely out of context. The people who want to poison and destroy our planet for profit are, right now, actively pushing the propaganda that the battle against climate change is over. They are wrong, and they are lying. The battle against climate change is a battle to reduce harm, and you can always reduce harm, now matter how great the scale of the eventual harm may be.

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[-] jafffacakelemmy@mander.xyz 7 points 3 weeks ago

In your car crash analogy, we are now past the point where hitting the brakes will help. The car will be irrepairably destroyed and all passengers will be killed.

[-] HaiZhung@feddit.org 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

This is flat out wrong. In fact, the more co2 is emitted, the more extreme the consequences are. The change from 0->1 degree of global warming barely registers. The change from 3->4 degrees is catastrophical, for example.

Thus, the warmer it gets, the more worth it is to fight against it, as each small win contributes more to the bottom line than in the beginning.

[-] BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 8 points 3 weeks ago

Just put ice in the airbags.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago

That's why it's an analogy, and not reality.

There is no point where hitting the brakes will not help. We can always reduce the amount of harm done.

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[-] CircaV@lemmy.ca 54 points 3 weeks ago

Canada (and the world) will burn. You think migrants are a problem now? Wait until millions of people have no choice but to go north and the water wars start.

[-] huppakee@feddit.nl 13 points 3 weeks ago

O damn, almost forgot about the water wars. Those were brutal. Before those people genuinely believed there was nothing bigger than a World War. The fools. Like if you're still here in 2125.

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[-] demerara@social.vivaldi.net 40 points 3 weeks ago

@asg101 I agree we've lost the opportunity and will have to "hunker down". But hearing it from David Suzuki is...hard.

[-] myrmidex@belgae.social 28 points 3 weeks ago

the focus on politics, economics, and law are all destined to fail because they are based around humans. They’re designed to guide humans, but we’ve left out the foundation of our existence, which is nature, clean air, pure water, rich soil, food, and sunlight. That’s the foundation of the way we live and, when we construct legal, economic and political systems, they have to be built around protecting those very things, but they’re not.

Powerful truth!

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[-] WrathfulBirch@lemmy.cafe 24 points 3 weeks ago

I gave up a long time ago. The last time we really did anything about an issue like this was lead in gasoline. 50+ years of knowing we had to change. I wonder if maybe the wealthy elites know whats coming. I wonder if this new rise in facism is partially an answer to the fact that there won't be enough of anything to go around. That is why they want us having babies. for soliders. I hope they have some spark of humanity and let people self terminate but I bet you would need money for it.

[-] pedz@lemmy.ca 17 points 3 weeks ago

Just wanted to add that maybe the last thing that we did for the environment and that really worked was for acid rain in 1991. At least where I live.

A few years before that there was the Montreal Protocol that banned CFCs and helped to heal the hole in the ozone layer. I think.

But yeah, I don't remember anything of the sort recently,

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[-] seaQueue@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

I'm pretty sure that's what the grab for Ukraine and Trump's stated intent to annex Greenland is about. Both of those have the potential to become food security sources after significant global heating. I'm also pretty sure that's why authoritarians are seizing control of govt (and by extension that govts security services) because there won't be enough to go around and they're going to need soldiers to keep the hungry people away from their billionaire breadbaskets.

[-] srecko@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 weeks ago

What about ozone layer?

[-] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago

Genuinely seen conspiracy theorists say "they removed lead paint to that they can control you with 5g"

If we still had lead gasoline, people would say you can pry it out of their cold dead hands

[-] jafffacakelemmy@mander.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago

We do still have leaded petrol. All piston engined aircraft are still burning fuel with added lead.

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[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 23 points 3 weeks ago

Has been for ages. It's now question of how bad, and we are still making it worse.

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[-] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 weeks ago

Lol yup, trump also went all in on climate denial. Definitely fucked.

[-] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 weeks ago

Giving up is exactly where the "too late" come from, quitter shouldn't be leading climate advocacy.

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

I mean...the next steps involves lots of fire and death...so...that's not going to save the environment either but it will certainly send a message.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 17 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks to big corporations effectively owning governments and big politicians the world over, things aren't bound to get better anytime soon, because "the economy". Fuck that shit

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And thank the Saudis too. Guess where the previous conference on phasing out fossil fuel, but agreed to slow down the process, was held.

[-] mrodri89@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 weeks ago

Yep, Trump just put all our climate mitigation funds into big oil. We’re cooked.

[-] CircaV@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 weeks ago

And Trunp is bringing back coal too. Fucked doesn’t even describe it.

[-] tastemyglaive@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago

How to say Marx was right without saying "Marx was right".

Hard disagree, this is a liberal doing the usual thing. As John Bellamy Foster elaborates on in his articles and books, the fight against climate change isn't lost, it's been abandoned by the ruling class of imperial core countries. Look up some of his stuff on Monthly Review the ecological rift is a very important concept that never appears in the kind of discourse you're posting

[-] jaykrown@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

Saying we have failed is the easiest thing to say.

[-] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

Doesn't mean it's not the truth.

[-] CatherineLily 13 points 3 weeks ago

So, how long do we have left?

[-] asg101@lemmy.ca 36 points 3 weeks ago

No one knows, many humans and other species are already dying from climate change today. Get used to hearing the phrase "It is happening much faster than expected." from now on.

[-] CatherineLily 18 points 3 weeks ago

Guess people better start updating their plans then. No point in starting a family and having kids when they'll just die to climate change.

[-] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 10 points 3 weeks ago

People are doing that. Fertility rates are way below replacement rates. Now billionaires are freaking out that their customer base and work force is shrinking.

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[-] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 14 points 3 weeks ago

"Collapse is a process, not an event." It's very likely we'll be extinct by the end of the century. There will be all manner of hell from now until then. Our population of over 8 billion is only possible because of a highly complex global web of systems. Complex systems are fragile. Once dominos start falling, people will start starving very quickly.

[-] scintilla@kbin.earth 16 points 3 weeks ago

Its entirely possible that 99% of humanity dies but I don't really buy into us going extinct. People have an inate drive to survive and even if things are genuinely horrible I don't see them just giving up. Unless there is literally no food/potable water I think the planet is stuck with some form of humanity until the planet is uninhabitable. Remember there are still dinosaurs around today, they just look different.

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[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago

All that's left is to make the rich suffer.

[-] asg101@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 weeks ago

“The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

~Utah Phillips

Inb4 some pedant quibbles that "the planet itself is not dying." Yeah, but we and our fellow creatures are. It should be understood that is what Mr. Phillips meant.

[-] SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago

I try to stay postive but we're slowly burning and yet politics has never been so aggressively stupid about this. And the warlords dictating or culture too. I don't want this.

[-] mintiefresh@piefed.social 10 points 3 weeks ago

🔥🔥 This is fine 🔥🔥

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 weeks ago

Less people accept climate change in Canada today than 20 years ago. If we couldn’t do anything about it then, why would now be different?

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[-] Snowclone@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

1950's oil execs funded studies that show how they will kill the planet if they don't stop, transition to something else, hell they had enough fore warning they could have R&D'd solar and monopolize the tech, but NO! They needed to make faster money faster and stopping yourself from killing the human race isn't THAT important, and they knew they'd be dead by now.

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[-] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago

Did he fly across the world on his private jet to announce this?

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