• TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    The cynic in me imagines that the media purposely promoted the longer timelines to lull people into thinking we had more time, and so there was no rush.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      I think it’s more about scientists being extremely conservative with their estimates, because they know they’ll get impaled over being ‘alarmist.’

      And then (effectively) fired from their job.

      Also, you should check out conservative coverage. There is no timeline compression, its strait up cynicism, hostile denial.

      EDIT: I forgot hand wringing. A perfect example: fairly scientific family showed me a WSJ article about how future geoengineering is going to make climate change a non-issue.

      “Offended” did not begin to describe my reaction.

      I’ve been reading geoengineering research papers for years, and they amount to things like:

      Well, if we redirected a significant portion of the global economy to custom airplane and chemical production, we could rain sulfuric acid over the poles and wipe out all life beyond a certain latitude, and maybe counter the warming some if we keep it up… ecological implications aside, its still rather impractical, but an order of magnitude cheaper than previous proposals. Shows table.

      • jtrek@startrek.website
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        5 hours ago

        I feel like some counters should immediately banish the speaker to sitting in the corner. “Alarmist” and “divisive” are the top two that come to mind. It’s almost always idiots not engaging with the material in good faith who pop those out.

        • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          I dunno about “divisive.” Sometimes thats a legitimate criticism, and pot-stirrers are little shits, IMO.

          • jtrek@startrek.website
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            5 hours ago

            If someone is just trolling, sure. But usually I hear it when someone’s like “gay people should be allowed to live” and someone else goes “you’re being diViSiVe”

            • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Well there’s no retort to that. If you’re in a debate environment where an acceptable critique is “well, these people existing is not part of our beliefs, so its not okay,” then the whole debate is rigged from the start.

    • Malyca@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      The thing is each individual issue feeds the speed of the rest. Sun melting ice from above, rising sea temp melting from below and both speed the other up. There’s thousands of things like this. I’m not an expert or anything I just remember reading something like this.