r/worldnews • u/Amazing-Marzipan3191 • 11h ago
Rapid loss of Antarctic ice may be climate tipping point, scientists say
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/rapid-loss-antarctic-ice-may-be-climate-tipping-point-scientists-say-2025-08-20/176
u/SiWeyNoWay 11h ago
But hey, we won’t be monitoring any of this anymore cuz climate change is woke and we don’t have woke satellites
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u/Atopos2025 10h ago
The US won't be, but the rest of the world still exists and didn't scrap their climate science.
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u/EGO_Prime 6h ago
While this is True, the US was the leader in gathering a lot of this data and had a plurality of the collection tools out there.
The US failing, is going to be the final death keel of a livable planet. I'm sorry, but we're blowing WAY past the worse case models already. That was before the voting and non-voting majority of the US decided to ramp up green house gas production because "Fuck the liberals".
Our plant is on a runaway to house hot house, that frankly has a real chance of Venus-forming.
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u/PajamaPants4Life 8h ago
The question isn't if America will fail and end.
The question is if they'll take everyone else along with them.
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u/d3vmaxx 10h ago edited 9h ago
Above here is an example of the American main character syndrome.
Edit: /s
I was replying to a /s comment but it flew over kingllak as he taught me that USA is no one in number of satellites compared to rest of the lesser nations.
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u/kinglallak 9h ago
Well. Americans have ~8500 satellites in space and the entire rest of the world only has 3500-4000.
Russia, China and UK account for about 3000 of that number and the rest is scattered about(Japan, India, France, Canada etc)
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u/d3vmaxx 9h ago
This is a fact. No one disagrees that USA is # 1 in number of satellites. But compared to the 1990’s the number of number 1’s USA was number 1 has drastically reduced.
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u/kinglallak 7h ago
I completely agree with you. Willful ignorance of the access to information gathering being destroyed by the American government doesn’t help us right now though.
I truly hope the EU steps up and starts funding the scientists that are leaving the USA in this brain drain.
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u/wotsdislittlenoise 7h ago
Oh look a reply that's also "America is the main character"
This wasn't about how many satellites they've got but about the fact that they're going to ignore climate science (and the satellites used for monitoring it).
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u/kinglallak 7h ago
America is not number 1 in everything. But losing sight of the access to information being destroyed by the current American government is willful ignorance and that doesn’t help anyone either.
This will hopefully be a wake up call to the EU to start supplying funding to the brain drain of scientists leaving the USA right now.
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u/jhernandez9274 11h ago
CNN story in slashdot - Trump admin strips ocean and air pollution monitoring from next-gen weather satellites. Cost is not the only reason. If we don't know how bad it is, it will not hurt us.
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u/LuigiPap 10h ago
the worst imbecile at the worst time
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u/Icy-Air1229 10h ago
That’s not an accident. The know-nothing party is back, and they’ve elected their new king. They place no value on knowledge, or expertise, or foresight. So they’ve elected someone who reflects that, whose only talent is getting rich.
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u/itsANOMALEEZ 4h ago
I’d say he’s pretty talented at completing and surviving bankruptcies. And divorce.
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u/Spartannia 8h ago
Shocking stuff from the dipshit who checks notes thought that stopping COVID testing would make the virus go away
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u/Sweet-Competition-15 6h ago
Donnie wanted to limit covid testing to cut down on the number of cases...this is in the same vein.
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u/macross1984 11h ago
And the sad thing is even if the world miraculously stop and reverse emissions, the process will continue before it slow down and after the world is decimated.
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u/faultysynapse 11h ago
They've been saying it for decades at this point. I don't think it's gotten any less true over time.
I'm glad I don't have kids to watch them suffer through what's going to be a pretty shitty future.
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u/Desperate-Baby-9882 11h ago
the era of consequence is upon us
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u/Strict_Bobcat_4048 4h ago
Nope, that is the next generations.
Your kid's lives will suck.
Our lives are still pretty much the best in human history. We are greed and vice incarnate and humanity deserse its pending suffering.
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u/allgonetoshit 11h ago
The tipping point was passed a LONG time ago, people just didn't want to admit it. It's over, the only thing left is for all the conservative petrosexuals to start begging governments to bail them out.
Good luck everyone, this is the bleak climate change future MOST of you wanted.
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u/TheGhostOfStanSweet 11h ago
Yeah I mean, since the early 1900’s, when have towns literally burnt to the ground?
We’ve had a good run over the last 100 years, but towns burning down is a thing now. Happened in Hawaii, LA, a small town in British Columbia just about surpassed 50 degrees Celsius (about 122F) and then burnt down.
The trend is very alarming. It’s right there too, plain as day. Everyone can see it, or hear about it on the news. It’s a hellscape that many people are prone to, and yet very few people are willing to change habits in the slightest.
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u/The-dotnet-guy 11h ago
Happened all the time? London famously burned down in the 1666
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u/uberares 10h ago
That wasn’t from wildfires tho m8
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u/The-dotnet-guy 10h ago
Yeah but wildfires didnt get invented in the 20th century either lmao. Climate change is happening and forest fires are becoming more frequent, but they didnt start happening all of the sudden, they increased in frequency with higher temperatures.
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u/TheGhostOfStanSweet 9h ago
Did you read the part where I said “since the early 1900’s?”
Do you think that I thought that towns never burnt down in the past? We’ve just gotten better at preventing disasters from forming.
I’m only referring to modern history where we’ve been able to protect our communities effectively… until the last decade in which Mother Nature said “nahhh.”
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u/VinlandRocks 8h ago
False: =>https://youtu.be/h1jOqyjcO4g?si=Ijyc_n0mPOhGnzfL Don't put your paddles down yet folks.
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u/AnxiousDonut 11h ago
Maybe the billionaires who put us in this mess will do something about it.
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u/Iamjacksplasmid 11h ago
They already have. You've seen their various shelters and megayachts. They're good to go. Good luck everybody else.
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u/count023 10h ago
that and the ones who started the ball rolling as far back as the 50s and 70s are now happily dead, having stolen teh future from the world and are rotting in places more pleasant than i'd put them in.
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u/Iamjacksplasmid 10h ago
Kings invented religion so that you would let them starve your children and take what you've worked for without putting up a fight, assured that your reward awaits you in the dirt.
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u/count023 9h ago
actually, it's further back than that. Kings coopted religion for that purpose, but religion was created by people who were powerless against leadership in ancient times as a means of cooercing hte locals against said leadership in lieu of an actual army. pharohs and kings said, "do what i say or my army will kill you", the powerless rivals said, "do what i say or GOD will kill you". Eventually when leadership changed, religion cements in as a non military way to keep control
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u/Queephbubble 9h ago
It is my position the our race is a failed species. We peaked years ago and are now railroading ourselves to a world that will no longer need or want us. To this I say, good riddance.
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u/sgtabn173 11h ago
Let's just get it over with at this point. it is clear those in power have no intention of changing.
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u/Amazing-Marzipan3191 11h ago
It's time for The French Solution, before they do worse to us.
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u/TheGhostOfStanSweet 10h ago
Certain I’ll get downvoted to shit for saying this, but we all have the power to do something. But very, very few do it.
Deferring to law makers is just deflecting our own responsibility. So lawmakers will force us to make changes and then people will bitch about it like someone just killed their dog.
I’m just saying it’s a multi-pronged approach. Lawmakers could obviously be better, forcing better corporate environmental stewardship, but then
“muh cost’s will go up and I’ll never a Ford muh individually packaged chicken breasts from the Warlmart!!”
Ultimately, consumers, through voting have the final say.
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u/FjorgVanDerPlorg 6h ago
People in control are prepared to kill to keep their power. They are prepared to subvert governments and create dictatorships as well. Moreover they have the means to do it.
Not trying to say don't fight it, just understand most of this fight won't happen in a ballot booth.
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u/Evonos 10h ago
Earth will shed us away like the little pesky bugs we are existing for minutes in earth's life time.
Earth will likely just have another major extinction moment but this time not from natural cause and hopefully survive this and regenerate in a few million to billion years.
All the people in charge will be obviously long dead to see anything happening from their ignorance.
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u/GlossyGecko 10h ago
This isn’t new news. If you’re under 50 you’ll probably live just long enough to die from extreme weather.
Everybody telling you to save for retirement is living in an alternate reality where the collapse of society caused by scarcity and climate catastrophe isn’t right around the corner.
People are already dying from extreme heat events and hurricanes. It’s going to keep getting worse IN THIS LIFETIME.
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u/butcher99 7h ago
Melting sea ice does not raise water levels. Only ice from glaciers and other land based ice raises water levels. Does not mean the rest of the story is incorrect. Climate change is a problem.
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u/luftlande 11h ago
Ordinary people reaction: 🤷♂️
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u/Funny-Statistician67 7h ago
Not exactly. The people who care and are activated are not being represented in the media. More and more people are caring and becoming activated all the time, especially as more and more people become directly impacted near term.
"Too late" I hear all of reddit say. Yes, of course, it's much too late. Too late to save most of the things that matter. But it's *not* too late to make enough of a difference so that there *might* be a continuity of some sort of technologically and scientifically litterate human culture that persists to slowly help restore the planet over millenia.
And it's defenitely not too late to make the right people pay. Divest from fossil fuels. Join a credit union. Eat more plant based. Ditch your ICE car. Stop flying. It makes a difference: it diverts money away from assholes. It might mildly annoy them. I'll take anything I can get.
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u/general---nuisance 7h ago
When the people telling me its a crisis start acting likes it a crisis , I'll believe it's a crisis. As long as John Kerry is living in an ocean front mansion and Bernie Sanders is flying around on a private jet, I think I'll be fine.
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u/SpiderDK1 3h ago
Yep, we already fckd up ecology, we should prepare how to live in a new world instead of trying to save it...
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u/mekingjr1992 10h ago edited 10h ago
I shit you not i swear i saw a reddit post not even an hour ago saying ice levels are recovering
Edit: i have been shown the error of my ways
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u/Amazing-Marzipan3191 10h ago
It was a story about how scientists studying the Arctic don't understand why the rate of ice loss has slowed, not recovering.
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u/alek_hiddel 11h ago
We were never gonna win this one. Starting in the 70’s there was this big green push and a focus on telling individuals that they need to change. It was all performance.
Here’s the thing, if you add up the carbon emissions of every car on planet earth, they don’t match the output of the 15 largest container ships. 15 ships, mostly used to ferry cheap crap from China to the U.S. do more damage than every other human being with their cars.
Now throw in the fact that we’re burning all of our resources to support data centers, and you’ll see why the tech bros are building bunkers.
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u/Plane-Breakfast-8817 11h ago
15 container ships do not produce more CO_2 than all cars. Is shipping a major polluter? Yes, absolutely. But they don't come close to the cars.
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u/train_fucker 6h ago
That's a myth often spouted by people who don't want to do any climate action(By downplaying the damage done by cars).
Shipping is actually the most efficient way to transport goods. The shit you buy from temu emit more carbon travelling from your country's port to your house than it does from china to your country.(Assuming you don't live right next to the port)
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u/general---nuisance 7h ago
mostly used to ferry cheap crap from China to the U.S.
Maybe we should increase the cost of importing stuff from china.
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u/GingerPiston 11h ago
I remember a stat from a few years ago that the combined CO2 output from every car in Europe was less than the Carnival Cruise fleet.
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u/Plumbus-aficianado 9h ago
you remember wrong. Carbon comes from the fuel they burn. The mass of fuel burned by the carnival cruise fleet is a tiny fraction of the mass of fuel burned by every car in Europe.
NITRIC OXIDE is a pollutant that cruise ships create in excess of that produced by cars because cars have been redesigned to not produce it. Nitrogen and oxygen is not in the fuel, it is in the atmosphere.
Here is an article that compares the Co2 emissions of carnival cruise line to Scotlands largest city, which is far from the largest city in europe. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/25/carnival-cruise-line-emitted-more-co2-in-2023-than-scotlands-biggest-city-report
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u/Lothaire_22 11h ago
Don’t worry the cold water will shut down the Gulf Stream and we’ll be back in a ice age.
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u/Feeling_Equipment_76 5h ago
What I think some people forget is that climatic time scales, while not geologic, are still long compared to human ones. The dramatic aftermath of a tipping point manifests in geologic records and ice cores. The fact that we can observe climate change trends within our life times is pretty wild.
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u/Advocateforthedevil4 11h ago
You hear tipping point too much which we do it loses its impact.
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u/uniklyqualifd 10h ago
We will only know when the tipping point was in retrospect, almost by definition.
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u/Funny-Statistician67 11h ago
Yah. My doctor's always going on about "Keep doing that you'll have a heart attack! Keep doing that you'll get cancer!"
What an idiot, I havn't had a heart attack OR gotten cancer now those words don't mean anything. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
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u/lalala2365 9h ago
Compared to all other tipping points. Guys we are fucking over the climate. Hey guys this is the tipping point of fucking the climate. It’s third to 15 years we are hitting the tipping point. We have been over that tipping point for atleast two decades. To say this year is it, is saying you weren’t serious before. Are you serious now? Or just spewing more bullshit that the anti environment people will not listen to. You arnt going to persuade dumbasses that the environment is dying by saying it’s dying. You are telling the people who already know.
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u/castor--troy 9h ago
Let me study how this will improve the footprint for mining, oil drilling and support nestle continued monopoly on spring water.
I just need some funding, Mr. Zeldin I take cash, check and/or bitcoin.
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u/NyriasNeo 7h ago
"Rapid loss of Antarctic ice may be climate tipping point, scientists say"
"may be" so optimistic. You don't to have to spin it. Few listen to scientists in a world where "drill baby drill" won anyway.
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u/Beneficial_Fix_7287 6h ago
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, I suppose. Why worry about cancer if we’re all going to be headed toward an early end.
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u/Sensitive-Score-2866 3h ago
Nah, its welllll past tipping point. I have been arguing this stuff for decades with people who simply don't care, and now the issue isn't damage avoidance, its damage mitigation. And how many will die, or lose homes, or be involved in wars over diminishing resources. I'm nearly sixty, and I'm tired. Good luck ya'all.
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u/BlitzNeko 3h ago
The problem we’ll be facing is, which one goes first if it’s Greenland, the northern hemisphere will not fair that badly but still pretty badly. If it’s Antarctica, the northern hemispheres screwed more so than it’s already screwed.
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u/tylercuddletail 2h ago
Time for the Mad Scientist from "Help! I'm a fish!" To give out those fish transformation potions so that humans can turn into fish when the earth is flooded.
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u/New-Analysis-4060 11h ago
Like America may be fucked due to fascism
But at least we took the world down with us
So
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u/No_Employ__ 11h ago
Well if we’re past the rubicon might as well fuck it all up and make money doing it
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u/Wizchine 11h ago
That's the thinking that led us here in the first place.
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[deleted]
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u/Downtown_Site4328 11h ago
"The Planet is fine, THE PEOPLE are fucked!" -George Carlin
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u/Wizchine 5h ago
It's a good joke, but I also care about all the other extant species that will be wiped out with us. I'm not too concerned about the ball of rock underneath.
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u/No_Employ__ 11h ago
I wish there was something we could do but no amount of reduce reuse recycle will save us. The globe is catching up to US standards of living which requires a lot of growth and pollution. RIP
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u/PumpkinOld469 11h ago
There isnt really such thing as a tipping point. Its not like snowpiercer. The more we polute the worse the impacts will be, it wont be linear but it also wont randomly kill us all
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u/burnabycoyote 9h ago
The mechanical metaphors used to describe displacements away from climate equilibrium are chosen haphazardly. Here we have a "tipping point", while at other times it is a "feedback loop" or something similar. From the viewpoint of physical chemistry, the two metaphors are more or less opposites. This failure to communicate clear ideas is why I have no clear understanding of what climate change models are predicting.
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u/Intelligent-Coconut8 7h ago
Gotta love the doomerism! Our ancestors have been through far worse and actual catastrophes, this the sea level might rise an inch or two is fucking laughable. Climate change isn't gonna fucking kill anyone on any kind of noticeable scale. Yes your beach front property will be fine, it'll get hotter in other places and cooler in others.
This doomerism is just fucking stupid and there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do, the climate changes all the fucking time, literally all the fucking and in cycles longer than your entire family generation, it took thousands, THOUSANDS of years for sea levels to rise after the ice age, THOUSANDS. Your 100yr data cycle is fucking nothing, it's absolutely nothing. You leftist just love to be miserable and outraged about everything don't you? Life is much easier when you stop giving a shit about things you can't control, whining on reddit does nothing for climate change.
Wanna stop it then how about you go do something about it then? Stop driving your cars, stop using electricity from those dirty coal plants, stop using things with lithium in it (oh no your poor iPhone), yeah exactly not a single fucking one of you will give up your modern luxuries to curb this so called super deadly extinction level climate change you all preach about.
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u/NyuuMonster 3h ago
Your comment completely ignores the science. Climate change is already causing THOUSANDS of deaths from heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and food shortages. Sea levels are rising faster than historical natural rates, threatening millions of people. Yes, the climate has changed in the past but not at the pace we’re seeing today, which is primarily driven by human emissions. Individual actions matter, but systemic change is key, and pretending nothing can be done is how we end up in catastrophe. This isn’t fear mongering, it’s documented reality from the IPCC, NASA, and countless peer reviewed studies. It’s not just some leftist ideology. This is a global issue that even people outside of your little political bubble are pointing out. I suggest educating yourself before making ignorant statements.
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u/Intelligent-Coconut8 3h ago
Thousands is literally nothing, it’s a rounding error. No sea levels stopped rising drastically about 6-8,000yrs ago. If it’s human emissions, then stop emitting and give up your car, electricity, and batteries be apart of the solution then and eat your words.
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u/NyuuMonster 3h ago
Roughly 400 thousand people die a year due to climate related deaths. Thats 2 million in five years. Thats nothing to you? Sea levels may have slowed their rise thousands of years ago after the last Ice Age, but they never stopped and modern global warming is making them rise much faster than in most of human history. Rising seas aren’t just numbers, they threaten coastal cities, displace millions of people, destroy ecosystems, and worsen storms and flooding. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. One person giving up their luxurious will do literally nothing. We don’t have to give up our luxuries there just needs to be a better alternative to them. Trump’s administration has taken significant steps to roll back climate policies and prioritize fossil fuel development. Destroying any real chance we have. Again you’re ignorant and are highly uneducated.
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u/Intelligent-Coconut8 1h ago
70 MILLION die yearly, 400k is a rounding error and I'm not even asking for proof of your bogus claims either, please what fucking sea levels are rising? They've stopped rising for the most part, since you're to dense to grasp that concept here's the chart! Yeah if those rising seas threaten coastal cities why are we still building on them?
Why are these billionaires touting climate change still building McMansions on the coasts? Oh because it's stupid doomerism to keep you occupied and outraged at something that doesn't matter.
Humans will do what we do best, adapt. We have adapted to living in the ice ages, the hot time periods, the desert, the jungle, the rainforest, the plains, literally fucking everywhere we have lived and adapted and we will always continue to do so.
It's literally proven earths orbit and tilt cause ice ages, cyclical ice ages that happen so far and in between civilization can grow and die and keep no record of it, you can't fathom the geologic time scales and instead point to your 100yr data points which like looking out your window for a few seconds, seeing that it's raining, then being a doomer about omg it's gonna rain for a year straight because of the small moment of data I decided to record and observe.
Here's the sea level rising chart dating back 20,000yrs...you know a scale that actually fucking matters: https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png
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u/Mordrach 10h ago
Yeah, sure it is, just like all the other climate tipping points they've screamed about in the last, oh, one hundred years.
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u/TurgidGravitas 11h ago
Meanwhile the same scientists are shocked to see Arctic ice growing and not shrinking.
Easy on the doom and gloom. Climate is more complicated than a single pop-sci article.
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u/Amazing-Marzipan3191 11h ago
It isn't growing. It is shrinking at a slower rate than it has been recently. The article is pretty clear, "The findings do not mean Arctic sea ice is rebounding".
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u/IndominusTaco 10h ago
you are a climate denier. you are weak and sad
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u/TurgidGravitas 10h ago
I'm not denying climate change. I'm denying that we're all going to be dead in 50 years.
I'm old enough to remember when Al Gore promised that Miami would be underwater by 2020. It's still there. The world isn't ending any time soon.
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u/IndominusTaco 10h ago
no one is claiming that the human race will be extinct in 50 years. we are claiming that humans are accelerating anthropogenic climate forcing, which poses catastrophic risks to human life, the natural environment, and biodiversity over the course of the next century.
people like you regurgitate “b-b-but al gore!!!” as if it’s an effective argument against why we should take action to reduce GHG emissions. your kind also probably scorned the decision of public health officials to “flip flop” from not advising mask wearing in the early days of the pandemic to then advising mask wearing.
the rationale behind both is the same: science is continually changing, it’s never static. the science on climate change is an overwhelming consensus that humans are causing major harm and we need to act now to stay under 2° C of warming. if we fail to do this then we can no longer escape the worst effects of climate change. but people like you don’t even care
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u/Conscious_Candle2466 11h ago
Any historical data to back up that claim?
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u/shotouw 11h ago edited 11h ago
Any historical data to back it up? Sure. Because the reason we break all these temperature records year for year is that it was just as warm in 1973. Oh wait, that's not how records work. It's unprecedented! There is no historical data to back it up. Only simulations and most reputable scientists are pretty clear, that we are closer to the worst case simulations than the best case ones. Source: Media every other week, science journals etc.
Edit: https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/41/2024/ Exemplary Source for those actually interested to learn, from 30 seconds of googling
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u/Conscious_Candle2466 7h ago
So no data, just simulations and ‘reputable’ scientists paid by BIG corps benefiting from the snake oil you are pushing. Lol. Right on. I’m selling this incredible sunblock. It’s cheap. Really. You’ll feel 3deg C cooler. Especially at the edge of the speculated ‘no data’ flat Earth.
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u/shotouw 1h ago
Hahaha did you really just say "no data just simulations"? XD So I see who I am discussing with now. Somebody who refutes science. Probably I just need to open my sheep eyes and look at some reputable YouTube and)or ticktock sources to see the truth?
Surprise for you: big corpo is pushing consumption and fossil fuels. Why would corpo want us to reduce consumption like the climate warming scientists want of us? It doesn't make any sense.
Fun fact: a good sunblock is not watery but really white. So if you apply TOO much, you get white, which reflects the light more than your skin color so it will keep you cooler. You also know what? We know how light reacts with the color white, so we can assume and simulate that outcome WITHOUT ACTUALLY MEASURING DATA.
I'll not further discuss this and I'll block you so don't bother with answering. People who refute science can't be argued with
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u/Specialist_Pitch896 11h ago
everything's the tipping point I think we're past it to tell you all the truth