Thread by @SteB777

This has triggered me to write a thread, I've been meaning to write for some time.

We're in a dire climate and ecological emergency, which is going to lead to the collapse of our civilization unless we urgently change direction, and hardly anyone realizes the seriousness.
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https://twitter.com/MrMatthewTodd/status/1759899462900564430

It is now being framed by those committed to business as usual BaU, as if climate activists are overreacting, catastrophizing.

No, the situation is far worse and far more dire than most could imagine, as @ClimateHuman has been trying to point out.

2/theguardian.com/environment/20…

We find ourselves in a dire situation. Yet only a small proportion of people really understand how dire the situation really is, and most are in some level of denial.

How, do you discuss this situation, when most people, to some degree, are in some form of active denial?
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As I tried to explain in this thread, absolutely no one knows how resilient our civilization is to the massive climate and ecological impacts, our current economic model is driving, because absolutely no one is studying it.

4/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1755602…

If anyone tries to say, how bad the current situation is, and what the dangers are, they will be attacked for being unscientific, saying there is no science to support these concerns.

Whereas I explain in the above thread, there is absolutely no science at all on this.
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Rather than attacking people like @RogerHallamCS21 making warnings about how serious the threat is, we should be demanding that those trying to maintain BaU, or claiming it can be fixed with technology such as @_HannahRitchie, support their claims with evidence.
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This is the shocking thing, all those people, posing as the voices of reason - attacking doomerism, amongst climate activists - have a faith based position, not supported by the scientific evidence, and which ignores a lot of the scientific evidence.
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One of the current limitations of science, is that it is not very good at the big picture overview. The scientific method is brilliant, and the best means we have, for knowing how things are, within a limited framework. But when it comes to the overview, it is just opinion.
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Let me give an example. Climate science is excellent at telling us what the current state of the climate is, and modelling the future climate.

What climate science can't tell us, is what it is going to do to our civilization, or even how ecosystems, will respond.
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There are a number of well known climate scientists assuring us, that it's not actually too dire, that climate activists are too doomerist, and we will get through it. But they are expressing faith based personal opinions, and what they say, isn't based on science.
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It's important to understand the difference, between a scientist having a personal opinion about something, and a scientist having a view that they can support with scientific evidence. The 2 are not the same.
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Our civilization is a system, a process. It has not always been there, and there is no reason why it will persist, aside from faith. The predominant global economy, is relatively new 25-70 years old, even if it has roots further back in time. See how it has changed since WW2.
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The only reason we can feed 8 billion people is because of an organized economy, long supply lines, and some degree of global cooperation. This cannot be taken as a given. The election of Trump and his current front-runner status, illustrate how politically weird it's become.
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Quite wrongly, the emphasis on climate impacts on our societies, has been seen in terms of big physical extremes, melting ice caps, big sea level rise, 3C or more of warming, extreme future weather. Yet our civilization is vulnerable to lesser degrees of impact/disruption.
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As I say, there is absolutely no one studying the resilience of our civilization, our whole system, to lower level impacts, than those further in the future. Our civilization, is a system, which will be profoundly impacted/changed, and it already is.
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There is no need to take my word for any of this, look at this paper. If you disagree with this paper, then kindly point me in the direction of other evidence and science, which has studied our civilization's resilience to climate shocks.

16/pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

We're totally flying blind, and anyone telling you, that it's fine and there's nothing to worry about, are making a faith based statements, based on a type of religious idea, that technology can save us from everything.

Whatever it is, it's not science, or supported by it.
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If you go back to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, there was a consensus that we faced a severe future crisis, if we didn't change direction. But we didn't change direction, politicians just said they were, and then carried on with BaU. Yet we act as if they addressed the crisis.
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The total biomass, weight of all wild mammals, is a fraction of the total mass of humanity, which is itself a fraction of the biomass of our livestock. We've turned our once abundant biomass, into mainly humans and livestock - AND THERE'S NO PROBLEM?

19/theguardian.com/environment/20…

The first step of effective problem solving is acknowledging there's a problem. 32 years ago, at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the problem was acknowledged. The problem no longer acknowledge, and there is mass denial of the reality of it.

20/un.org/en/conferences…

I think the big problem is this.

Politicians, the media, got so used to talking about the climate and ecological crisis, as a future problem, in the far off future, that they're now in denial, that we've arrived in that future, where we need to act urgently, and with haste.
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@threadreaderapp unroll

@DanPapworth You can't have infinite growth in a finite system, so it is a self-destructive loop. That is why we must break out of this loop, and change the system, so what holds it together, is what is best for humanity, and cooperation, not competition.
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@DanPapworth PS. Yes, there is no structure, only process. Any system can stop working and collapse or cease to exist, if these processes are disrupted. As I say, this is not inevitable. For most of human existence, societies were held together by everyone working for the common good.