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I hate to say it, but I keep avoiding articles about climate change for this reason. I can't do it every time, obviously, but it just gives me such stress. We're all so powerless while corporations destroy our planet.

Don't be too harsh on yourself, big corporations are the main cause of climate change. Unless we all collectively decide to give these companies a wake up call, I'm afraid there's very little you can do alone

And the worst part is, average citizens like yourself aren't a massive burden on the environment. It's people like Elon Musk flying personal jets across the world for dinner, who are actively contributing to the death of the planet.

Really? The feeling I get when I read articles like this is a resigned feeling of "No shit, we've only been hearing warnings of this for the past 30 years. People are fucking stupid"

We? No. We'll just be uncomfortable. Our kids? They're going to slowly cook to death as they're running out of food/water/oxygen. Or, y'know, get blown up in one of the wars fighting over scraps of food/water/oxygen.

But look on the bright side: we're on track to beat last fiscal year's profit margin! If we do that, we'll get a free company branded pencil and one ticket to use some leave-without-pay at you manager's discretion -- and the regional manager gets another vacation home!!

Mass famines and heat that kills without AC coming summer of 2024 or 2025. Won't kill the global north too much yet, but it will be one of the biggest deadly events in history for the rest of the world.p

No. We have a long ways away before the human population will be wiped out due to climate change. Most likely around 100 or so years. The issue is what happens before then. Increasing temperatures will mean less water for crops creating food crisis. It will mean rising water level which means people living in low coastal cities will have to move. There is going to be mass migration which people do not like (Conservative fearmongering and look at how the homeless are treated). The food shortages and migration will cause unprecedented poverty. Poverty is correlated to crime so there is going to be an uptick of it. If we don't cut our carbon emission by 2030, we are going to see water wars and food wars by 2050.

What do these food and water wars mean? It can mean a lot. The rich will most likely be fine and continue with their yachts and private jets which are the biggest contributors carbon emissions. There will be more and more wars breaking out and even 1st world countries will be affected. This can lead to use of nuclear weapons which will continue to cut the human population and make things less inhabitable. Over time the human population will be cut and climate change acceleration will most likely slow down but not fully stop. There's also a feedback loop to the planet heating up. As polar ice caps melt and the planet heats up, it may naturally continue on its own until it equalizes. It can go up to like 10 degrees which, well, I hope i am not on the planet at that time.

Not everything is hopeless. We have a lot of bright scientists and we are in an era of unprecedented wealth. I do believe when it comes down to it, the world will unite and we will be able to mitigate enough of it and create solutions. Mass solar panels is a good one. Building nuclear reactors for the future use is another. Some solutions have been suggested like turning the sky white and other stuff. Public transit is another thing picking up and will greatly reduce carbon emissions. Just remember, a majority of the pollution comes from the use of private jets, yachts, and cruise ships. People will get hungry. There is one group of people who are at fault and I think the French found the solution to it.

IIRC, a weatherman started doing this

Nah, I prefer the title without units. It allows me to imagine the oceans boiling, which would just cement Florida as being literal hell.

All of these things are bad, but the effect on phytoplankton is most frightening of all. Diatoms provide 50-85% of our global oxygen supply. Not only are rising temperatures a problem for them, but ocean acidification also eats away at their silica-based shells. But it does it slowly so by the time they die, they are in deep water where no other diatoms are around to reuse the silica.

Luckily, there are other ways of recycling diatom remains. The most notable example is the dried lake bed that used to be part of Lake Chad when that lake was far bigger and held many living diatoms. Due to natural changes in climate, the water dried up and that area is now part of the Sahara Desert. About 100 days a year, winds kick the ancient diatom dust high into the atmosphere where it is carried across the Atlantic Ocean and then it settles across South America.

This is a big reason the Amazon Rainforest is so lush. Diatomaceous fertilizer carried all the way from Africa. And since more plants means more photosynthesis, it causes a lot of water that would have otherwise been locked away in the ground to evaporate through transporation. All of this excess water is blown westward towards the Andes mountain range. In narrower parts of the Andes, the dense Amazonian clouds overcome the rain shadow effect to precipitate across the west side of the Andes.

This rainwater causes erosion of quartz, which is ground into fine silica dust. As silt, this dust is washed into the Pacific Ocean, where diatoms absorb the silica and use it to reproduce. In a beautiful global balancing act, as diatom-heavy lakes in Africa dry up, the remains of those diatoms cause a chain reaction that ends up causing a huge increase of diatoms on the opposite side of the globe.

Great, right? It would be if we weren't replacing so much of the Amazon Rainforest with monoculture farms which don't have nearly the same evapotranspiration effect at the flora of the natural ecosystem. So, not only are we baking the diatoms, not only are we dissolving them with acid, we're also removing one of their most critical reproductive resources.

It's like we discovered how resilient the planet is and how hard it is to kill, and humans took that as a challenge.

Enjoy the oxygen while it's plentiful.

Or the 2000 dead penguins washing up on the coast of Uruguay just a few days ago. Apparently starved to death, though the cause is still being investigated.

But yeah the phytoplankton and algae boiling to death is triggering a catastrophic change in the ocean that is going to domino in horrible ways and I feel like I don't often see a lot of people mentioning it. It's very scary how the collapse of aquatic ecosystems is playing out.

Nope, ocean is boiling.

If it was Celsius the sea would be boiling.

Overtemp gulf is going to create some monster storms.