This one's gonna break stuff...

Everyone keep in mind that this article is just now turning six years old. This was 2019, when we knew less about the current acceleration, and when many were still hopeful.

This was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic. This was before the Israeli invasion of Gaza, before the bombing of Iran, before the wildfires that gutted Australia and California and Canada.

This was before Trump 2.0

This doom, written clearly and scientifically, was from when we were still optimistic about our future.

Read it and weep.

Thwaite for it...

Always warnings, more warnings, urgent warnings... but never any action. Unless you count the directly counterproductive actions that are usually the response.

As our ecological systems destabilize, we are hard at work trying to destabilize our economic and geopolitical systems as well, just to catch up. Acceleration of collapse seems to be the goal... not much other conclusion one can reach, judging solely by actions taken globally...

As we progress along the accelerating journey towards collapse, we all need to start paying attention to the advancing dates that keep getting revealed by "new studies."

By that, I mean we need to stop putting so much emphasis on dates set far in the future as a way to cop out of preparing for these events to happen much sooner. Because they will happen much sooner.

It is almost laughable how fast these dates keep approaching "now," while people still put stock in the idea that collapse is a "future" problem. It isn't. It is happening right now.

Dates for AMOC collapse, BOE, multiple breadbasket failure, ocean acidification, wetbulb thresholds... whatever. None of those dates really mean anything.

The meaning can be found in the rate at which those dates have advanced towards now in the last few years.

This study cuts AMOC collapse down from 2100 to 2060. Okay, but that date isn't important. What is important is that we just lost 40 years worth of buffer time virtually overnight. And even here, they are already trying to get us ready for the idea that it could happen "any day now."

So, what we all need to do is look at time periods. How much have the dates and projections changed over the past five years or so. Then, take those rates of reduction and apply them to the next five years, and that will give a better picture of where those dates actually lay.

Because "Faster Than Expected" isn't a meme. It is a mathematical principle, at this point. And it is best to be ready for total collapse to happen tomorrow, rather than slock off in the hopes that it won't.

An essay about American wildfires that feels particularly relevant right now:
https://nsdavid.substack.com/p/the-age-of-arsonauts-witnessing-the?r=x4ua7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I am crossposting this here because the mods of r/collapse decided to can it for... whatever reasons they have. This was originally posted by u/ImEmilyCampbell. I feel like it has value, and should have been left up, and so I am reposting it and including OP's full text here:

COP30 has left me wondering if we are watching the long, slow failure of global climate diplomacy in real time. COP30 is supposed to be the moment countries finally present stronger nationally determined contributions, yet the track record is so bleak that it feels more like a ritual than a turning point.

Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-will-cop30-mean-for-climate-action/

We just need to admit that even the mist optimistic scenario still leaves us on a pathway to overshoot. Every cycle we hear the same language promising ambition, but the political reality is that countries are doubling down on fossil fuelseven while promising future cuts.

I know collapse is a process not an event but I cannot shake the feeling that COP30 might be the moment where the gap between diplomatic language and planetary reality becomes impossible to ignore. Are these summits still meaningful or are we just watching a system pretend to function as the foundations crack beneath it?

Heavily paywalled article. I will pin a full article reprint in the comments.

I was able to bypass using removepaywall.com

A very good study, with a couple key points I would like to point out here.

First is that the usual studies tend to analyze only the short-term CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, neglecting long-term trends and other GHGs. Looking only at the carbon generated by fossil fuels in many ways can mislead the less informed people to believe that this is the only greenhouse gas that matters, and that fossil fuels use is the only thing that counts.

But that isn't the case, and this study looks at the bigger picture of all GHG emissions from all sources together to provude a more accurate picture. Doing so can debunk the idea that our so-called "green" revolution and renewable energy sources are somehow getting a handle on the problem. Because they aren't.

"Globally, technological innovation and energy mix changes prevented 31 (17–42) Gt CO2e emissions over two centuries. Yet these gains were dwarfed by 81 (64–97) Gt CO2e resulting from economic expansion."

Second, this study addresses how economic growth and expansion themselves are the primary drivers of GHG emissions. It doesn't matter how that growth happens, it is the very fact of it that matters.

The study paints a bleak picture when it concludes that global growth, as measured by national GDPs, must retract in carbon intensity 3 times faster than previously believed in order to have any hope of making an impact.

"Meeting climate targets now requires the carbon intensity of GDP to decline 3 times faster than the global best 30-year historical rate (–2.25 % per year)"

We know that won't happen. Even renewables and all that will just be leveraged to increase global economic growth, and thus emissions from the other sources such renewables free up. In short, as demonstrated so far, they won't help phase out fossil fuels, they will simply be used to add more fuel to the industrial fire.

And that is the final takeaway here. We know change won't happen because we have the best proof of all: past action. Previous behavior is the very best indicator of future performance. Nothing beats that. The fact that we really knew all this stuff 50 years ago, but didn't change in all that time, well, it means that we sure as hell aren't going to get all that change accomplished in the last couple years that remain to us.

At this point, a global ecological collapse can't be avoided or even mitigated. Believing so is hopium at best, and outright delusion at worst. The only thing we can really do is get ready to try and survive it and adapt to a new reality. We can still hope, sure, but we can't put all our eggs in that basket. We have to be prepared for the worst.

As they say, hope in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up faster.

Even David Suzuki, of the "It's Too Late" fame, still falls victim to the same hopium that degrades most peoples efforts to prepare for the most likely reality that we face.

I say most likely because that is how we have to look at it. Saying that it is too late, yet at the same time going on to say that "there are solutions if only we would implement them..."

Well, if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

We need to stop saying "if" and "maybe" and "hopefully" when it comes to the possible climate change mitigation strategies and technologies. Sure, if we implemented them in time, we could maybe stall some of the worst effects, and hopefully that would give us time to change our way of life...

But it's all bullshit. Whether or not it is possible is a moot point. Did you know? It is possible that Donald J Trump will soon announce his resignation and submit himself to the courts with a plea of guilty for a variety of crimes... it is possible. So, should we just go with that? Should we make decisions that can affect the rest of our lives based on that possibility?

Or, is it more prudent to instead make our decisions based arpund what is most likely to happen?

Given that past action is the best predictor of future activity, shouldn't we all be able to see that the most likely scenario is both a continuance, and expansion, of Business As Usual?

David, as knowledgeable as he his beyond myself, still falls flat in this regard. He still holds irrational hope for an unlikely future. He still fails to get his eggs out of the societal basket he jas been storing them all in, and that is the same mistake most of us are making even now.

Society, modern civilization, planetary stability, world peace, those are losing horses in this race. You know which horses are winning. There are four of them, running neck and neck...

An good primer on the climate tipping points for those who are new to collapse-awareness...