There's a 1 in 20 Chance of the Apocalypse. Shouldn't We Act Now?
By Thom Hartmann A...
A new study published in Science argues that we as a civilization need to move "rapidly" -- as in almost immediately -- towards a carbon emissions free future if we are to have any chance of holding off runaway global warming:
"Rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emission are needed to avoid dangerous climate change. This will necessitate low-carbon transitions across electricity, transport, heat, industrial, forestry, and agricultural systems. But despite recent rapid growth in renewable electricity generation, the rate of progress toward this wider goal of deep decarbonization remains slow."
This just a few weeks after another study concluded that there's a 1 in 20 chance that climate change wipes out the entire human race by the end of the century:
"The chance of 'catastrophic' climate change completely wiping out humanity by 2100 is now 1-in-20"
Dick Cheney once said we should go to war with a country if there was just a one percent chance that that country was helping terrorists get a nuclear bomb.
Shouldn't we apply that thinking to climate change?
A 1 in 20 chance of the apocalypse is insanely high...
Comments
#2
We also have to remember over population. My own state scares me how fast it is growing. But I have worked in China and seen what real population density is.
#3
I'm a retired clinical psychiatrist and have conducted extensive research to determine what was the underlying cause of my patients anxiety, depression, and neuro-developmental spectrum disorders. The common cause is population density stress and our resulting chronically over-active stress response, which no-one else has put together under a single name, although reports on increasing anxiety in college students, increasing depression, etc., and marked increases in every other "disease of civilization" abound. Mother Nature long ago installed a population regulation mechanism in our DNA and it is increasingly active, resulting in ALL the diseases afflicting us modern humans. A key biomarker is infertility: 100% increase in 34 years: 8% in 1982, but now 16.7%. The report recently published by Israeli researchers noting a 50-60% decline in sperm counts was so alarming that the lead author warned of an oncoming extinction of the human species. He was correct. He predicted us reaching universal (in the develpoed nations included in the study) "low" sperm counts within 23 years! My predictions, drawn from published animal models, give a 2,125 AD (CE) date for the total irreversible loss of all human fertility due to population density stress. In any case, we will die out as a species from some cataclysmic result of human overpopulation, including the obvious secondary climate change. We need to voluntarily restrict our reproduction to one-child families or perish from the earth.
#4
Fascinating! Thanks for that, gmiklashek950. Nuclear war and climate change will certainly reduce overpopulation. In the end, Mother Nature wins and stupidity goes extinct, especially a species that can't even adapt to the product of its own mind.
#5
Now we're on the right track. A nuclear winter will negate global warming and reduce overpopulation all in one fell swoop.
#6
I'm sorry for the loss of your old friend, Outback. Death leaves a hole that can't be filled.
#7
Thank you for the condolences, deepspace. I agree with you that gmiklashek950 has it right. Overpopulation has a way of handling that particular problem in any species. But the Chinese played with that for generations. Now they face a shortage of labor, with their aging population. We need to change our entire Weltanschhauung, world view, as a Species or face extinction. Retreat to an agrarian exixtence? Not as long as Apple, Google and the rest are lusting after expanding markets. By the time it sinks in, we will be around the bend, I'm affraid....
#8
Yes, all the critical issues of survival are coming to a head, and we as a society are simply running out of time and resources to keep consuming at ever-increasing levels, which supply-side marketing ideology has conditioned everyone to expect as the natural order of things. What a complete disaster!
#9
Regarding a climate change war...Imagine where would we be right now had there been a President Gore, Kerry, and most recently Clinton? ...not to mention all of the Senate and House members that aren't seated because of election fraud. We let this slide every god damn election...look where this tolerance for election fraud has got us. It's 1929 again.
Winning a war requires the will to fight!
#10
By the year 3000, Jesus will have made His appearance and returned all species of life killed off by man's greed. All signs of man's existance will be wiped off the face of the Earth. I am 66 years old, a real Chritian person and have no worries. Is there something about eternal life you do not understand?
#11
Well; just decided to log in and in my defence I have not read any comments. Unfortunately though; when I turned on MSNBC the ex president "War Criminal" was talking. I listened. Then I figured out just how deep the trouble we are in really is. When the one who enabled (well, Chaney/Haliburton / a failing corporation) used 911 for a military takeover and endless war is sounding like the adult in the room? Really? People/citizens for the real God's sake! I know I am preaching to the choir but; again really? I started to buy Haliburton stock just after their "selection" by the stacked Supreme court, but I have mirrors in my house and I look every day in them. They done got a Deranged Sociapathic/Hedonistic Tiger by the tail. Serves them correctly. 911 was an Interpol issue (international crime that was a law inforcement issue and certainlly a tradegy). The entire world grieved, and at that point on our side. The FBI warned all of them in positions of responsibility of people in filght school that didn't want to learn the landing proceedure; Bush/ Chaney/ Colin Powell __________________ (fill in the blanks) ...............Go figure. Or at the very least THINK DAMMIT! Side note: I'd be well off had I bought the "failing Haliburton stock". Mirrors do get in the way though. Try it. I sleep well.
#12
Haha, good one, oldskoold. Glad I'm not the only one who found W. (Warmonger) Bush's moralizing laughably ironic. Really?
BTW, me pappy used to say that when ya git older ya buy blinds for the mirrors as well as the windows.
#13
Truly that would be a miracle, bollivar, as no species has ever come back from extinction. There's just as much evidence as not, however, that eternal life is achieved through a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth, as the soul continually reincarnates into new mortal bodies on its evolutionary journey.
Sadly, the bad karma of greedy, gullible, global-warming deniers will have them devolving into Trumpatized troglodytes crouching in caves to escape a hell on Earth of their own making.
Hopefully, the good karma of conscientious human beings will have them evolving on other paradise planets, like Earth used to be "... a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."
#14
2950-10K summed it up succinctly, "Winning a war requires the will to fight!" In this day and age, that means voting -- in droves big enough to overcome Republican election fraud!
Two categories of the electorate who don't deserve democracy are DUMBocrats who don't vote and RepubliCONS who do.
#15
Hooray, a Biblcal prediction! Yes bollivar, with eternal life and having God on your side, who needs to spend six out of every ten dollars on weapons of war when you could be following your saviors teachings and demanding others do the same, including our glorious Christian corporations. Why fear this miraculous transcendence into eternal life.
Jesus was supposed to make his appearance sometime between 50 and 490 AD, according to them at the time since they claimed the whole world had gong to hell by then. What in the world happened?
#16
I think what will be will be. We as human beings are not so swift about dealing with things as they come up. So far, we haven't responded appropriately to the MIC threat that has been 30 years in the making. In the last General Election, everyone should have voted Green Party. This would have swept the slate clean and we'd not be facing ANY of the insanity we have piled on our plates with spades. We indulge voter fraud, elect people on the basis of their looks (when was the last time we had a bald POTUS?) or pleasing personality (instead of record) and celebrity status instead of common sense; theirs and ours. We are going to get exactly what we deserve for being such idiots. The only ones among us who seem to have any common sense are our indigenous Indians and we have sequestered them on poverty stricken reservations and basically ignore them altogether. I just read tonight that Germany is embarking on an "Insect Armageddon" as something insane like 75% of the insects in Germany have now gone extinct. I think we should all park our cars and get horses for transportation; this may sound silly but whatever works, outlaw all fossil fuels, and have solar panel costs drop to cost only and free installation. But the narcissistic kooks running things have been playing with weather as their new toy and I'm convinced they think they can control things (not). The fact that we are trusting ourselves and the future of the whole planet to the people currently in DC is an earmark of our own insanity. You really think Dianne Feinstein, or Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone you can name from the other side of the aisle are going to do anything intelligent to change our current trajectory???
#17
Jesus. Do leftie socialists see anything positive anywhere? How depressing it must be to live in your world being pumped full of leftie hate radio then running from your therapist to the drug store to pick up your prescriptions returning to your bunker just in time to catch Mr. tingle up his leg, or Rachel Maddow's uplifting rant.
Put down your Geiger counter, kick off your Birkenstocks, stop thinking all your hateful thoughts and enjoy to few minutes you have left before you are nuked by No. Korea or Iran, one of Buffett's trains derail covering you in oil, swallowed up by an earthquake, drowned due to rising ocean levels, poisoned by all the GMO's, burned my the sun, choked by smog, wildfires to your left and right, run over by an electric car, hurricane blowing you away, lead in the drinking water, an astroid landing on your house, or Yellowstone deciding it's time to go boom.
We are a pimple on Mother Natures ass,
holy s**t, calm down.
Have a nice day!
#18
"ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers"
Hopefully this won't curtail participation from any Dear Bloggers posting here.
#19
#17 The Senate just voted 51 to 49 to take 500 billion out of your Medicare Diane. Among other cuts that affect the middle class and poor.
#20
@19 Legend. Yup, that's what happens with monopolistic health care. Still want that Single Payer Healthcare?
#21
@#20 Government healthcontrrol is a great idea. Surely this idea will be embraced by the leftie/socialists.
"NHS under fire after announcing obese patients will not get non-urgent surgery until they lose weight."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-obese-patients-non-ur...
#22
@#17, aka Chelsea: It's called science, Granny. Try it sometimes. Put away that old gramophone and join the modern world.
You'll be amazed at how ignorant most Republicans are, especially the dummies hooked on fascist media propaganda, such as Fux News and affiliates, spread across the land far and wide. A deluge of hate radio also floods our socialized airways for the benefit of the rich, with a 95% heavy, right-wing, corporate bias.
And of course, with ubiquitous Republican internet lies always at our fingertips day and night, the good citizens are kept in line with cookie-cutter thought patterns based on corporate group-think rather than science, common sense, intellectual honesty, empathy, and compassion -- affording people the dignity of their lives, no matter who they are, over the wont of more and more material things.
IOW, we are in the grips of an insane economic system, based on deregulated greed and selfishness, that is ravaging the planet and destroying life, all for the exclusive pleasure of a relatively few, obscenely wealthy individuals.
On the great chessboard, they sit behind us on the first rank. Our job as pawns is to sacrifice ourselves for their benefit. Now, how did Trump put it? "He knew what he signed up for." (Whoops.)
Time to wake up and shake the cobwebs out. It's a new day.
#23
#20 I believe that you are still working and paying into Medicare. Diane is on Medicare. Either way you are losing what you paid for.
https://www.adp.com/tools-and-resources/adp-research-institute/insights/...
#24
@23 You still don't see the foolishness in Single Payer do you? Whoever controls the government controls the access to Healthcare. What other alternatives are available? Check out the link Diane provided. It's about single payer in The United Kingdom.
#25
Subject seems to have morphed into health care here
About which there appears to be some extreme ignorance, bordering on fear and paranoa on the subject of single payer
#21 - total misreading of the article (if read certainly not comprehended)
#23 - single payer should and aught to eradicate this issue
#24 - the foolishness of single payer is what?
The point of single payer is that TREATMENT is available as and when required
NOT rationed by ability to pay
Why is this not comprehended???
#26
Scare tactic after scare tactic. Well, at least the ones in control are bringing the death panels to life by taking away healthcare. Don't worry it might take an apocalypse to get the opposition brain cells stimulated and pass the evolutionary stage of being human.
I guess one of the opposing viewpoints of a single payer healthcare system is that whoever controls the government controls the access to Healthcare. They want whoever controls Private Corporations to control the access to Healthcare! They hate government so so much they must control it. Since they like the idea of totally controlling they worry what if power ever completely transfers out of their grasp. Gasp!! They don't want the people in control of Government because when they are we will get single payer healthcare and they will have to pay taxes similar to every other working person. FDR told this group of aristocratic Americans something to the effect that they are going to either pay the taxes necessary or they can go elsewhere and when they leave to not let the door hit them on their way out. Oddly enough they stayed in this country because there was nowhere else to go better.
They demand that government controls the Uterus of all Woman and of course your entire bedroom and don't' forget free speech zones, which by the way president Bush should have found before he went out and whined. His little biddy brudder lost. Get in a free speech zone why don't you George you have to be in a free speech zone.
#27
You are right ou812. I would rather be paying $1000 per month for health insurance with a $5000 deductible. Making insurance executives billionaires. Rather than paying $121 per month for a plan that cover 80% of a procedure, where the procedure costs 5 times more than it would in another country.
#28
Just a little update on who's really dictating health care....
The World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations, has a new “Goodwill Ambassador.” Brace yourselves:
Shock and condemnation continues after Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe named WHO 'goodwill ambassador' https://t.co/dzGhZCdpEN
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 21, 2017
Not the Onion: New @WHO head Tedros names Zimbabwe's tyrannical Mugabe, of all people, as a "Goodwill Ambassador." https://t.co/dncSnPSMKX pic.twitter.com/lK8IRxAtYP
#29
Except in the corporate-conditioned mindset of Medicare-for-all naysayers, there is no connection whatsoever between WHO picking Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the Medicare-for-all grassroots movement by the people of America. Nor is there any connection to the British healthcare system, which is totally socialized, whereby the providers work for, and the facilities are owned by, their government.
Progressives in our country are not, nor have they ever, advocated for socializing private providers, hospitals, clinics, medical equipment manufacturers, or any other private-sector business that provides some form of actual medical service -- unlike an insurance company, whose only function is to skim off the top of premiums.
These bloated leaches suck blood out of people by denying claims in order to fill fat-cat investment portfolios in the shadow banking system and to lavish riches on the CEOs, board members, top managers, and lobbyists, who live and work in golden palaces, fly around in private jets, and big-ass around DC handing out bags of cash to their captive audience in Congress.
Thus, any healthcare solution that is made to work in the United States (Not England, Zimbabwe, or any other nation that is NOT us!) must also entail fundamental political reform. That basically means to get money out of politics, so that our politicians are beholden to the ordinary people on Main Street rather than to the fat bastards on Wall Street.
#30
Change of subject: With very little publicity Trump signed an executive order yesterday to recall 1500 retired Air Force Pilots. Is this a buildup to war?
#31
The World Health Organization has a big impact on Health Care in every country.
#32
Good for them! Most of the WHO impact in the world is very positive, by way of coordinating much needed help in the poverty-stricken areas of under-developed countries that have nowhere else to turn.
Again, where is the connection, other than to draw false parallels and cast aspersions on our Medicare-for-all movement?
#33
Legend. Yea! F*ck the revolution! Bring on the apocalypse! Trump! Trump! Trump! USA! USA! USA!
#34
OK DS I get it you like Mugabe.
I posted info for those who may not have seen it...so go do battle with someone else.
#35
After Making Mugabe a ‘Good-Will Ambassador,’ W.H.O. Chief Is ‘Rethinking’ It
The World Health Organization’s decision to name President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe a “good-will ambassador” has provoked outrage from medical professionals, rights groups, opposition leaders and others who took to social media to call it an “insult” and “a sick joke.”
The 93-year-old African leader, who has long faced United States sanctions over his government’s human rights violations, received the title in Montevideo, Uruguay, this past week from the W.H.O.’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
and more
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/world/africa/robert-mugabe-goodwill-ambassador-who.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Africa&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article
#36
I see, HotCoffee. So, it's okay for you to challenge the points made in other posts, but if someone dares to challenge yours, then it's doing "battle." Whatever.
BTW, this isn't a private domain for carpet-bombing right-wing talking points or for planting landmines of wingnut click-bait; expect a barrage of return fire at any time.
INCOMING !!!
When Trump trolls choose to login on a progressive blog, they're agreeing to talk to everyone there, not just a select few, and their posts are fair game for all sides to engage. One should count on serious pushback, especially as a "Third-way Conserva-Dem" (in effect, an "R" in "D" clothing) or as a defender of Trump, the corporate hive mind, and general Republicanism. If ya can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen, little snowflakes.
In the context of this thread, HotCoffee not-so-subtly tried to make a false equivalency case between our universal/single-payer/Medicare-for-all effort and the WHO appointing Mugaba to some post. (WTF ???) I guess merely calling out the obvious fallacy of such a ridiculous, correlation-without-cause argument is conflated in her mind, evidently, to mean a love of Mugabe. That makes no logical sense, either as a sarcastic retort or as an ad hominem attack.
But thanks for enlightening all of us with "updates" and for demonstrating expertise at stroking the Google machine.
#37
O please...give it up.
Anyone with eyes can look at my post and see that I never mentioned "universal/single-payer/Medicare-for-all" in any context ....neither for or against.
You show your desperation to argue with someone...anyone..by deciding their positions for them and then demanding they defend a position because you claim they have it.
Grow up!
Your tactics are obvious...If someone uses a link you complain ..if they don't use a link you complain....how original.
If you don't think the WHO has an agenda for our health care then let your fingers do the walking....or not, but don't asume everyone wants to stay in your bubble.
I will post here or not as I please I'm not subject to your rules.
I'm happy to converse with you anytime you stop telling me what my positions are. It's up to you.
#38
So angry. So defensive.
HotCoffee #28: "Just a little update on who's really dictating health care...." -- and then a tirade about Mugabe and WHO. This directly following a discussion about single-payer, i.e. Medicare-for-all.
Your intention in that post (and others) seems pretty damn clear. If you want a reader to take away a different meaning, perhaps you should flesh out your thoughts better, using your own words instead of always relying on a blizzard of cherry-picked quotes and links that each go down their own impossible rabbit holes.
ps: You are telling us what your positions are, not me.
#39
Also DS,
I have never defended Trump...I have shown my distaste for Hillary.
I don't defend politicians ..I defend ideas and concepts. There is a difference between challenging points and challenging people.
I was just silly enough to think even you wouldn't want Mugabe anywhere near Health Care even for third world countries.
That might be more than you can understand being so entrenched in your left wing bubble.
Some of us look and see what the rest of the world is doing too.
#40
Do you create ideas, or do ideas create you? Is the ego separate from what it thinks? On an anonymous blog, all you are is thought formed into words. In one sentence the ego claims to only challenge ideas; in the next, it attacks the person. Such is the dichotomy revealed in post #39 (which skipped ahead in sequence).
BTW, the fourth paragraph in #36 did not specifically single out HC as a Trump supporter, so I wonder why she so quickly took umbrage? But, if the shoe fits...
Regardless how much she obfuscates, however, when it comes to the single-payer debate in this country, the whole Mugabe sidebar is a non sequitur at best, a false equivalency at worst.
#41
Again your wrong,
you flatter yourself...and again wrongly accuse me of being angry and defenive.
So absurd for you to assume you have that power.
Is it because you're are angry and defensive? I've heard the saying we accuse others of what we are ourselves.
When I want to tell you what I think I will flesh it out...even slowly as I have arthritis in my fingers.
However if I'm just relaying info I believe SOME people might want to know and may not have seen I will use links.
You do seem to think you are the rule setter here...why is that?
The link I posted is from the NYT hardly a bastion of the right. If you bothered to read it you would know the left is quite upset about the choice.
Have you never heard of agenda 21 or agenda 2030? Do you really believe the UN or the WHO only effect Europe and Third world countries, not the USA?
To effect the cause you want to accomplish you might want to broaden your horizon.
#42
It goes to figure and is not all that surprising that anytime you read the word apocalypse Cheney's name is sure to be found somewhere.
Way to go deepspace @29 & @32 & @36 you knocked the ball out of the park.
HotCoffee the only thing that you posted that leaps out of the page is: "93-year-old African". I do not understand why you found this worth describing in your post other than most likely is very memorable and inflammatory to you.
#43
I posted the article thinking some of you would see that the fight for Health Care is bigger that just if we have medicare for all or private insurance because either one can easily be manipulated ny the NWO.
I just get the feeling unless you also pay attention to that you won't get what you want either way.
I don't care about the age or race..I posted the article that way because that's the way the writer wrote it. I don't change other peoples words.
And I detest Cheney as much as Hillary.
#44
And round nd round in circles we go.
Have it your way DS. I'm talking to people who might care about health care...not someone out to argue about trivia.
#45
DS,
I notice you ask a lot of questions but you rarely answer any.
#46
Still so angry and defensive.
HotCoffee #28: "Just a little update on who's really dictating health care...."
You sure are weaving and bobbing and making a lot of false subjective assumptions about my wicked nature and ulterior motives just because one of your beginning points -- IN YOUR OWN WORDS ! -- was simply contested.
#47
I thought you were talking about the Chance of the Apocalypse. The WHO is a great British Rock band "Won't Get Fooled Again" brings back the ol' days full of Bushisms.
#48
changeX. Yeah, discussing the British rock band WHO would have made just about as much sense ...and would have been much more interesting.
#49
DS
see # 43
If you have a problem with that, it's your problem not mine.
I suspect if ErinRose was reading it I would be having an entirly different conversation.
A conversation as to what solutions can be found. How other systems in the world work.
What aspects could be incorperated and how...do these kind of thoughts ever enter you conversation?
#50
DS,
If I wanted to start an off topic argument with you I would have posted this
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452972/uranium-one-deal-obama-admi...
So you can add where the yellow cake goes to your health care woes.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
At Mondragon - both the mountain and the cooperative city - in Spain (written about in "Threshold" book)
From Screwed:
"Thom Hartmann’s book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con’s war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet."
From Screwed:
"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull’s eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called ‘free market.’ Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now."
From Screwed:
"The powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that OUGHT to be. Hartmann tells us what went wrong — and what you and I can do to help set American right again."
This is the "human condition". As individuals we always seem to put off the things that in retrospect should have been handled while there was still time. Yesterday my oldest remaining friend died. I saw him a year ago and knew he wasn't in good health. I spoke to him three weeks ago by phone and knew he had declined. It was my best intention to visit him by the end of this month. Too late. So it's no surprise that collectively we find it hard to face the inevitable. I have little hope for a major paradigm shift on climate change, though intellectually we, and I believe even the oil barrons, understand that we are fouling our only nest. Our epitaph will read "we had a good run, but our species fell at the feet of our own denial".