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Apocalyptic Optimism Could Be the Antidote for Climate Fatalism
TIME ^ | January 24, 2024 | BY DANA R. FISHER

Posted on 01/24/2024 7:54:44 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

After 28 years of failed climate negotiations, scientifically informed emissions reductions set by governments have languished. Consequently, the pace at which the world is mitigating and adapting to the threat of climate change is far too slow to meet the challenge. Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise quickly, as the ice sheets melt and climate shocks—like droughts, floods, and heatwaves—increase in frequency and intensity.

Meanwhile, leadership of the climate negotiations at this late hour has been relegated to petrostates and former fossil fuel executives, which has helped make it impossible to agree upon, let alone implement, policies that could save us from the worst of the climate crisis. The writing is on the wall: the only way for things to get better is after they get much worse. Lives will be lost, and social conflict driven by climate migration and competition for increasingly scarce resources will proliferate. These look like insurmountable odds, and in many ways they are. But there is a slim chance that we can slow climate change enough to preserve our planet and minimize the catastrophe that is just around the corner.

The climate shocks to come have the potential to motivate an AnthroShift that reorients all the sectors of society to respond meaningfully to the climate crisis. Without them, the best we can hope for is incremental change that does not disrupt the current political and economic powers. The climate disaster that is coming is inevitable at this point, but it may also be our only hope for meaningful change. In the meantime, the best way through the climate crisis is to build strong ties within our communities, create solidarity, and cultivate social and environmental resilience capable of supporting one another and exploiting the windows of opportunity when the apocalypse arrives.

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: globalwarming; hoax; marxism; propaganda
Dana R. Fisher is the director of the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity and a professor in the School of International Service at American University. She is the author of a number of books, most recently Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action.
1 posted on 01/24/2024 7:54:44 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
But there is a slim chance that we can slow climate change enough to preserve our planet and minimize the catastrophe that is just around the corner.

Yes--by destroying all farms thus starving the entire human race to death and killing all animals because they exhale carbon dioxide without which all plant life would die. But hey, the empty rock would still be here!

2 posted on 01/24/2024 7:57:06 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator (בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Another day, another piece of Global warming BS foisted on an unsuspecting public. The climate is always changing and always will. Even at this point in history, humans’ ability to influence it in either a positive or negative way is very limited. The pseudo-science that propaganda such as this is advancing a political and not a scientific agenda.


3 posted on 01/24/2024 8:02:45 AM PST by fireman15 (Irritating people are the grit from which we fashion our pearl. I provide the grit. You're Welcome.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

You can never get a victory with these folks. Never do they say the solar worked etc. It’s always more punishment that never works to advance their goals one little bit.

Same with racism. They deny any progress.

It’s their solutions to their problems that always fail and you are to blame. It’s really abusive tactics


4 posted on 01/24/2024 8:04:24 AM PST by TornadoAlley3 ( I'm Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

“I call myself an apocalyptic optimist. I believe we can save ourselves from the climate crisis that we have caused; I also believe it will only be possible with a mass mobilization driven by the pain and suffering of climate shocks around the world. As the social effects of climate shocks grow in both frequency and severity, I predict they will motivate an AnthroShift where personal and economic risk reaches a critical threshold that leads people to alter their behaviors and force governments and businesses to transition aggressively away from fossil fuels”.

I have never heard of Dana R. Fisher. She apparently has written a “number of books”. However that doesn’t entitle her to preach as though she were a modern day incarnation of Jesus to the rest of us on what we should or should not do, based on her personal feelings. The statement above is completely subjective garbage about “forcing behaviors” - is she going to march into China with an army to force them to stop burning coal (they burn 9 times as much as the US)? She refers to the “climate crisis we have caused” as though we actually live in a dystopian nightmare rather than the actual fact that I look out the window and see ice on the river, and will be skiing happily for the next fews days, colder than the proverbial witch’s T**.
These self-important blowhards contribute nothing to society, except they invent new drivel - words like “Anthroshift” which in their egotistical minds makes them superior to the rest of us who don’t sit around idle all day thinking of new words to put in our articles. Seriously, the ignorance and arrogance is a nauseating stew.


5 posted on 01/24/2024 8:09:08 AM PST by brookwood (If we pay $400 billion for Green New BS, do we get a guarantee that the weather will improve? )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"After 28 years of failed climate negotiations"


6 posted on 01/24/2024 8:09:52 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
The climate shocks to come have the potential to motivate an AnthroShift that reorients all the sectors of society to respond meaningfully to the climate crisis

AntroShift? Is that like a Great Reset?

7 posted on 01/24/2024 8:11:34 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: Zionist Conspirator
Neopagan Dana R. Fisher will ruthlessly support all sorts of government executed murder for a false religion


8 posted on 01/24/2024 8:15:17 AM PST by Theophilus (covfefe)
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To: brookwood

I believe you have to be crazy NOT to think there is a worldwide ‘revealing’ going on.

For me who has always been a current events buff, every day is like the superbowl!!!

When my friends tell me to shut up and they don’t want to know stuff because they can’t do anything about it, I ask them how much they can do something influence the record of their favorite sports team, and that shuts them up.


9 posted on 01/24/2024 8:18:03 AM PST by ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton (Dems: We cheated fair and square!!!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise quickly, as the ice sheets melt and climate shocks—like droughts, floods, and heatwaves—increase in frequency and intensity,” said Chicken Little.


10 posted on 01/24/2024 9:09:30 AM PST by ChessExpert (Required for informed consent: "We have a new, experimental vaccine.")
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
...preserve our planet...

'Earf' ain't going nowhere until the sun decides to go all red giant on us. 'Earf' don't care one way or another anyway.

11 posted on 01/24/2024 9:23:14 AM PST by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Btw, "climate shock" is a new one to me. Guess they have to come up with ever more escalating terms to keep the plebs properly scared and cowed.
12 posted on 01/24/2024 9:27:01 AM PST by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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