I have three small kids that she smothers with love. It’s really hard to reconcile with the total antipathy towards their future world.
Are you sure you won't reach that same point at some time in the future?
But on the other hand they are constantly enraged over some perceived threat to America posed by Democrats. They have not cast a vote for anyone without an R next to their name in 50 years. They care very much about the future insofar as it shouldn’t look anything like “left coast ideas spreading.” And in the same breath they can acknowledge that climate change may doom us all. They would rather the world burn than a hated ideology gain one inch.
Unfortunately this sort of mindset is quite normal where I live.
My 27 year old nephew, on the other hand, couldn't care less. Well, I mean, he likes to roll coal, but I don't think he's necessarily doing it deliberately to spite the environment, he's just a jerk.
Here's what's going to happen:
1. Some places are going to be flooded. The important ones will construct sea barriers. The others: oh well.
2. Some places will become infertile while other places become fertile: sucks that the Midwest will become a desert but Canada is going to be a great place to grow things in 100 years.
3. Technology will improve if things get really dire but I'm sure human ingenuity will pull through.
The numerous “i’m young and also don’t care” comments completely miss the point.
No the ones that can afford it will.
"sucks that the Midwest will become a desert but Canada is going to be a great place to grow things in 100 years"
Do you have some evidence or are you just assuming? Day lengths, and weather changes means it wont necessarily work out how you expect.
"Technology will improve if things get really dire"
Such as.... Because by then it'll be too late for solar, wind turbines, battery storage, nuclear, electric cars/planes/boats and any kind of carbon capture that's currently plausible.
Most valuable places will be flooded. Sea barriers won't stop it. You're going to be able to sail over the Guggenheim. Maps of the US will have to be re-drawn to remove Florida.
> 2. Some places will become infertile while other places become fertile: sucks that the Midwest will become a desert but Canada is going to be a great place to grow things in 100 years.
Unlikely. Soil erosion is accelerated by climate change. There are roughly 60 harvests left. Fresh water is going to become extremely scarce. Constant, slow-moving storms will basically reduce yields on land that is still viable. Did you notice how much of this year's harvest was off because of the torrential rains?
The tundra isn't going to become fertile. It's a bubbling mass of methane and hyrdrocarbons. It barely has any soil. Who wants to try and grow things on a mushy field, full of mostly dead things, that might explode or re-introduce you to ancient diseases?
Plus you will have vast tracts of densely populated areas with people that need to migrate because the wet bulb temperature there is lethal to all humans. Mass migrations of billions of hungry, thirsty people.
> 3. Technology will improve if things get really dire but I'm sure human ingenuity will pull through.
Not fast enough. I wouldn't rely on it, "sorting itself out." We're already in the 6th mass extinction. That's not activism, that's just science. We're on the roller coaster and the time to get off was about 30-40 years ago.
If you look into any carbon sequestration technology out there it's simply not feasible at scale. Maybe it will be in 30-40 years but we'll already be into the worst effects of climate change by then.
If we do nothing now it will be worse later than if we try to do better.
The likelihood that you or I will make it to our twilight years in comfort is very low. It gets lower the more that we delay action to reduce our carbon footprint and try to slow down or stabilize the feedback loops. Things got this way because the generation before us didn't do anything about it knowing full well that this outcome was likely. It was known in the seventies that this could happen if we didn't reign in emissions. Well... guess what? It happened. And here we are. It's not the predictions of one person -- there are thousands of corroborating studies over decades of research.
You made my point for me. Sorry, that's just NOT going to happen. The extreme hyperbole of the climate change side is not helping matters.
It's possible it won't happen but it's not going to be because we do nothing today and continue with current emissions trends.
https://choices.climatecentral.org/#6/25.760/-80.206?compare...
> You're going to be able to sail over the Guggenheim
The Guggenheim is 77 feet tall. We're not going to be sailing over it. That's my point about hyperbole.
All coastal cities will experience some flooding. I've seen projections of 4-6 feet sea rise. That's not insurmountable by sea walls.
That map is useless because it doesn't show projected depths. It gets people all riled up without also explaining, yea in mid-town Manhattan if we do absolutely nothing between now and then we'll be under a foot or two of water.
Sure, the impacts will only get worse, so logically the young should from a pure selfish point of view be more concerned. In practice I don't think age is the principle component separating those who care from those who do not.
For them, destroying the environment is not destroying yourself. It's prioritizing short term gain at the expense of their children and grandchildren.
It's no coincidence that the majority of politicians and corporate leadership is in this age group, hence the lack of urgency in mitigating climate change.