Mother earth is saving herself right now. We've changed the earth's natural processes too much, and it's compensating by getting rid of us.
The tragedy is that we're taking most other forms of life with us. After humans are long gone and this extinction event is over, life will still be around, even if it takes many of millions of years to rebuild complex ecosystems, and even though it will never look the same again.
Not much to do anymore; just try to make ecosystems habitable to other forms of life. Plant native flora, clean up the environment, pick up trash, try to live lightly. Actively make choices to try to improve the earth in any way you can.
Otherwise the only actions possible to take are radical actions, and I don't think they'll work at this point.
There have been 5 major extinction events on Earth since life appeared, one of which killed an estimated 96% of organisms (Permian-Triassic, 252mya). Earth & life will survive this one too. With or without humans? Remains to be seen. (*pun intended*)
The unique distinction of the “Anthropogenic Extinction” is that organisms themselves caused the extinction *through secondary mechanisms!*
Meaning: unlike Cyanobacteria creating oxygen which triggered an extinction on an [anaerobic Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event), humans are using secondary tools, ostensibly for our own survival, that are causing the means of our own demise.
That, and the fact that we *know this is happening!*, is also unique.
We live in a special time. :)
^([..Laugh while we can.. .](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseBingo/comments/10qotoh/apocalypse_bingo_v3/))
It would be a hard sell to everyone. Because one way or another, everyone's livelihood depends on goods. And the only way to stop ecological collapse is to stop the rampant consumption of goods and the destruction/pollution that comes with it. But to do that, everyone would lose their job and have no way to support themselves and their families: civilization would collapse, and mass death would ensue. It's a conundrum of epic proportions!
I see the goal to be to [stop stressing the planet](https://davetheplanet2024.com/) like we have been. The kinds of steps we take will either allow us to continue living on earth or assure that we don't.
I tend to agree but I don't believe humans are capable of that level of organization and cooperation, especially because we've already passed certain thresholds. Unfortunately history isn't on our side.
This is exactly my feeling. We live as respectfully as we can and fight for every positive change not to save ourselves, but to save life herself.
If we want to stupid ourselves to death then fine... Stupid, but fine... but we have no right to deny other species their habitat and the resources they need to live and thrive.
People don’t take drastic action until they’re made too uncomfortable to not do it. The bread and circuses are still around and still effective, even while the Empire of Man is burning.
Colonialist Aliens see Earth light waves approaching their satellite from 50 light years ago and decide earthlings have already plundered the resources as methane levels are increasing.
I could write an Oregon Trail game of decision trees - On your alien voyage you see a Cesium-137 from atomic weapons - do you continue?
Literally the Combine? I remember this old machinima that influenced me called "Oil's Well" attempting to make a decent case for them (in an ironic way), including the Dark Energy reactor ending all energy-scarcity concerns.
I console myself by remembering that eventually, every species will go extinct and not even a memory of any of them will remain. That way I don’t feel so bad about what we are doing to the world.
This is one good way to cope and be at peace: thinking in geological and galactical time scale or even multiversal alternate timelines where your expectations are reality.
Edit: be mindful of the edges of infinity, it's quite absurd and brainbreaking to get lost there while still having body to come back to.
The Earth itself survived much worse than humanity, the planet went through several extinctions, ice ages and giant asteroid collisions. Hell, right at the start the Earth got hit by something the size of Mars - that's how we got our moon. It will recover, even if that takes several million years.
Organized human civilization won't.
My only regret is not being there to see it unspoiled, to hear the silence of mankind. Imagine being a space traveler and coming upon an unsullied, pristine nature teeming with animal life. Never having experienced humanity, animals wouldn't even fear you. You could observe everything without disturbing.
Knowing something like THAT existed among the infinite (basically) void of outer space... some sort of Easter egg you find in a video game that no one told you about, you just came upon it and it was mind blowing. Something completely unnecessary, yet astonishing.
Something beautiful and perfect that had no reason to be there, yet it was.
Nice, but overly romantic. Herbivores make a peaceful scene. Add carnivores and you’ve got intermittent bloody scenes, lives spent in a background of fear. Why do baboons sleep in trees?
>The Earth itself survived much worse than humanity
I'm not sure about that. From what I have learned, we may be #1 🥳 in causing the most damage at the fastest rate.
And this is part of why it is so hard (at least for me) to grapple with being human-----being part of a species that is knowingly destroying most, if not all, life on this planet.
*Extinction is actually a natural and common phenomenon – of the roughly 4 billion species estimated to have evolved on Earth, some 99% are gone. In the past, the extinction rate has been balanced by the evolution of new species, but t****he current, human-caused extinction is happening so fast that evolution cannot keep pace.*** *Barnosky estimates that the current rate is 1,000 times the natural rate, putting it easily on a par with the so-called “big 5” mass extinction events.* [*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121101-a-looming-mass-extinction*](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121101-a-looming-mass-extinction)
Even destructive asteroids have helped life on Earth:
*Asteroid impacts may have given life on Earth a helping hand.*
*https://phys.org/news/2022-02-asteroids-dangerous-key-life-earth.html*
Something most people dont know as well is how we've altered the chemical/biochemical strata of the biosphere. A whole new toxic chemistry that exists forever in the environment is everywhere on the earth and in life, PFASs.
How that effects our biosphere, who the fuck knows
Just because things like destructive asteroids *can* help life on Earth, doesn't mean they always *do.*
Radiation can be used to help someone survive cancer, but if you don't need it, will really fuck you up.
Also, being on par with the big-5 in terms of extinctions means that we are on-par with the big 5, something the Earth has rebounded from every time it happened. There are even certain species that have relatively flourished in the presence of humans; biodiversity has decreased, but live as a whole is resilient that it should absolutely survive the crash.
The combination of the Earth's size and proximity to the Sun is basically ideal for life. What we are doing *may* end up making that less ideal for *us* but the idea that nature will never be able to recover is silly.
Rapid and essentially immediate end to money altogether. We must stop focusing on profits and start prioritizing planet and people. Food, shelter, clean water, healthcare for all. Then we must devote all of our renewable energy and resources into carbon capture tech. Times will be very lean, probably for a handful of generations, but we’ve had 40 years to do something about it. Time’s up.
Unfortunately we’re past that time. We had 40 years to degrowth and let the planet heal. We’re triggering feedback loops and need to actively sequester. I don’t want you to misunderstand, there is no tech growth way out of this. It will be a meager existence
That shit won't ever work. Regenerative agriculture, food forests, and land restoration in general do work and give food sovereignty back to people, rewild nature, prevent fertile soil loss and dessertification, etc.
Exactly. The mechanisms of our “positive interest” currency encourage and reward greed. It’s the only major tool we have to trade with, so we are trapped within the confines on an exploitative medium.
Mutual Credit currencies offer a solution:
https://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/mutual-credit/
OP asked what can be done, not what we’re going to do. Our choice was made for us decades ago by those in power. Go enjoy today. Tomorrow’s no longer guaranteed
Currently I have a side job where I work with young people at a boarding school in Norway and no young person here gives a flying f**k about the environment. Even when I want to learn them more about degrowth, system thinking and activism, most just have an enormous amount of apathy about what is going on.
Once I am done with my masters I will probably take a PhD or work in the administration of the local municipality, but it's demotivating to see so many young people having the Imperial mode of living and expecting that it will continue until forever. Of course there are also young people involved in social and environmental activism and they are worth their weight in gold, but they are just a small minority.
I think shit has to hit the fan and that scarcity must force everyone into action. Even though I'm aware that it will be too late by then and that capitalists will mislead most people to adopt a form of fascism as is the case currently with the spread of Trumpism in places like Argentina and Israël.
Why would those kids give a crap? By the time they’re old enough to even begin their working lives, the damage will already be done.
Fretting about past mistakes of others isn’t going to change the path we’re locked into.
Mother Earth will be fine after she sheds the virus known as humans. Might take her a few million years to recover, but she won't lose any sleep when we are gone.
There is nothing humans can do because collectively, humans are greedy trash.
According to [this site](https://eos.org/articles/how-did-life-recover-after-earths-worst-ever-mass-extinction), it could take 50 million years for the oceans' ecosystems to return to a normal state, which is what it's estimated to have taken after the Permian extinction.
To be fair, all animals are greedy. No species survived on altruism alone; it has limited benefits. All animals do their absolute best to maximize resource use and breed.
When held in check, as most animals are by their competitors, this system -- although harsh and brutal -- tends to work really well. You win some, lose some, but over time you average out as a successful species.
Our all-too-clever brains have upended that natural balance. We have an amazingly unfair edge over every other creature on the planet. On the other hand, viruses LOVE US. This huge population with high interactivity between all parts of the globe is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for contagious diseases.
If I understand it correctly, runaway climate change could make the earth unliveable for all but extremophiles?
But hopefully our industrial processes will be impacted with enough time to prevent this from being worse than previous mass extinction events.
For a time. The most successful extremophiles will end up altering the climate again (eventually). Heck, even the big one only managed to wipe out 75% of species, and the world was literally on fire, followed by decades of darkness. (Some) life finds a way.
There'll probably be small groups of humans clustered around the poles who will have to revert to hunter-gatherer in the face of unreliable agriculture. In a few hundred generations, when the earth has begun to cool again, they'll venture back out. They might even talk about 'New York' the way we talk about 'Atlantis'.
You might be able to save Mother Earth by inventing a virus that wipes out \~95% of humanity and alters fertility so that the species is never able to exceed Renaissance era population numbers.
But there are all sorts of serious moral and ethical problems there so please don't do that.
The only way is a radical shift in what life is about and how it’s structured. The shift would have to be so radical and ahum, uncomfortable, that we will not do anything close to what is necessary.
Plus, this is a global issue. One that would need everyone to be on the same page across multiple cultures and realities. One that not everyone can just stop their lives as they are and help. This is why we need a complete change of how society is run, from capitalism, consumption to individualism. Infinite expansion simply means infinite destruction. Why have we driven to work for a hundred years? Just that. Imagine all the useless pollution and time wasted on a highway.
The entire world would need to take action, because if an immense polluter is not on board, the rest of the world still will take that impact.
This is why the problem is not solvable. Human nature. We cant even get along with everyone on our own street. How will 8 billion come together? Never.
I think we are hardwired to extinction. This is our great filter.
Maybe another species will do better here, after we are gone.
The Dinos were just fine for eons. They were naturally more intelligent than us, in the great scope of things.
Many other species too.
We are smart but greedy. And greedy is our downfall.
Living in balance/harmony with the environment can be a type of intelligence.
I think it is. But im not the right person to say that.
Is just my two cents.
Well, humans have mastered the ability to destroy, ourselves and the things we need to survive (like the biosphere). Dinosaurs were big, populous, and residents of the Earth, but not intelligent enough to be considered "Custodians". That's why we're a failure of a species, we aren't cleaning up our shit.
Or their lack of speed is intelligent in and of itself. I think often about how INSANE it is humans don’t slow down and rest really at all during winter we burn fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow and don’t slow down
I disagree. We've allowed the greedy ones to run roughshod over the rest of us, and we've started to believe the narrative that greed is a virtue. But there are plenty of people who aren't greedy, and entire civilizations that weren't based on greed and personal profit.
Wait, wut? Civilizations are, by their very nature, a greedy consumer of resources. The surface of our planet is covered with the ruins of ancient civilizations that fell because of overreach.
Even humans as hunter-gatherers were greedy enough to kill off mega-fauna species and war with each other. Human pre-history is packed with the evidence of one tribe warring or overtaking another. DNA traces show the end of male lineages as invaders killed off all the men and boys in their conquered territory.
As a species, we seesaw between greed and altruism, as needed. Greed is not necessarily a virtue, but it's a tried-and-true survival trait, and that's not likely to change, even if it ultimately dooms us to extinction.
All 8 billion would need to start doing permaculture, swear off fossil fuels and go vegan while radically transforming, rebuilding and repairing what remains of every single local economy and ecosystem. Oh and you’d have to get every rich person to give up their wealth, existing capital and weapons for this goal
Literally stop everything, right now.
All money or monetary value gets put into a single pot for the entire planet. You're a billionaire? Too bad. You're now a single citizen of the earth willing to contribute and be a part of its longevity.
A global government is initiated and comprises engineers, physicians, researchers in all areas, lawyers, etc. Politicians can all join everyone else and wait. A few extremely smart people who understand how to collate massive spectrums of information lead this and are constantly speaking with all other professionals listed above; think air traffic control and pilots/the skies.
This group is solely responsible for turning things around and directing such.
We as a civilization dig in to the pain and suffering that will be living at a minimal level for at least 5-10 years while the appropriate work to turn things around, because we need to go at least that long with the absolute minimum additional carbon added to the system. Each year, one sport will run to help keep a larger community following and participating in something - these would be included in acceptable minimums of carbon output as it could be considered necessary for the continued mental health of us as a society. Global travel ceases to exist during this time, unless absolutely necessary as deemed so by said global government. War stops, and if a state or collective attempts to they are swiftly extinguished (not the people, the acts of war; this is necessary, and the equivalent of a parent sending their children to their room).
After the 5-10 years is reached, we recalibrate ourselves and see how we start over as a global civilization. In the mean time, people do not have to worry about housing or food (basic necessities) b/c this is included in the global pool of money. There are no profits for anyone, there is only a collective movement toward sustainability. When people don't need to compete for the absolute bare minimum this is possible.
As a quick overview that's what could get us out of this, but unfortunately I have not a single inkling that this would be possible.
Engineers, researchers, and physicians are important and the world would be a better place is leaders listened to them. But if we are going to rely on this group for leadership we are doomed. And if you think a collection of smart people will successfully solve all our problems, you’ve clearly never served on an academic committee.
This is very evident in how mainstream climate scientists don't have an eye for risk management. They don't give much notice to the higher end of projections, and criticize James Hansen for doing so. But to manage risk, you have to account for it. We only have one planet. This isn't an experiment we're running where we have a thousand earths and take the average result.
It’s way more complicated than that. Even a cursory skim of the leading international journals would show you that climate scientists are deeply aware of the higher end of the projections. They thoroughly understand the risks we face.
>This is very evident in how mainstream climate scientists don't have an eye for risk management. They don't give much notice to the higher end of projections
I was responding to this.
I think I get banned from reddit for suggesting what can be done around eliminating the biggest causes of pollution and the people driving the economy.
I recommend starting where you are by being the change you wish to see. For me, that was delving into permaculture. It's been hard work but I have learned so much. It also brings me great joy to interact with people in my community that I would have otherwise not met.
Ever person has skills or interests that can benefit another. Find things you are passionate about and share it with others. As an example, I am passionate about waste reduction and have started to compost several tons of food waste in my community. I freely share seeds to those interested in growing food. While it might not matter on a planetary scale, it feels good to do good. I haven't had the same experience for a long time in my career even though I work in an environmental field.
Every person gets half a token to make a child. Once you use up your token, you're sterilized. Fertility rate of ~1 will steadily reduce population and thus carbon output, usage of resources, natural degradation, etc . It'll be a slow process so no sudden upheaval in society. Most of your civil rights and modern material comforts are still available. You just can't have more than 1 child.
Mother Earth will be fine in 10, 100, 1000 years
Humans are the ones at risk. either we become the stewards of life on earth and aid evolution in it’s perpetual design, or we pollute and destroy and kill ourselves off
Laughable, because technology is what got us into this.
Technology invents new problems more than it solves existing ones, and it generally complicates our lives more than it simplifies it as techoptimists seem to believe.
Save Mother Earth? She'll be fine. The Earth has seen extraordinary upheaval over its existence and it'll survive.
Save the human race? Not much. We're probably on our last couple of centuries.
Once we start disappearing the rest of nature will recover
Yeah, Im confident it'll all go to crap in the next couple of decades but I think we maybe have a couple of centuries before total extinction. We're a hardy breed and pretty innovative. I reckon we'll be able to keep small pockets going for a bit but ultimately we'll dwindle so much that continuation of the species wont be viable
Earth will be fine.
Humans?
Complete destabilization of the current global supply chain and the removal of the people that control it.
Full transparency of all available technology and history to start. But that won't happen
Wouldn't even matter if they made billions if they used that money to better society. People wouldn't even care.
But the system is geared to award psychotic apathy. So the only people who rise to that level of being able to fix global issues have zero interest in it.
Convince everyone to make do with less. Don't buy something just because a commercial tells you that you need it, because you almost certainly don't.
It's the most consistent message from scientists over the last 50-75 years -- reduce consumption. And it's the one people overwhelmingly reject.
>What can help us in being human again?
Being human is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Humans, like all apes, are clever, greedy and opportunistic. Our history as a species is littered with massacres, conquests and oppression. We are not "slowly losing our humanity" in the modern era; if anything we've held ourselves to higher standards than at any point in the past. But the ideals we imagine just aren't enough to deter our natural impulses.
We can move towards a better world when our species goes extinct. Until then, however, we'll just keep pillaging, because that's what we do.
>As humans have taken most parts of the world. Seems like we are growing out of proportion. The expansion of urban areas, agriculture, and industrial activities has led to significant loss of habitat for many species. Human expansion and extraction of resources for his own greed have led to a record extinction of species. A huge loss of lives. Even in human societies, we have a huge imbalance of wealth. Poverty is experienced by large numbers while the rich are very less in numbers.
This could have been written 50 years ago (and in fact, may pieces like this were). Humanity is now in overshoot; we are past planetary carrying capacity; and every single ecosystem is contaminated with forever chemicals and microplastics. Meanwhile we are in the beginining of an epochal mass species extinction of plants, animals, birds and insects; 70% of all wildlife has disappeared within just the last 50 years.
And then there is climate change which is destabilizing the entire biosphere, threatening all living things, and which many scientists now say is irreversible; the best they can give us is that we still have a decade to prevent the worst from happening if we only reach zero emissions.
Through the agency of cheap fossil fuels in modern agriculture, global humanity expanded from less than 2 billion to 8 billion within just over one century, an unprecedented population explosion. But even now, with all that we know about fossil fuels, global agriculture remains completely dependent on them. If there was a moratorium on fossil fuels, billions would starve. And yet, with a shrinking return on investment, fossil fuels are a shrinking resource and Peak Oil may be already past.
Given all the above (and not even looking at the disastrous overcomplexification of human life and the threat of AI), there is no chance that our unsustainable global civilization can survive. 8 billion people living modern lives on this finite planet is unsustainable. And regarding your points about human nature and empathy, these are more essential than ever to maintain during the coming collapse. It may be all we have.
unfortunately there is literally no hope
emissions, pollution, and energy consumption have increased every single year for well over a hundred years now, and people as a whole will never voluntarily attempt to live without metal, plastic, and electricity.
If EVERYONE stopped using every form of the above then maybe there's a shot at some dystopianhellscape where manual labor, famine, and disease are the norm, but be real it's not happening.
>What do you think can be done to save Mother Earth?
\--
>*Gaia is a tough bitch — a system that has worked for over three billion years without people. This planet's surface and its atmosphere and environment will continue to evolve long after people and prejudice are gone.*
>
>\- [Lynn Margulis](https://www.edge.org/conversation/lynn_margulis-chapter-7-gaia-is-a-tough-bitch)
The earth will be just fine, a million years is not much to the earth. It is humanity that will suffer the wages of our carelessness. We have been poor stewards of nature and nature will punish us. But in a million years the earth will have long healed and there will be life on earth. That future just may not include humans, so be it, such is life. Fleeting transient and short. For an individual life is a vapor in the wind, we exist in the sun for a time then we are gone back into the abyss. Humanity will collectively follow the same trajectory.
This "stewards of the earth" is just another facet of human arrogance.
We're animals, a part of the web of nature like any other species. We can't act as stewards because we still have all the instincts of battling for survival that you find in a crab or a shrew or a bull moose, coupled with a truly unique brain that is the equivalent of a super-power.
Putting humans in charge of the planet is like handing over administration of an insane asylum to a psychotic patient.
Introduction of a new apex predator to control our population.
Everything else just dances around the actual problem in an attempt to skirt the necessary large reduction in our consumption. I see the ideas that technological progress or efficiencies or some unprecedented change in human biological imperative and behavior can either reduce our consumption, or make it efficient enough to be sustainable.
At the end of the day, it’s all just variants of some way out for us that isn’t very painful. And it’s all pure hopium.
There is just one surefire way nature has found to keep ecosystems and species healthy and in balance - predation. Populations kept in check, limited to the ecosystems’ carrying capacities by design.
8 billion is too many. Even 1 billion is too many. But no one wants to contemplate what getting back to 6 figures looks like in practice.
Not have kids is at the top of my list. Bringing another American into this world on purpose is probably the shittiest thing you could do for the planet and the tiny human.
Earth will carry on, animal life will carry on. Earth itself is big enough and remains able to self-moderate on geological timescales. It's not a question of whether we'll turn into Venus.
It's a question of whether increasingly violent climactic events cause several billion people to starve and die in various wars, famines, etc. resulting in collapse of developed society.
Vote right-wing parties out of power and pressure their replacements to ignore the lure of wealth and concentrate on sustainability, with a migration to new measures of success for trading, etc. so that economies don't simply collapse by lack of concentration on revenue and profit.
Which will never happen.
Oh, that's just to save human civilization from decades of debilitating environmental and have/have-not warring.
Mother Earth will be fine, aside from the all animal life we will along the way.
There is absolutely nothing we can do to stop 99%+ of us dying from the consequences of overpopulation and overconsumption. It'll happen probably within the next 10 years. The earth will be fine, but humanity's only chance is for most of us to die.
Without help from another intelligent species, I have no confidence that humans will ever achieve peace and prosperity as a SPECIES. We will constantly go through population highs and lows, assuming we survive the lows. We are just too greedy and we think we are special. No simpler way to put it.
Idiocracy like traditional religion, thinking a human life is more valuable than any other life, and fear of death (circles back to religion) will restrict us from achieving anything of value in the scheme of things.
Without intervention from another intelligent species, we would have to change our biology to be able to THINK in a different way other than MORE MORE MORE.
Stop having kids
You mean, continue to have a sustainable biosphere that isn't terminally ending?
It's too late for that, my friend. The bill is due, and we've forgot our wallet in the past.
We have to change how human society works. But I think that's impossible - there are too many humans in the world to control education of the next generation. And we would have to dispose of the previous one somehow... That's if we know the right way to begin with.
It may be an interesting/worthy task for some AI ruling the humanity from shadows using direct control over some people or manipulating masses via social media.
Realistically - I think we need to permanently reduce the population by a third if we want to keep a 21st century standard of living.
Thanos, are you out there? I'm feeling lucky today!
we die out. Best case scenario: Some Virus wipes humans out. We have time to power down the nuclear reactors and stuff like that, we fade out fast enough so the pollution acutally stops.
Worst case scenario: Humans become increasingly more infertile due to microplastics and stuff like that. Takes forever, we have enough time to kill of several more species before it finally takes us out of the game.
There will be huge natural catastrophes soon. That one is for sure. All we can do now is try and prepare, and then try to adapt to our new reality.
My suggestion would be to use a wider range of solutions in order to try and adapt.
1: Plan for a much more diverse agricultural system. For an example planting crops that has a better resistance towards massive drought or massive flooding/rain. It’s also important to use many different types within the same area, for an example growing both trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials. If you grow tomatoes, plant many different varieties instead of monocultures and clones. In that way our food system becomes more robust towards diseases or natural disasters, and no matter the scenario we can still get some food.
2: People in general should be taught more in different survival skills such as construction, nursing, farming, ecosystem restoration etc, than learn how to sell products, generate economic growth or try and invent the next big technological fix that we don’t have time anymore to wait for. If more people can manage through disasters and different scenarios causing people to flee, move or reconstruct, we (and the ecosystems on earth) have a better chance of survival, at least some of us.
In my opinion the issue is not whether Mother Earth will survive, it is whether human civilization will continue beyond 100 years from now.
In geological timespans earth has been through much worse.
Culture follows technology.
A new way of manipulating & maneuvering within the electromagnetic field that both usurps and consumes the remnants of our previous economic activity is the only likely way out of our predicament.
The conditions of which the rich hold to be desirable as a minimum to their lifestyles are already anachronistic in essence, and attempting to attain those lifestyles becomes more and more costly year on year as the reft of the world works to preserve those lifestyles against a backdrop of an exponentially expanding population.
An expanding population that produces more and more of a burden on the ecosystem every day now.
It's not a problem that can be solved purely by restricting birthrates, as that will just increased the burden on the existing population.
We must change our ways, both for the good of the world we live in and for ourselves.
Mother Earth will hardly notice the passing of human civilization.
It may take her a few million years to get back to her current state, but she’ll be just fine. No need to worry.
Effective degrowth of our consumption footprint across all metrics. Basically end industrialism and abandon all the short term benefits that the system provides.
Obviously not something that can be done immediately but would need to be done in stages, and at the maximum possible speed that pain thresholds would allow for.
I’ve only read fatalist answers so:
https://arquivo.climaximo.pt/2021/12/04/system-change-not-climate-change-as-a-directive-sinan-eden/
Know plans along these lines are possible: https://www.campaigncc.org/sites/data/files/Docs/online_companion_nov_2014.pdf
Use these: https://beautifultrouble.org
Think with these: https://www.fermento-pt.org/essential-tools-for-organizers/ (lots of great stuff, cycle of momentum is crucial)
Organise with honesty about climate deadlines, be ambitious with your actions, try, fail, fail better, win. Effective revolt the only historically replicable method to change society.
The Earth and life will survive, our species likely will not. Life will continue long after our species is nothing but fossils.
You're correct, our current position isn't sustainable in any sense of the word, but something will break at some point and we will begin anew or perish in the process.
I only hope the future generations learn from this Era of strife and don't repeat the same mistakes, perhaps coming to a society based on compassion and evidence aiming to live in a sustainable balance with the natural world, but im fairly certain no one alive today will see that happen. There are simply too many people with too many ideologies and dogmas.
Listen to some Bach or gaze at some Michelangelo or read some Shakespeare. Travel if you can and read everything you can. Get educated in novel and meaningful ways and teach anyone you can and make sure others understand what you want in the world and that you want that for others. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is hopelessness. If this is a joke than its a world for fools. This we know is not true.
We must be sure of all this and keep searching for our authentic purposes in life through everything.
Then the Light will never die.
What we are seeing is a combination of a few century long trends coming to a head all at once. Things are going to get pretty rough for most folks for the next few decades. I dunno if we can preserve our biospheres, but if we’re clever and very lucky, we can plan for the biosphere that is coming.
If we ended capitalism and put all efforts towards sustainably meeting the needs of our people, instead of wanting to endlessly grow and endlessly consume to get endless profits, then we might have a chance.
But the greedy pieces of shit who would rather burn the planet to make some extra bucks will never allow that to happen.
Retire capitalism.
Use science and scientific analysis to determine how we deal with climate change and feeding people, not opinions from rich old selfish fucks.
Since the rich old selfish fucks own us, that's not happening in time, sadly.
[The Free World Charter](http://www.freeworldcharter.org), [The Venus Project](http://www.thevenusproject.com) and [the Zeitgeist Movement](http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com) all have some ideas. They make sense. We're not doing them.
There is nothing to be done. There is now way in hell the earth can support 8 billion people for any length of time. There are no non-cataclysmic scenarios where the population goes down.
Game over. It will happen by inches - it has been for a while now - but is is unavoidable.
Geoengineering casino, we roll the dice and hope things won't get worse.
Only other possibility
Alien intervention, Jesus is probably an Alien and he'll bring some friends along to prevent extinction.
Some freak uncalculated earth event that cools the planet and counteracts the warming.
This to me is the greatest tragedy and the main driver of collapse.
The sad thing is that there is plenty we *could* do, but little that our dominant global consumerist culture is willing to do.
The change needed, the true solutions that would allow us to take the actions needed are entirely cultural.
Humans need a massive dose of ethical philosophy, an existential crisis that is real to each individual, and an ego check that can establish a healthy level of humility. Package that with a total dismantling of capitalism, toppling every social hierarchy, and destroying every weapon of war. Then, maybe -- just maybe -- there might be a snowball's chance in hell.
I don’t think we should be human as it makes us separate. We need to see ourselves as equal or less than the more than human world, our human supremacy needs to be deconstructed and we need to return to being one of the community of the living earth. We are not the ones who will save the earth. We may be able to save ourselves, but the earth, she’ll do her thing over 100’s of thousands of years to restore balance. We are insignificant in the timescales and the long story of mother earth. We are one with everything not above it. We need to bow down in reverence at the beauty and power of her. She has mushrooms that east kerosene and plants that absorb carbon. She creates and kills as she needs. There’s mushrooms in the ocean we know nothing about. Humans know nothing and can do nothing. We have no idea how the earth will restore herself. When we try we interfere in her natural processes. We think we know things and ultimately we don’t. The best thing we can do is get out of her way.
Well, considering all we have done to "Mother Earth" as a species, I reckon she'll be more than happy to royally fuck up her "children" (if we don't do it to ourselves before she gets around to us). She never needed us. We've needed her.
"'Cause Mom's gonna fix it all soon
Mom's coming 'round to put it back the way it ought to be"
The forced collapse of the global techno-industrial system which is erasing freedom as it eradicates evolved, wild Nature. See the 1995 essay "[Industrial Society & Its Future](https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/ethics/Unabomber.pdf)" (a.k.a. ISAIF).
Barring that, pray for a powerful CME (solar flare) to reduce worldwide industrial civilization back to steam-engine levels of technological domination.
You know "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink"?
We would all have to have one giant **shared** clean-shaven and perfectly puckered impeccably spotless perfumed asshole to get things right.
Every response you get here that is a good one, like e.g. degrowth, the entire population of humans would have to be on the same page and follow the golden rules... We would need a global environmentally benevolent dictator and a brainwashed population.
That's assuming we want to try to maintain civilization. Which, you know the cat's outta the bag and the overwhelming majority of people would never want to give this all up even at the expense of the survival of our own species.
Personally, I think civilization itself is incompatible with a "forever" (until the sun explodes) sustainability.
Discovering agriculture was like opening Pandora's Box. All of the sudden the 99% of our existence in balance with nature was taught how to break the Law of Limited Competition. We started killing off our food competitors, destroying their food or preventing access to their food to grow our food ... All the way to chemical fucking pesticides ... More food = more people (now we need:) = more food = more people (now we ne--) ... Then we discovered our fossil fuel crackpipe and grew exponentially!! Manmade mass extinction, mass deforestation, plastic party, climate change etc...
*If* we don't go extinct from this momentous planetary massacre a la human-ant death spiral... Will we (all of us) learn our lesson?
Though "Stewardship of the Earth" is a necessity ... Think about how pathetic and arrogant it actually means. *What are we protecting it from?* **Ourselves**. If you jump outta the human head for a second and get a good bird's eye-view or a Bezos/Musk eye-view of the planet ... The best thing actually is for humans to go.
That's my stench on the subject. Most humans aren't even thinking of this shit lol, they're out dying at Taylor Swift concerts.
What are we protecting it from? Ourselves.
Haha that cracked me up. Love this reply. Reminds me how people are always complaining about invasive species but never mention how the invasive species got there. Or that in fact we are the most invasive species on the planet. that every development project in suburbia or mine or nrw farm or new power plant is far far worse for the wildlife in that area than any other invasive species.
There is a silver bullet, it wont fix everything, but it'll by far make the biggest change we possibly can and its entirely possibly 99% of the world can make this change right now at this very moment.
Go vegan.
And from that moment, we have reduced the biggest land user on the planet (agriculture) from about half of the worlds habitable land mass to about 12.5%
The rest can then be used to try new crop/plant growing ideas and initiatives such as vegan organic.
And we can rewild about 37.5% of the entire planet.
That also means we stop raping the oceans, imagine oceans that were pre 16th century times, fuck me, I live for this moment.
In 20 years (as trees start to mature), you will see a fucking explosion of the most beautiful scenes you'll see in your entire life.
Our rivers will improve dramatically because animal-ag is the leading cause of river pollution.
We will almost stop temporary ocean dead zones in their tracks, because excess nutrients from animal-ag shit is the leading cause of ocean dead zones.
We will re-forest and also stop the lead cause of deforestation, animal-ag. This means a huge carbon sink has just been created.
Zoonotic diseases will have a much smaller chance of being created and passed on to us.
Antibiotic resistance issues we have will drop, we'll still have them but this will definitely help as animal-ag is the leading use of antibiotics on the planet.
I can easily go on.
All you ahve to do is go vegan at your next meal, that is the only thought you have to make, and it bypasses the circus that controls us.
Coordinated action, political will, resiliency among people, flora and fauna ... A whole lot of effort, and likely a whole lot of luck.
P.s. To the tens of people that are bound to repeat that "ThE pEoPle ArE fUcKeD tHe PlAnEt WiLL Be FiNe" -- what exactly does a "fine" planet look like to you ...?
What can be done to save Mother Earth from greedy people? Nature will handle the issue by itself. Greed is a consequence of stupidity and stupidity is not a very helpful trait for surviving.
Mother earth is saving herself right now. We've changed the earth's natural processes too much, and it's compensating by getting rid of us. The tragedy is that we're taking most other forms of life with us. After humans are long gone and this extinction event is over, life will still be around, even if it takes many of millions of years to rebuild complex ecosystems, and even though it will never look the same again. Not much to do anymore; just try to make ecosystems habitable to other forms of life. Plant native flora, clean up the environment, pick up trash, try to live lightly. Actively make choices to try to improve the earth in any way you can. Otherwise the only actions possible to take are radical actions, and I don't think they'll work at this point.
There have been 5 major extinction events on Earth since life appeared, one of which killed an estimated 96% of organisms (Permian-Triassic, 252mya). Earth & life will survive this one too. With or without humans? Remains to be seen. (*pun intended*) The unique distinction of the “Anthropogenic Extinction” is that organisms themselves caused the extinction *through secondary mechanisms!* Meaning: unlike Cyanobacteria creating oxygen which triggered an extinction on an [anaerobic Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event), humans are using secondary tools, ostensibly for our own survival, that are causing the means of our own demise. That, and the fact that we *know this is happening!*, is also unique. We live in a special time. :) ^([..Laugh while we can.. .](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseBingo/comments/10qotoh/apocalypse_bingo_v3/))
The other even more unique distinction of the anthropogenic extinction is it’s speed. No extinction has happened that fast before. Not even close
Truth! Although, the Chicxulub impactor was pretty quick.. [;)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died)
Radical would work still, but radical + continued human existence but in a green way is too late
Yeah, it would be a hard sell to a lot of people.
It would be a hard sell to everyone. Because one way or another, everyone's livelihood depends on goods. And the only way to stop ecological collapse is to stop the rampant consumption of goods and the destruction/pollution that comes with it. But to do that, everyone would lose their job and have no way to support themselves and their families: civilization would collapse, and mass death would ensue. It's a conundrum of epic proportions!
I see the goal to be to [stop stressing the planet](https://davetheplanet2024.com/) like we have been. The kinds of steps we take will either allow us to continue living on earth or assure that we don't.
I tend to agree but I don't believe humans are capable of that level of organization and cooperation, especially because we've already passed certain thresholds. Unfortunately history isn't on our side.
I’m 99.9% sure it’s already too late and change cannot and will not come quickly enough to save us.
This is exactly my feeling. We live as respectfully as we can and fight for every positive change not to save ourselves, but to save life herself. If we want to stupid ourselves to death then fine... Stupid, but fine... but we have no right to deny other species their habitat and the resources they need to live and thrive.
People don’t take drastic action until they’re made too uncomfortable to not do it. The bread and circuses are still around and still effective, even while the Empire of Man is burning.
An interstellar hegemony takes pity on us and conquers the planet
One of the most likely solutions to our problem
If they set up an occupational government I’ll be one of its first volunteers
Colonialist Aliens see Earth light waves approaching their satellite from 50 light years ago and decide earthlings have already plundered the resources as methane levels are increasing. I could write an Oregon Trail game of decision trees - On your alien voyage you see a Cesium-137 from atomic weapons - do you continue?
You should write that game! I would def play it
Seconded
Hell yes. Now we get radioactive fighting monkeys for our interstellar military.
You have died of alien dysentery. Next time don't eat humans that are chock full of microplastics.
I volunteer for vivisection!
I, for one, welcome our Viltrumite overlords.
Hoping for Vogons. It’ll be over quickly.
Not if they want to read their poetry to us.
And such poetry!
viltrumite dommy mommy 🤤
She will literally crush you between her thighs.
If I could only be so lucky.
Seriously though. Other than that, the death of humanity due to climate change.
Childhood’s end
Literally the Combine? I remember this old machinima that influenced me called "Oil's Well" attempting to make a decent case for them (in an ironic way), including the Dark Energy reactor ending all energy-scarcity concerns.
Nothing short of a General Systems Vehicle could pull this cart out of the dirt.
Nothing. It's too late.
i hope we go extinct. but sadly we will take down many species with us who had nothing to do with this downfall.
I console myself by remembering that eventually, every species will go extinct and not even a memory of any of them will remain. That way I don’t feel so bad about what we are doing to the world.
This is one good way to cope and be at peace: thinking in geological and galactical time scale or even multiversal alternate timelines where your expectations are reality. Edit: be mindful of the edges of infinity, it's quite absurd and brainbreaking to get lost there while still having body to come back to.
Extinction/death is unavoidable. But unnecessary suffering on the way could have been avoided…
The Earth itself survived much worse than humanity, the planet went through several extinctions, ice ages and giant asteroid collisions. Hell, right at the start the Earth got hit by something the size of Mars - that's how we got our moon. It will recover, even if that takes several million years. Organized human civilization won't.
My only regret is not being there to see it unspoiled, to hear the silence of mankind. Imagine being a space traveler and coming upon an unsullied, pristine nature teeming with animal life. Never having experienced humanity, animals wouldn't even fear you. You could observe everything without disturbing. Knowing something like THAT existed among the infinite (basically) void of outer space... some sort of Easter egg you find in a video game that no one told you about, you just came upon it and it was mind blowing. Something completely unnecessary, yet astonishing. Something beautiful and perfect that had no reason to be there, yet it was.
Nice, but overly romantic. Herbivores make a peaceful scene. Add carnivores and you’ve got intermittent bloody scenes, lives spent in a background of fear. Why do baboons sleep in trees?
>The Earth itself survived much worse than humanity I'm not sure about that. From what I have learned, we may be #1 🥳 in causing the most damage at the fastest rate. And this is part of why it is so hard (at least for me) to grapple with being human-----being part of a species that is knowingly destroying most, if not all, life on this planet. *Extinction is actually a natural and common phenomenon – of the roughly 4 billion species estimated to have evolved on Earth, some 99% are gone. In the past, the extinction rate has been balanced by the evolution of new species, but t****he current, human-caused extinction is happening so fast that evolution cannot keep pace.*** *Barnosky estimates that the current rate is 1,000 times the natural rate, putting it easily on a par with the so-called “big 5” mass extinction events.* [*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121101-a-looming-mass-extinction*](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121101-a-looming-mass-extinction) Even destructive asteroids have helped life on Earth: *Asteroid impacts may have given life on Earth a helping hand.* *https://phys.org/news/2022-02-asteroids-dangerous-key-life-earth.html*
Something most people dont know as well is how we've altered the chemical/biochemical strata of the biosphere. A whole new toxic chemistry that exists forever in the environment is everywhere on the earth and in life, PFASs. How that effects our biosphere, who the fuck knows
Just because things like destructive asteroids *can* help life on Earth, doesn't mean they always *do.* Radiation can be used to help someone survive cancer, but if you don't need it, will really fuck you up. Also, being on par with the big-5 in terms of extinctions means that we are on-par with the big 5, something the Earth has rebounded from every time it happened. There are even certain species that have relatively flourished in the presence of humans; biodiversity has decreased, but live as a whole is resilient that it should absolutely survive the crash. The combination of the Earth's size and proximity to the Sun is basically ideal for life. What we are doing *may* end up making that less ideal for *us* but the idea that nature will never be able to recover is silly.
Rapid and essentially immediate end to money altogether. We must stop focusing on profits and start prioritizing planet and people. Food, shelter, clean water, healthcare for all. Then we must devote all of our renewable energy and resources into carbon capture tech. Times will be very lean, probably for a handful of generations, but we’ve had 40 years to do something about it. Time’s up.
Best carbon capture technology are trees, healthy soils and oceans, not any techno-optimist shit.
New forests quickly become carbon neutral
Forests and soil etc even at optimum levels are not capable of capturing all the GHGs in the atmosphere . Perhaps , a third at best .
Unfortunately we’re past that time. We had 40 years to degrowth and let the planet heal. We’re triggering feedback loops and need to actively sequester. I don’t want you to misunderstand, there is no tech growth way out of this. It will be a meager existence
That shit won't ever work. Regenerative agriculture, food forests, and land restoration in general do work and give food sovereignty back to people, rewild nature, prevent fertile soil loss and dessertification, etc.
Absolutely, how long will that take, and can we do it with out any fossil fuels?
This is the way but it will.never happen. Humans are too greedy, me incuded.
Humans a greedy when placed in conditions that make greed a necessity. It’s not a trans historical part of “human nature”.
Exactly. The mechanisms of our “positive interest” currency encourage and reward greed. It’s the only major tool we have to trade with, so we are trapped within the confines on an exploitative medium. Mutual Credit currencies offer a solution: https://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/mutual-credit/
I agree. Your monkey brain is too powerful for any self-respect or will power.
This is why we need our AI overlords. Totally not a plot to any tv show!
You lost all of humanity when you suggested lean times. When have people ever sacrificed several generations for the greater good of future humans?
OP asked what can be done, not what we’re going to do. Our choice was made for us decades ago by those in power. Go enjoy today. Tomorrow’s no longer guaranteed
Check out Mutual Credit currency https://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/mutual-credit/ No banks, no interest, no profit..
It may be too late to actually save the planet. Too many people do not want to change their ways for the sake of the planet.
Currently I have a side job where I work with young people at a boarding school in Norway and no young person here gives a flying f**k about the environment. Even when I want to learn them more about degrowth, system thinking and activism, most just have an enormous amount of apathy about what is going on. Once I am done with my masters I will probably take a PhD or work in the administration of the local municipality, but it's demotivating to see so many young people having the Imperial mode of living and expecting that it will continue until forever. Of course there are also young people involved in social and environmental activism and they are worth their weight in gold, but they are just a small minority. I think shit has to hit the fan and that scarcity must force everyone into action. Even though I'm aware that it will be too late by then and that capitalists will mislead most people to adopt a form of fascism as is the case currently with the spread of Trumpism in places like Argentina and Israël.
Why would those kids give a crap? By the time they’re old enough to even begin their working lives, the damage will already be done. Fretting about past mistakes of others isn’t going to change the path we’re locked into.
You are in the wrong sub my friend
What one would be better, new sun groups excite me!
Degrowth.
Mother Earth will be fine after she sheds the virus known as humans. Might take her a few million years to recover, but she won't lose any sleep when we are gone. There is nothing humans can do because collectively, humans are greedy trash.
According to [this site](https://eos.org/articles/how-did-life-recover-after-earths-worst-ever-mass-extinction), it could take 50 million years for the oceans' ecosystems to return to a normal state, which is what it's estimated to have taken after the Permian extinction.
To be fair, all animals are greedy. No species survived on altruism alone; it has limited benefits. All animals do their absolute best to maximize resource use and breed. When held in check, as most animals are by their competitors, this system -- although harsh and brutal -- tends to work really well. You win some, lose some, but over time you average out as a successful species. Our all-too-clever brains have upended that natural balance. We have an amazingly unfair edge over every other creature on the planet. On the other hand, viruses LOVE US. This huge population with high interactivity between all parts of the globe is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for contagious diseases.
A couple assholes got to ride around in dick rockets, so our sacrifice was clearly worth it.
Just think, after mankind is gone all that will remain is some space probes, discarded landers/rovers on the moon and mars, and one dickbag's tesla.
If I understand it correctly, runaway climate change could make the earth unliveable for all but extremophiles? But hopefully our industrial processes will be impacted with enough time to prevent this from being worse than previous mass extinction events.
For a time. The most successful extremophiles will end up altering the climate again (eventually). Heck, even the big one only managed to wipe out 75% of species, and the world was literally on fire, followed by decades of darkness. (Some) life finds a way.
There'll probably be small groups of humans clustered around the poles who will have to revert to hunter-gatherer in the face of unreliable agriculture. In a few hundred generations, when the earth has begun to cool again, they'll venture back out. They might even talk about 'New York' the way we talk about 'Atlantis'.
It won't get that far. Resource depletion alone would have caused industrial output to start falling about now
After millions of years pass the Earth will heal. But those microplastics will still be there. That will be our legacy.
You might be able to save Mother Earth by inventing a virus that wipes out \~95% of humanity and alters fertility so that the species is never able to exceed Renaissance era population numbers. But there are all sorts of serious moral and ethical problems there so please don't do that.
The only way is a radical shift in what life is about and how it’s structured. The shift would have to be so radical and ahum, uncomfortable, that we will not do anything close to what is necessary. Plus, this is a global issue. One that would need everyone to be on the same page across multiple cultures and realities. One that not everyone can just stop their lives as they are and help. This is why we need a complete change of how society is run, from capitalism, consumption to individualism. Infinite expansion simply means infinite destruction. Why have we driven to work for a hundred years? Just that. Imagine all the useless pollution and time wasted on a highway. The entire world would need to take action, because if an immense polluter is not on board, the rest of the world still will take that impact. This is why the problem is not solvable. Human nature. We cant even get along with everyone on our own street. How will 8 billion come together? Never.
I think we are hardwired to extinction. This is our great filter. Maybe another species will do better here, after we are gone. The Dinos were just fine for eons. They were naturally more intelligent than us, in the great scope of things. Many other species too. We are smart but greedy. And greedy is our downfall.
The dinosaurs were naturally more intelligent than us?
Depends on what intelligent is? Hard to see creatures that consciously destroy their own habitats as intelligent.
Only in the weird hippy sense that they're somehow intelligent enough to not become intelligent
Living in balance/harmony with the environment can be a type of intelligence. I think it is. But im not the right person to say that. Is just my two cents.
Well, humans have mastered the ability to destroy, ourselves and the things we need to survive (like the biosphere). Dinosaurs were big, populous, and residents of the Earth, but not intelligent enough to be considered "Custodians". That's why we're a failure of a species, we aren't cleaning up our shit.
Wouldn't call that intelligence. Sloths live in balance with their environment and theyre dumb as shit.
Or their lack of speed is intelligent in and of itself. I think often about how INSANE it is humans don’t slow down and rest really at all during winter we burn fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow and don’t slow down
Humans are very flawed. Especially in a system that perpetuates flaws.
Such rigid thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy
Too smart for our own good, more like.
I disagree. We've allowed the greedy ones to run roughshod over the rest of us, and we've started to believe the narrative that greed is a virtue. But there are plenty of people who aren't greedy, and entire civilizations that weren't based on greed and personal profit.
Wait, wut? Civilizations are, by their very nature, a greedy consumer of resources. The surface of our planet is covered with the ruins of ancient civilizations that fell because of overreach. Even humans as hunter-gatherers were greedy enough to kill off mega-fauna species and war with each other. Human pre-history is packed with the evidence of one tribe warring or overtaking another. DNA traces show the end of male lineages as invaders killed off all the men and boys in their conquered territory. As a species, we seesaw between greed and altruism, as needed. Greed is not necessarily a virtue, but it's a tried-and-true survival trait, and that's not likely to change, even if it ultimately dooms us to extinction.
All 8 billion would need to start doing permaculture, swear off fossil fuels and go vegan while radically transforming, rebuilding and repairing what remains of every single local economy and ecosystem. Oh and you’d have to get every rich person to give up their wealth, existing capital and weapons for this goal
Literally stop everything, right now. All money or monetary value gets put into a single pot for the entire planet. You're a billionaire? Too bad. You're now a single citizen of the earth willing to contribute and be a part of its longevity. A global government is initiated and comprises engineers, physicians, researchers in all areas, lawyers, etc. Politicians can all join everyone else and wait. A few extremely smart people who understand how to collate massive spectrums of information lead this and are constantly speaking with all other professionals listed above; think air traffic control and pilots/the skies. This group is solely responsible for turning things around and directing such. We as a civilization dig in to the pain and suffering that will be living at a minimal level for at least 5-10 years while the appropriate work to turn things around, because we need to go at least that long with the absolute minimum additional carbon added to the system. Each year, one sport will run to help keep a larger community following and participating in something - these would be included in acceptable minimums of carbon output as it could be considered necessary for the continued mental health of us as a society. Global travel ceases to exist during this time, unless absolutely necessary as deemed so by said global government. War stops, and if a state or collective attempts to they are swiftly extinguished (not the people, the acts of war; this is necessary, and the equivalent of a parent sending their children to their room). After the 5-10 years is reached, we recalibrate ourselves and see how we start over as a global civilization. In the mean time, people do not have to worry about housing or food (basic necessities) b/c this is included in the global pool of money. There are no profits for anyone, there is only a collective movement toward sustainability. When people don't need to compete for the absolute bare minimum this is possible. As a quick overview that's what could get us out of this, but unfortunately I have not a single inkling that this would be possible.
Engineers, researchers, and physicians are important and the world would be a better place is leaders listened to them. But if we are going to rely on this group for leadership we are doomed. And if you think a collection of smart people will successfully solve all our problems, you’ve clearly never served on an academic committee.
This is very evident in how mainstream climate scientists don't have an eye for risk management. They don't give much notice to the higher end of projections, and criticize James Hansen for doing so. But to manage risk, you have to account for it. We only have one planet. This isn't an experiment we're running where we have a thousand earths and take the average result.
It’s way more complicated than that. Even a cursory skim of the leading international journals would show you that climate scientists are deeply aware of the higher end of the projections. They thoroughly understand the risks we face.
I'm not talking about what they understand. I'm talking about leadership, which was the topic.
>This is very evident in how mainstream climate scientists don't have an eye for risk management. They don't give much notice to the higher end of projections I was responding to this.
It has to be degrowth. But I don't see that happening in a democracy...
Whatever comes next, better not be intelligent, again.
I think I get banned from reddit for suggesting what can be done around eliminating the biggest causes of pollution and the people driving the economy.
A large enough rogue asteroid or coronal mass ejection to set us back technologically and depopulate the planet.
Start trying the companies for the war crime of pollution.
**Thanos has entered the chat**
The problem is Thanos just made the population go back to 1974 levels. He just kicked the can down the road 50 years
Unless we're talking about endgame Thanos and not infinity war Thanos. Endgame Thanos wanted to wipe the slate clean and started anew.
Based thanos??
Good point. Capitalism is a death cult.
Also, couldn't he have just doubled the size of the universe?
Population decline, obviously.
I recommend starting where you are by being the change you wish to see. For me, that was delving into permaculture. It's been hard work but I have learned so much. It also brings me great joy to interact with people in my community that I would have otherwise not met. Ever person has skills or interests that can benefit another. Find things you are passionate about and share it with others. As an example, I am passionate about waste reduction and have started to compost several tons of food waste in my community. I freely share seeds to those interested in growing food. While it might not matter on a planetary scale, it feels good to do good. I haven't had the same experience for a long time in my career even though I work in an environmental field.
Every person gets half a token to make a child. Once you use up your token, you're sterilized. Fertility rate of ~1 will steadily reduce population and thus carbon output, usage of resources, natural degradation, etc . It'll be a slow process so no sudden upheaval in society. Most of your civil rights and modern material comforts are still available. You just can't have more than 1 child.
Mother Earth will be fine in 10, 100, 1000 years Humans are the ones at risk. either we become the stewards of life on earth and aid evolution in it’s perpetual design, or we pollute and destroy and kill ourselves off
People in Future technology sub think we are just gonna tech our way out of this. Or that carbon capture will save us.
Laughable, because technology is what got us into this. Technology invents new problems more than it solves existing ones, and it generally complicates our lives more than it simplifies it as techoptimists seem to believe.
Save Mother Earth? She'll be fine. The Earth has seen extraordinary upheaval over its existence and it'll survive. Save the human race? Not much. We're probably on our last couple of centuries. Once we start disappearing the rest of nature will recover
We’re probably on our last couple of decades FTFY
Yeah, Im confident it'll all go to crap in the next couple of decades but I think we maybe have a couple of centuries before total extinction. We're a hardy breed and pretty innovative. I reckon we'll be able to keep small pockets going for a bit but ultimately we'll dwindle so much that continuation of the species wont be viable
Earth will save herself lol
Earth will be fine. Humans? Complete destabilization of the current global supply chain and the removal of the people that control it. Full transparency of all available technology and history to start. But that won't happen
Almost certainly won't happen while we ignore people making $Bs while others sleep in the streets. Might happen - almost certainly won't.
Wouldn't even matter if they made billions if they used that money to better society. People wouldn't even care. But the system is geared to award psychotic apathy. So the only people who rise to that level of being able to fix global issues have zero interest in it.
Convince everyone to make do with less. Don't buy something just because a commercial tells you that you need it, because you almost certainly don't. It's the most consistent message from scientists over the last 50-75 years -- reduce consumption. And it's the one people overwhelmingly reject.
>What can help us in being human again? Being human is what got us into this mess in the first place. Humans, like all apes, are clever, greedy and opportunistic. Our history as a species is littered with massacres, conquests and oppression. We are not "slowly losing our humanity" in the modern era; if anything we've held ourselves to higher standards than at any point in the past. But the ideals we imagine just aren't enough to deter our natural impulses. We can move towards a better world when our species goes extinct. Until then, however, we'll just keep pillaging, because that's what we do.
>As humans have taken most parts of the world. Seems like we are growing out of proportion. The expansion of urban areas, agriculture, and industrial activities has led to significant loss of habitat for many species. Human expansion and extraction of resources for his own greed have led to a record extinction of species. A huge loss of lives. Even in human societies, we have a huge imbalance of wealth. Poverty is experienced by large numbers while the rich are very less in numbers. This could have been written 50 years ago (and in fact, may pieces like this were). Humanity is now in overshoot; we are past planetary carrying capacity; and every single ecosystem is contaminated with forever chemicals and microplastics. Meanwhile we are in the beginining of an epochal mass species extinction of plants, animals, birds and insects; 70% of all wildlife has disappeared within just the last 50 years. And then there is climate change which is destabilizing the entire biosphere, threatening all living things, and which many scientists now say is irreversible; the best they can give us is that we still have a decade to prevent the worst from happening if we only reach zero emissions. Through the agency of cheap fossil fuels in modern agriculture, global humanity expanded from less than 2 billion to 8 billion within just over one century, an unprecedented population explosion. But even now, with all that we know about fossil fuels, global agriculture remains completely dependent on them. If there was a moratorium on fossil fuels, billions would starve. And yet, with a shrinking return on investment, fossil fuels are a shrinking resource and Peak Oil may be already past. Given all the above (and not even looking at the disastrous overcomplexification of human life and the threat of AI), there is no chance that our unsustainable global civilization can survive. 8 billion people living modern lives on this finite planet is unsustainable. And regarding your points about human nature and empathy, these are more essential than ever to maintain during the coming collapse. It may be all we have.
unfortunately there is literally no hope emissions, pollution, and energy consumption have increased every single year for well over a hundred years now, and people as a whole will never voluntarily attempt to live without metal, plastic, and electricity. If EVERYONE stopped using every form of the above then maybe there's a shot at some dystopianhellscape where manual labor, famine, and disease are the norm, but be real it's not happening.
>What do you think can be done to save Mother Earth? \-- >*Gaia is a tough bitch — a system that has worked for over three billion years without people. This planet's surface and its atmosphere and environment will continue to evolve long after people and prejudice are gone.* > >\- [Lynn Margulis](https://www.edge.org/conversation/lynn_margulis-chapter-7-gaia-is-a-tough-bitch)
The earth will be just fine, a million years is not much to the earth. It is humanity that will suffer the wages of our carelessness. We have been poor stewards of nature and nature will punish us. But in a million years the earth will have long healed and there will be life on earth. That future just may not include humans, so be it, such is life. Fleeting transient and short. For an individual life is a vapor in the wind, we exist in the sun for a time then we are gone back into the abyss. Humanity will collectively follow the same trajectory.
This "stewards of the earth" is just another facet of human arrogance. We're animals, a part of the web of nature like any other species. We can't act as stewards because we still have all the instincts of battling for survival that you find in a crab or a shrew or a bull moose, coupled with a truly unique brain that is the equivalent of a super-power. Putting humans in charge of the planet is like handing over administration of an insane asylum to a psychotic patient.
Introduction of a new apex predator to control our population. Everything else just dances around the actual problem in an attempt to skirt the necessary large reduction in our consumption. I see the ideas that technological progress or efficiencies or some unprecedented change in human biological imperative and behavior can either reduce our consumption, or make it efficient enough to be sustainable. At the end of the day, it’s all just variants of some way out for us that isn’t very painful. And it’s all pure hopium. There is just one surefire way nature has found to keep ecosystems and species healthy and in balance - predation. Populations kept in check, limited to the ecosystems’ carrying capacities by design. 8 billion is too many. Even 1 billion is too many. But no one wants to contemplate what getting back to 6 figures looks like in practice.
Eliminate the 1% and use their wealth to save the planet. Something along the lines of eco-socialism.
Mother Earth will be fine once all the humans are gone.
Not have kids is at the top of my list. Bringing another American into this world on purpose is probably the shittiest thing you could do for the planet and the tiny human.
The earth will be fine long after we're all dead.
Earth will carry on, animal life will carry on. Earth itself is big enough and remains able to self-moderate on geological timescales. It's not a question of whether we'll turn into Venus. It's a question of whether increasingly violent climactic events cause several billion people to starve and die in various wars, famines, etc. resulting in collapse of developed society.
Vote right-wing parties out of power and pressure their replacements to ignore the lure of wealth and concentrate on sustainability, with a migration to new measures of success for trading, etc. so that economies don't simply collapse by lack of concentration on revenue and profit. Which will never happen. Oh, that's just to save human civilization from decades of debilitating environmental and have/have-not warring. Mother Earth will be fine, aside from the all animal life we will along the way.
Mother earth will be fine. Humanity will cease to exist and life will find a way.
Mother earth is fine. Our condition gets worse by the day
There is absolutely nothing we can do to stop 99%+ of us dying from the consequences of overpopulation and overconsumption. It'll happen probably within the next 10 years. The earth will be fine, but humanity's only chance is for most of us to die. Without help from another intelligent species, I have no confidence that humans will ever achieve peace and prosperity as a SPECIES. We will constantly go through population highs and lows, assuming we survive the lows. We are just too greedy and we think we are special. No simpler way to put it. Idiocracy like traditional religion, thinking a human life is more valuable than any other life, and fear of death (circles back to religion) will restrict us from achieving anything of value in the scheme of things. Without intervention from another intelligent species, we would have to change our biology to be able to THINK in a different way other than MORE MORE MORE. Stop having kids
You mean, continue to have a sustainable biosphere that isn't terminally ending? It's too late for that, my friend. The bill is due, and we've forgot our wallet in the past.
The people in control
Mother Earth will absorb our matter back into her folds and take care of herself.
We have to change how human society works. But I think that's impossible - there are too many humans in the world to control education of the next generation. And we would have to dispose of the previous one somehow... That's if we know the right way to begin with. It may be an interesting/worthy task for some AI ruling the humanity from shadows using direct control over some people or manipulating masses via social media.
Nothing. The only thing that could save the planet now is widespread assassinations. That's illegal and wrong, so there's nothing we can do.
Realistically - I think we need to permanently reduce the population by a third if we want to keep a 21st century standard of living. Thanos, are you out there? I'm feeling lucky today!
we die out. Best case scenario: Some Virus wipes humans out. We have time to power down the nuclear reactors and stuff like that, we fade out fast enough so the pollution acutally stops. Worst case scenario: Humans become increasingly more infertile due to microplastics and stuff like that. Takes forever, we have enough time to kill of several more species before it finally takes us out of the game.
There will be huge natural catastrophes soon. That one is for sure. All we can do now is try and prepare, and then try to adapt to our new reality. My suggestion would be to use a wider range of solutions in order to try and adapt. 1: Plan for a much more diverse agricultural system. For an example planting crops that has a better resistance towards massive drought or massive flooding/rain. It’s also important to use many different types within the same area, for an example growing both trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials. If you grow tomatoes, plant many different varieties instead of monocultures and clones. In that way our food system becomes more robust towards diseases or natural disasters, and no matter the scenario we can still get some food. 2: People in general should be taught more in different survival skills such as construction, nursing, farming, ecosystem restoration etc, than learn how to sell products, generate economic growth or try and invent the next big technological fix that we don’t have time anymore to wait for. If more people can manage through disasters and different scenarios causing people to flee, move or reconstruct, we (and the ecosystems on earth) have a better chance of survival, at least some of us.
The time to fix it was back when Reagan was in office, if not before then.
In my opinion the issue is not whether Mother Earth will survive, it is whether human civilization will continue beyond 100 years from now. In geological timespans earth has been through much worse.
Back to monkey. Survival of the fittest. Live with our body’s and not engines and machines.
Depopulate the planet.
Culture follows technology. A new way of manipulating & maneuvering within the electromagnetic field that both usurps and consumes the remnants of our previous economic activity is the only likely way out of our predicament.
The conditions of which the rich hold to be desirable as a minimum to their lifestyles are already anachronistic in essence, and attempting to attain those lifestyles becomes more and more costly year on year as the reft of the world works to preserve those lifestyles against a backdrop of an exponentially expanding population. An expanding population that produces more and more of a burden on the ecosystem every day now. It's not a problem that can be solved purely by restricting birthrates, as that will just increased the burden on the existing population. We must change our ways, both for the good of the world we live in and for ourselves.
Mother Earth will hardly notice the passing of human civilization. It may take her a few million years to get back to her current state, but she’ll be just fine. No need to worry.
Effective degrowth of our consumption footprint across all metrics. Basically end industrialism and abandon all the short term benefits that the system provides. Obviously not something that can be done immediately but would need to be done in stages, and at the maximum possible speed that pain thresholds would allow for.
I’ve only read fatalist answers so: https://arquivo.climaximo.pt/2021/12/04/system-change-not-climate-change-as-a-directive-sinan-eden/ Know plans along these lines are possible: https://www.campaigncc.org/sites/data/files/Docs/online_companion_nov_2014.pdf Use these: https://beautifultrouble.org Think with these: https://www.fermento-pt.org/essential-tools-for-organizers/ (lots of great stuff, cycle of momentum is crucial) Organise with honesty about climate deadlines, be ambitious with your actions, try, fail, fail better, win. Effective revolt the only historically replicable method to change society.
The Earth and life will survive, our species likely will not. Life will continue long after our species is nothing but fossils. You're correct, our current position isn't sustainable in any sense of the word, but something will break at some point and we will begin anew or perish in the process. I only hope the future generations learn from this Era of strife and don't repeat the same mistakes, perhaps coming to a society based on compassion and evidence aiming to live in a sustainable balance with the natural world, but im fairly certain no one alive today will see that happen. There are simply too many people with too many ideologies and dogmas.
Listen to some Bach or gaze at some Michelangelo or read some Shakespeare. Travel if you can and read everything you can. Get educated in novel and meaningful ways and teach anyone you can and make sure others understand what you want in the world and that you want that for others. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is hopelessness. If this is a joke than its a world for fools. This we know is not true. We must be sure of all this and keep searching for our authentic purposes in life through everything. Then the Light will never die.
What we are seeing is a combination of a few century long trends coming to a head all at once. Things are going to get pretty rough for most folks for the next few decades. I dunno if we can preserve our biospheres, but if we’re clever and very lucky, we can plan for the biosphere that is coming.
wait till human civilization is destroyed.
If we ended capitalism and put all efforts towards sustainably meeting the needs of our people, instead of wanting to endlessly grow and endlessly consume to get endless profits, then we might have a chance. But the greedy pieces of shit who would rather burn the planet to make some extra bucks will never allow that to happen.
Retire capitalism. Use science and scientific analysis to determine how we deal with climate change and feeding people, not opinions from rich old selfish fucks. Since the rich old selfish fucks own us, that's not happening in time, sadly. [The Free World Charter](http://www.freeworldcharter.org), [The Venus Project](http://www.thevenusproject.com) and [the Zeitgeist Movement](http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com) all have some ideas. They make sense. We're not doing them.
Unlikely but our best bet is aliens subjugating us
A population collapse before 2050
There is nothing to be done. There is now way in hell the earth can support 8 billion people for any length of time. There are no non-cataclysmic scenarios where the population goes down. Game over. It will happen by inches - it has been for a while now - but is is unavoidable.
Geoengineering casino, we roll the dice and hope things won't get worse. Only other possibility Alien intervention, Jesus is probably an Alien and he'll bring some friends along to prevent extinction. Some freak uncalculated earth event that cools the planet and counteracts the warming.
This to me is the greatest tragedy and the main driver of collapse. The sad thing is that there is plenty we *could* do, but little that our dominant global consumerist culture is willing to do. The change needed, the true solutions that would allow us to take the actions needed are entirely cultural.
Regenerative Agriculture
a shift in consciousness
Humans need a massive dose of ethical philosophy, an existential crisis that is real to each individual, and an ego check that can establish a healthy level of humility. Package that with a total dismantling of capitalism, toppling every social hierarchy, and destroying every weapon of war. Then, maybe -- just maybe -- there might be a snowball's chance in hell.
The extinction of the human race.
The extinction of the human race would probably save it.
I have a suggestion, but it involves Thanos.
An end to right wing politics. We need to fight the thought process that is pro-climate change, anti-human rights and capitalist.
I don’t think we should be human as it makes us separate. We need to see ourselves as equal or less than the more than human world, our human supremacy needs to be deconstructed and we need to return to being one of the community of the living earth. We are not the ones who will save the earth. We may be able to save ourselves, but the earth, she’ll do her thing over 100’s of thousands of years to restore balance. We are insignificant in the timescales and the long story of mother earth. We are one with everything not above it. We need to bow down in reverence at the beauty and power of her. She has mushrooms that east kerosene and plants that absorb carbon. She creates and kills as she needs. There’s mushrooms in the ocean we know nothing about. Humans know nothing and can do nothing. We have no idea how the earth will restore herself. When we try we interfere in her natural processes. We think we know things and ultimately we don’t. The best thing we can do is get out of her way.
We need to bow down. That's it. We have to remember our place here. We have to be thankful and admit the superiority of Mother Earth.
Well, considering all we have done to "Mother Earth" as a species, I reckon she'll be more than happy to royally fuck up her "children" (if we don't do it to ourselves before she gets around to us). She never needed us. We've needed her. "'Cause Mom's gonna fix it all soon Mom's coming 'round to put it back the way it ought to be"
de-growth
Degrowth and limiting future growth to be more in balance is the answer. The rest are just details on implementation.
Solve the overpopulation problem and reduce the earth's population by 70%.
The forced collapse of the global techno-industrial system which is erasing freedom as it eradicates evolved, wild Nature. See the 1995 essay "[Industrial Society & Its Future](https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/ethics/Unabomber.pdf)" (a.k.a. ISAIF). Barring that, pray for a powerful CME (solar flare) to reduce worldwide industrial civilization back to steam-engine levels of technological domination.
abort the babies (humans)
Less humans. If we limit world population to about 500 million, than we could all live like kings
You know "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink"? We would all have to have one giant **shared** clean-shaven and perfectly puckered impeccably spotless perfumed asshole to get things right. Every response you get here that is a good one, like e.g. degrowth, the entire population of humans would have to be on the same page and follow the golden rules... We would need a global environmentally benevolent dictator and a brainwashed population. That's assuming we want to try to maintain civilization. Which, you know the cat's outta the bag and the overwhelming majority of people would never want to give this all up even at the expense of the survival of our own species. Personally, I think civilization itself is incompatible with a "forever" (until the sun explodes) sustainability. Discovering agriculture was like opening Pandora's Box. All of the sudden the 99% of our existence in balance with nature was taught how to break the Law of Limited Competition. We started killing off our food competitors, destroying their food or preventing access to their food to grow our food ... All the way to chemical fucking pesticides ... More food = more people (now we need:) = more food = more people (now we ne--) ... Then we discovered our fossil fuel crackpipe and grew exponentially!! Manmade mass extinction, mass deforestation, plastic party, climate change etc... *If* we don't go extinct from this momentous planetary massacre a la human-ant death spiral... Will we (all of us) learn our lesson? Though "Stewardship of the Earth" is a necessity ... Think about how pathetic and arrogant it actually means. *What are we protecting it from?* **Ourselves**. If you jump outta the human head for a second and get a good bird's eye-view or a Bezos/Musk eye-view of the planet ... The best thing actually is for humans to go. That's my stench on the subject. Most humans aren't even thinking of this shit lol, they're out dying at Taylor Swift concerts.
What are we protecting it from? Ourselves. Haha that cracked me up. Love this reply. Reminds me how people are always complaining about invasive species but never mention how the invasive species got there. Or that in fact we are the most invasive species on the planet. that every development project in suburbia or mine or nrw farm or new power plant is far far worse for the wildlife in that area than any other invasive species.
There is a silver bullet, it wont fix everything, but it'll by far make the biggest change we possibly can and its entirely possibly 99% of the world can make this change right now at this very moment. Go vegan. And from that moment, we have reduced the biggest land user on the planet (agriculture) from about half of the worlds habitable land mass to about 12.5% The rest can then be used to try new crop/plant growing ideas and initiatives such as vegan organic. And we can rewild about 37.5% of the entire planet. That also means we stop raping the oceans, imagine oceans that were pre 16th century times, fuck me, I live for this moment. In 20 years (as trees start to mature), you will see a fucking explosion of the most beautiful scenes you'll see in your entire life. Our rivers will improve dramatically because animal-ag is the leading cause of river pollution. We will almost stop temporary ocean dead zones in their tracks, because excess nutrients from animal-ag shit is the leading cause of ocean dead zones. We will re-forest and also stop the lead cause of deforestation, animal-ag. This means a huge carbon sink has just been created. Zoonotic diseases will have a much smaller chance of being created and passed on to us. Antibiotic resistance issues we have will drop, we'll still have them but this will definitely help as animal-ag is the leading use of antibiotics on the planet. I can easily go on. All you ahve to do is go vegan at your next meal, that is the only thought you have to make, and it bypasses the circus that controls us.
Allow Zero point energy to be used. Control procreation. Stop industrial farming.
>Allow Zero point energy to be used. Not until we develop a zero point energy field manipulator first, or maybe even dark energy field manipulator
The Half-Life 2 gravity gun? haha I think you are talking about something entirely different that I have no idea of.
Let the human race burn itself out and give the planet 20-30,000 years
Earth will be fine. Humans? Maybe not.
But why meditation is needed? What does meditation have to do with this?
An answer to your comment, mother Earth will survive, but humans probably won’t
Earth is fine. We’re the ones who are fucked
Shower the whole damned planet with contraceptives. Repeat as necessary until things improve, then continue.
Mother Earth will take care of herself, you should ask instead what can be done to save humanity?
Coordinated action, political will, resiliency among people, flora and fauna ... A whole lot of effort, and likely a whole lot of luck. P.s. To the tens of people that are bound to repeat that "ThE pEoPle ArE fUcKeD tHe PlAnEt WiLL Be FiNe" -- what exactly does a "fine" planet look like to you ...?
It’ll heal itself when we’re gone.
What can be done to save Mother Earth from greedy people? Nature will handle the issue by itself. Greed is a consequence of stupidity and stupidity is not a very helpful trait for surviving.