Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.

In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.

Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.

  • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    Global warming is a test. We’re failing the test, so the warming is going to start accelerating until we learn our lesson

    • bashbeerbash@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I believe a mix of runaway elitism + ecological devastation is the Great Filter. We’re at our great filter and definitely will not overcome considering the galactic evidence.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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        4 months ago

        This is certainly a credible assertion, but it’s very broad.

        As in, runaway elitism is probably relevant to almost all civilisation-ending catastrophes.

        • bashbeerbash@lemmy.world
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          I don’t know exactly what to call it and I don’t want to sound like my agenda is just anti-capitalism. For a brief, 250yr period, humanity (not all, but enough of) valued science and reasoned law as the highest, most advanced expressions of our civilization. The enlightenment age brought about modernity as we know it based on science and liberal law (no kings above the law). Now we’ve devolved back to every nation basically establishing new oligarchich aristocracies no law can touch (the historic normal), and it’s definitely too late to correct course. No untouchable nobilities or kings will save this realm. So yeah, the great filter in my view is about letting elites be accountable to no one, with no interest other than accretion, rule things into the ground. And yeah that’s the broad gist of my point about a pretty broad theory. Most think the great filter as an asteroid or nuke. For me it’s runaway elitism that probably ends most civilizations which is why there’s no one out there.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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      And I’d be ok with this. I see that humans are failing the test. I think it would be totally fair for us to take some really huge losses as a consequence of our collective hubris. But the thing that makes me sad and angry is that we’re taking down everything else with us.

      There’s such a huge diversity of life, basically just minding its own business in a totally sustainable way. It’s been like that for billions of years. More than 1,000,000,000 years. But then humans work out that burning stuff is an easy way to do mass-production, and in less then 1000 years things start turning to shit - for everyone. That’s so unfair. If it was just our own house we were burning down, I’d say its fair. But we’re burning down the whole world. We’re already causing mass extinction, and by all predictions it is going to get much much worse.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        it’ll all return in due time, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was a major extinction event in the same caliber as global warming is likely to be.

        • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          If we continue on like this, it’ll be more like the Permian-Triassic Extinction 250 million years ago, which was also due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere and which killed 90 percent of all life.

          • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Bacteria, viruses, insects all way more likely to survive.

            The bigger and more complex generally means more likely to run out of something.

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            No, we aren’t

            https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

            This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.

            The planetary boundaries framework (1, 2) draws upon Earth system science (3). It identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system as a whole. All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities. The framework aims to delineate and quantify levels of anthropogenic perturbation that, if respected, would allow Earth to remain in a “Holocene-like” interglacial state. In such a state, global environmental functions and life-support systems remain similar to those experienced over the past ~10,000 years rather than changing into a state without analog in human history. This Holocene period, which began with the end of the last ice age and during which agriculture and modern civilizations evolved, was characterized by relatively stable and warm planetary conditions. Human activities have now brought Earth outside of the Holocene’s window of environmental variability, giving rise to the proposed Anthropocene epoch.

              • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                My general operating principle is that even if this person is engaging in bad faith, there may be other people lurking who want this info or who have similar questions who would be too nervous to comment or ask. So I give info anyway for others.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Humans are famously good at surviving in the desert. That’s why so much of human civilization exists at the center of large land masses in arid climates.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        4 months ago

        Other organisms and natural disasters do that, too. Ice ages, meteors, waves of diseases. The difference seems to be we have the consciousness to predict consequences, then decide whether to embark upon a path of behavior, or continue it when latent consequences emerge. I guess the question ends up being whether the course chosen is “natural,” and how can we know, since plenty of organisms kill the host, while also surviving and even propagating? Then observation also changes the behavior of things. And we don’t kill everything. Just whatever life is left continues to evolve in expected and unexpected ways.

      • John_McMurray@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Maybe ten thousand years. That last ice age ending literally changed everything but yeah, ok, let’s pretend its hundreds of millions of years the same.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Probably some extremophiles, tardigrades at least. Depends on how the planetary boundaries get crossed. Hope horseshoe crabs and lichens and some birds make it through. Those guys have been around so long for us to mess it up for them.

      • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        Like Life on earth has survived more extreme environments before. Not only microbes but multicellular life should be fine.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            4 months ago

            Great question, I glad you asked. When I said both multicellular and microbial life would be fine, what I meant is it’s unlikely either would be wiped totally out.

            As highlighted in the article you linked, only about 90% of [multicellular] species died out during the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, specifically the “things have been worse before” situation I was thinking about. Also noted in the article is that the conditions we’re experiencing now are not to the same degree although we’re observing events similar to what we understand may have happened during the Permian-Triassic Extinction, again to a much lesser degree.

            Keep in mind atmospheric CO2 levels were estimated to be around 2500 ppm, about 6 times greater than our current levels of around 420 ppm. Preindustrial CO2 levels were 270 ppm, so we’ve added about 150 ppm. It’s not all that much but it’s enough to start changing things for the worse for many of the planet’s current inhabitants.

            As to microbial life, I’m a microbiologist so I know my microbes. They as a whole are far more resilient and will outlast all multicellular life. Some thrive in conditions where no multicellular life on Earth could survive. Even if conditions were so hostile than no microbes could survive, some form endospores. These are incredibly resilient little escape pods that can remain viable for millions of years, then reactivate when conditions are better, reconstituting back to bacteria.

            While extinctions are frankly depressing, they do open ecological niches into which other species with suitable traits can expand and, given time and selective pressure, differentiate. For example, all we’d need is mice and a suitable food source to survive and, a few million years later, the earth will be covered with various species decended from both of them.

            • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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              When you said life would be fine, what you meant was it may MOSTLY all die and may take millions of years to evolve again. That’s not “fine.”

              Second, we really don’t know that it will ever evolve again or that other conditions won’t deteriorate. Bacteria can’t live in molten lava. Biology has a general upper and lower limit before things start denaturizing. Our moon is further away and the earth isn’t as young as it once was. The conditions that gave rise to life so long ago might not be replicable enough in the future.

              I agree that it’s likely extremophiles at least will survive. I don’t take for granted that it definitely will happen and I don’t call it “fine.”

              • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                I pretty distinctly defined when I meant by saying “fine” in my follow-up comment. If you want to pretend I meant something different so you can “prove me wrong”, that’s “fine” (define that however suits you.).

                That, along with the rest of your comment, suggests you’re just more interested in feeling you’re right at all costs instead of actually discussing the topic, so I’m out.

                Edit: I had to look - of course you downvoted me. LOL.

                • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Yes, you moved the goalposts to have “fine” include what I do not consider “fine.” This is part ofntthe disagreement we have here. Agree to disagree ig.

                  I mean go ahead, be out. Have a good day. You don’t have to believe as I do, and your last comment also made it seem you were “happy I asked.”

                  • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    4 months ago

                    Tl;dr: I was genuinely happy until you showed yourself to be a petty, intellectually dishonest person.

                    I was genuinely happy you asked. I hoped we’d have an interesting conversation. What I received in response was the type of comment I haven’t seen as much of since leaving Reddit: unnecessarily antagonistic and full of bad arguments, seemingly for no other purpose than to state “nuh uh, you’re wrong!”.

                    You start by telling me that the intended meaning of my words wasn’t what I explained, followed up by how the meaning you instead fabricated for me is wrong. Now you’re calling my explaining my original meaning further, even before you generated this artificial contention, “moving goal posts”. That doesn’t hold up under even the merest scrutiny. Again, you’re just looking to score metaphorical points, but you don’t do it by the merit of your own arguments - you instead pick apart my statements, but dishonestly. It’s bizarre.

                    Then you follow up with several outlandish responses that only make sense if you ignored my previous comment. My comment was about how things have been massively worse on earth before and life has pulled through, with stated logic and references. Your response? “Well, life can’t survive beyond certain bounds and the moon is further away, and the conditions from which life arose may not happen again”. Pretty clear you didn’t even bother to understand my comment before your rebuttal. Again, just looking to dunk.

                    Plus you downvoted me for a response I took quite a bit of time to write, all in good faith. So yeah, to the block list you go.

    • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Mother Nature, Earth, or Gaia, is an organism. In my loose perspective, I like to think that this is it’s “fever” attempt at eliminating the virus.

      • Zacryon@feddit.org
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        And thereby eliminating a whole bunch of other species than just humans as well.

        Although I’m totally in for the occasional misanthropy, I don’t like seeing it as “just a fever” anymore as too many species will go down. Life will probably persevere in the end, but so will probably a bunch of rich shitpieces, who are significantly responsible for this fever in the first place.

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          Our world has gone through many life cycles in the past. At the beginning, was darkness, at the end, probably the same (unless it’s a Futurama time cycle).

          The earth will continue on and life will find a way. At this time, we, as humans, have screwed the pooch and now the pooch will screw us. We used the earth and culled it’s resources. We are taking no consideration to the world around us, and instead focus on ourselves alone.

          All of the movies about aliens are true. Humans are selfish, greedy, parasites.

          • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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            4 months ago

            Humans aren’t selfish, greedy, parasites. We just get brainwashed into being that way by our culture

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            What are you basing this on? Like what scientific knowledge exactly? That life will find a way? You realize the “scientist” in Jurassic Park who said that wasn’t a real scientist???

            Look at every other planet. Do any of them have life? What makes you so blindingly confident this planet won’t join them? We are in a mass extinction right now due to unprecedented rapid climate change. The only life left might just be extremophiles and they may never be able to evolve to be multicellular. And not even extremopjiles can survive everything.

            That people are so casual about this shows a profound lack of scientific knowledge.

            • D1G17AL@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              And we have evidence for at least 6 other major mass extinction events. Yet life on this planet found a way to survive and re-evolve. Quit being so fucking pedantic about something so silly.

              • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I’m not being pedantic, I’m openly disagreeing with the idea that life “must” or absolutely will carry on. There’s no such guarantee. That you hold onto that is a cope but not reality. That’s fine if you need to do that ig but I disagree.

            • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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              Calm down there, sport. I don’t have to cite sources or be factually correct to have a conversation about my perspective and pop culture references.

              • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                Um but you’re talking about a scientific phenomenon so if you want people to value your thoughts, it’s good to support them with evidence

                You don’t have to do anything ofc. It just bothers me to see people say that George Carlin quote “the planet will be fine,” the Jurassic Park quote “life will find a way,” or the idea that the planet is alive and will kill us off like a fever. Because all of those things are downplaying the seriousness of what’s actually happening. From my PoV, what you’re doing is very close to climate change denialism and it stops people from realizing how serious things are right now. Literally right now.

                • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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                  I’m posting on the internet on a place that is not super populated. I have no followers and want to gain nothing from these aside from conversation, learning, and my version of social interaction. Climate change is real. It’s a very real threat to all life. I do what I can, donate to places I agree with, and advocate for groups that need to be heard. I do believe that life will find a way, because we came from nothing to begin with. Species have been destroyed, life was reborn. Civilization have been destroyed and rebuilt.

                  If life does not find a way, then it’s the end of the road for our relative area. We succumb to silence like the rest.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            4 months ago

            Our carcasses could end up being petrochemicals of the emerging life forms.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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        The earth, by any definition, is not alive. Sure there are ecological systems that interact with each other, but there’s absolutely no guarantee they are able.to address issues together in an environment. I highly recommend Half Earth by EO Wilson explaining about species diversity loss and ecology.

        It’s important that we realize that life is the exception. None of the other planets have conditions needed to support life. Our planet would be fine to join them. It doesn’t care about fevers or anything. It isn’t alive.

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            No, by definition of what’s alive, which is already scientifically described. That’s my entire point, is that the people commenting on this are laypeople without scientific understanding or basis. I’m trying to correct that because our scientific ignorance is literally killing us.

            A rock is not alive. A volcano is not alive. This is grade school science. This is what “biology” is.

            https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/intro-to-biology/what-is-biology/a/what-is-life

            Properties of life

            Biologists have identified various traits common to all the living organisms we know of. Although nonliving things may show some of these characteristic traits, only living things show all of them.

            1. Organization Living things are highly organized, meaning they contain specialized, coordinated parts. All living organisms are made up of one or more cells, which are considered the fundamental units of life.
            1. Metabolism Life depends on an enormous number of interlocking chemical reactions. These reactions make it possible for organisms to do work—such as moving around or catching prey—as well as growing, reproducing, and maintaining the structure of their bodies. Living things must use energy and consume nutrients to carry out the chemical reactions that sustain life. The sum total of the biochemical reactions occurring in an organism is called its metabolism.
            1. Homeostasis Living organisms regulate their internal environment to maintain the relatively narrow range of conditions needed for cell function. For instance, your body temperature needs to be kept relatively close to 98.6 [^\circ]F (37 [^\circ]C). This maintenance of a stable internal environment, even in the face of a changing external environment, is known as homeostasis.
            1. Growth Living organisms undergo regulated growth. Individual cells become larger in size, and multicellular organisms accumulate many cells through cell division. You yourself started out as a single cell and now have tens of trillions of cells in your body [^1]! Growth depends on anabolic pathways that build large, complex molecules such as proteins and DNA, the genetic material.
            1. Reproduction Living organisms can reproduce themselves to create new organisms. Reproduction can be either asexual, involving a single parent organism, or sexual, requiring two parents. Single-celled organisms, like the dividing bacterium shown in the left panel of the image at right, can reproduce themselves simply by splitting in two!
            1. Response Living organisms show “irritability,” meaning that they respond to stimuli or changes in their environment. For instance, people pull their hand away—fast!—from a flame; many plants turn toward the sun; and unicellular organisms may migrate toward a source of nutrients or away from a noxious chemical.
            1. Evolution Populations of living organisms can undergo evolution, meaning that the genetic makeup of a population may change over time. In some cases, evolution involves natural selection, in which a heritable trait, such as darker fur color or narrower beak shape, lets organisms survive and reproduce better in a particular environment. Over generations, a heritable trait that provides a fitness advantage may become more and more common in a population, making the population better suited to its environment. This process is called adaptation.

            We can see how earth as a planet doesn’t qualify as a living organism based on these 7 parameters. Metaphorically calling earth “living” to describe the various interacting systems and ecologies is common but not in this context with climate change and insisting the earth will actually repair itself like a living organism.

            I’m all for philosophically wondering about stuff, but we need to have an agreement on terms and what they mean. And in this case, these terms are already defined amd we know the planet isn’t able to heal itself to address climate change. That’s just a cope.

      • Leg@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        A test of long-term sustainable viability, conducted by the limitations within the forces of nature that we audaciously call our home.

    • DarkSpectrum@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      What if humanity was created to cause climate change for the next phase of Earth’s biological evolution? Is no-one considering a grander plan than what happens to humans?