• Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    If it were just as simple as growing food in a desert it would be fine, but the circumstances that allow us to do that are fragile and will be impacted by a lot of shit failing, not just one or two things that can be fixed by technology. The US can grow things in the desert now because it has the rest of the country’s fertile resources to do so. It doesn’t matter what technology the US has. It isn’t just a matter of replacing bees with drones or installing irrigation. The soil will be dead. The water will become anaerobic. The types of plants we can grow will dwindle, and resulting monoculture will cause even more problems. It will be insanely expensive to do. Keep in mind that this is a country that relies on capitalism to survive, the only reason it can keep going is because there are resources that are easy to exploit. What’s going to happen to businesses that can’t get their cheap corn syrup anymore? While this is going on people will be starving, and more pandemics will be occurring, meaning the workforce needed to power this huge endeavor will be strained to its breaking point.

    I think that the climate crisis has been so diluted by the media that people don’t realize just how bad an ecological collapse is. I haven’t even listed all the details because there would be too much for me to go through and I suck and writing. Either way, look at the Permian great dying and ask yourself if we can survive that as a species, let alone a country.

    The way the US handled COVID-19 should give you an idea of how unprepared they are.

      • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        My brother in Christ, I study this stuff for a living. It will definitely be that bad and claiming it isn’t is climate denialism.

        That won’t change. Do you think the Great Lakes will dry up?

        They don’t have to, the water chemistry will fuck up as the life that can’t cope with the temperature change dies off. This will cause the lake ecology to crash the water will be stagnant and need constant treatment, among other things.

        It’s wild bees that are at risk, not agricultural ones.

        Oh that’s okay then, a huge chunk of the native ecosystem dying never leads to an unstable environment.

        Not only that but this simply isn’t true. Honey bees are currently very weak as a species from pesticides, diseases, and malnutrition caused from monoculture farming.

        What does this even mean? It will be lower biodiversity but worms aren’t going anywhere.

        Dude, if you don’t know anything about soil health why are you speaking so confidently about it? You know, the nitrogen cycle? The biome of the soil? All the stuff plants require to survive etc?

        And yes, the biodiversity of worms is going somewhere. Again, do you know anything about the subject you’re lecturing me about yourself?

        Ocean oxygen levels dropping is bad but the water won’t be anaerobic and also what does this have to do with farming

        Yes, it will that’s literally what it means. And what do you mean what does clean water with a stable PH have to do with farming?!

        I think that humanity could quite obviously survive the great dying. Do you not think humans are in the top 30% of adaptable species on earth?

        We could quite obviously survive the worst extnction event in Earths history? The one that almost wiped out all life? The one that took the ecosystem millions of years to recover from? That great dying?

        Also, we have only been here for a blink of an eye as far as the lifetime of the planet goes, and we are adaptable to this environment, not a dead planet. There are plenty of adaptable animals that were once numerous that don’t exist anymore.

        You haven’t listed any details because you aren’t relying on a scientific understanding of the situation.

        I haven’t been saying anything that conflicts with the our current scientific consensus as far as what I’ve been taught by ecologists.

        You can’t just scream “ecological collapse” and then go on to discuss the worst possible things you can imagine without any actual evidence.

        Your lack of understanding isn’t a lack of evidence. You are welcome to read some journals and fact-check me if you want.

        We’re looking at a 2-3 degree increase in global temperatures. That won’t shut down the biosphere even if every bit of permanent ice melts; the Cretaceous was 10+ hotter and for most of the history of multicellular life there hasn’t been permanent ice anywhere on the planet.

        Hey, yeah, cool. The Cretaceous. Remind me how many humans were around then.

        Oh yeah, nothing bad happened when the environment of the Cretaceous changed. Not like a ton of shit went extinct or anything.

        Also, it’s projected to be a 4-5°C increase. Which again, would make it on the scale of the great dying.

        So yeah even if we survive as a species, we’ll wish we were dead.

        The US let a million of its people die but nothing touched agricultural production because that’s the shit the US is prepared to keep functional at all costs.

        The US can’t even build a shuttle that doesn’t leak piss, no matter how much money they throw at it. I don’t trust them to do dick.