Thank you MrNeutross, and thank you too Kurtis. It lightens my heart to see people wanting to do something about this. I will definitely talk more with people about climate change.
But it's important to understand why the other person is denying if they do that. Since if we keep on trying to share facts, they will only deny things more since we are affecting their world view.
You make a good point Sivah. I think trying without thinking about the approach is on average better than doing nothing, but reading up on what's effective and trying is much better. i'll have a look at the "motivational interview" conversation teqneeq, and if you have any recommendations, I would appreciate beeing told about them.
@@jrgenchristensen7240 Basically you need to be a billionaire you can worry about anything other yourself and paying your bills. Before that happens no one is going to care about anyone else.
Please Note: People are now dying. In forest fires in California, in Australia, people are dying. In floods in Iran, people are dying. In smog-choked India, people are dying.
It's about timeframe and immediacy. We react only when people are dying quickly, indiscriminately, directly around us and we see a clear causation. Most climate victims are either far away, die slowly (smog) or of things we can (wrongly) dissociate from cc. "We always had hurricanes" (ignore frequency and severity). Problem is we are still mostly monkeys, evolved to care about very immediate dangers. Thinking in decades is a fluke, caring about a problem that takes 8 days to kill you is what we are hardwired to do.
@@aenorist2431 This. And since our brain will surely not evolve into a "better" tool in the next decades I'd say it's rather possible that homo sapiens is going down the drain. We should still fight global warming at least on a personal level though because it's the right thing.
Hey, I see you. Every time you talk about climate change with someone, you are helping. Every time you share a link about climate, you are helping. If you can vote for climate, you are helping. We're all in this together. We can do this. 💚
Block Builder It’s funny the power of not doing. That can be exactly what you need to do. Perhaps not going out in our cars and riding bikes instead helps the climate every bit.
Kurtis Baute In our highly social world the one thing we can do physically which improves our climate is to, physically, not do anything which can substantially affect our climate. It would be quite extreme to say “Stop breathing so less CO2 is emitted”, so there’s always a limit as to how far anyone can do nothing, so getting on the internet and talking is something nice.
One of the depressing parts about Covid is how people can't wait for "things to go back to normal" like as if it was something that came from nowhere and won't happen again and again. This was so painful to watch that I had to pause several times, but thank you for the honesty. I appreciate your videos very much. I will share this as much as I can.
One of the most frustrating things for me is when climate "Skeptics" say the climate has always changed it goes up and down it's just natural and of course it has, but they fail to realise the people who discovered that and research past climate change, are the same scientists who are telling you that the climate change happening now is caused by humans.
Another one is it used to be global warming now it's climate change or Visa versa, when in reality both are still used as they mean different things. Global Warming refers to the current situation. Whereas Climate change is not a specific change in the climate but is focus on all of the past and present changes in climate. Also that people don't know that climate change is in the discipline of Geography, so will often gets random scientist from physics for example and let them horribly explain or fail to explain any of the processes, due to it not being there subject. And then dismissing geographers because that doesn't sound right when talking about climate change.
@pneumatictrousers That's factually wrong though. The overwhelming majority of scientists agree human activity is causing climate change. Deniers like you refuse to listen to scientists to begin with.
@@Alex-cw3rz Minor point: Climate change is absolutely geo-science as you say, but the front lines are filled with biologists. Entomologists, marine biologists, botanists, ecologists... They are *grieving* right now. They're seeing beloved organisms that they have worked with and cared for and *loved* die off, constantly. But they will stop grieving. They will get on the fucking warpath. First step: Fire. To borrow an xkcd joke... "Your car's temperature has changed before." I'm... mostly kidding.
Crazy how a video this important only has 5.9k views in 3 hours. I’ll do my best to share and spread the word because change is literally the MOST essential variable in creating a solution.
When you talk about climate change, you talk as if it isn't happening currently. Climate change is this pandemic; is it the whole of australia burning. This is killing people now. The climate of earth will continue to change, and life will continue to be forced to adapt. The issue is just how much time does life, and humanity, have to adapt?
Not entirely true the pandemic wasn't made by climate change But due to climate change melting ancient ice it is releasing viruses we have never seen before and they can become pandemics so climate change causes more viruses to come back into functional order due to melting ice but it doesn't make them in the atmosphere or something along with stuff he said
@@RichARock the pandemic isnt created by climate change, no. Do the effects of a changing climate help with controlling it? Definitely not Climate change doesnt make problems. It makes other smaller problems a lot bigger and harder to manage. Mostly due to the lack of stability in the world around us
It's tricky to talk about in present tense because even though YES it is happening now, its also a different sort of monster then we'll see in 10 years, or 30. We're just in the First Act, and so far, its sure looking like a Tragedy.
@@ScopeofScience I'm currently in university studying the same things you're talking about. It's very exciting to see what might occur in the next 100 years, with how insanely new this is all to us
The denial about the climate of earth noticeably changing (lighting the frickin Australia on fire) scares me, and shows how much dumbness has taken over humanity
SubzeroBEZERKER we aren’t depressed because of screens. We’re depressed because of what’s on them: shootings, death counts, natural disasters, hate crimes, and horrifically inefficient politicians who put verbal Band-Aids on the problems at best and rub salt in them at worst. We’re depressed because we have good ideas with no one listening to them unless they’re criticizing our naïveté or discounting us because of our diminutive age. We’re depressed because we can see the world we want but, when faced with the world we have, we can’t figure out how to get there. We’re depressed because we can see the errors of humanity, but we get trampled on whenever we point them out. So take your ageist bullshit elsewhere, thank you very much.
@@mericaman1269 "care too much about what people think" that is true but "gen z is depressed because they spend on their time on phones and tv" is false. Pointing fingers at the symptoms, not the problem. For many of them, the digital world is an escape from the sh** they put up with
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Previous generations had wars to fight and nukes pointed at their borders. I feel it kinda scapegoats the issue, but perhaps it also contributes to it
What am I as an individual supposed to do (17 y/o)? Should this influence my career choice? Should I not have hobbies or possessions which somehow contribute to the problem? There are many things I wanna do in life which may increase carbon emmisions (such as travelling). I feel like I can't contribute *enough* without making serious sacrifices in my life. (I could go on but I think I'll stop now) What advice would you give?
It's a game of balance imho. We will always have a carbon footprint. It'll take a couple technological and social leaps to zero it out. In the mean time best individuals can es to educate people around you (being careful to not alienate them), prefer recyclables, avoid overconsumption, and travel responsibly. For that last one, one may avoid usual destinations in order to not contribute to overtourism, prefer trains, and avoid private cars (which kill us everywhere in time and space, use public transit & eco vehicles like bicycles), and travel less. We want to ideally stop all emissions, but we don't want to go back to 1700s in the process. So we'll need to hit a balance somewhere.
Firstly, you can't help that you live under a system that almost forces you to use more than your share of Carbon, so realise that although it would be good for you to reduce your personal Carbon Footprint, it's system change that we truly need, at the state level. That said, the 2 biggest things we can do as individuals is limit our red meat consumption, and limit our flights on jet aircraft - but really more than anything else we need to vote for people that will deliver massive systemic changes, and not just people that promise to tweak the edges of the old system while we keep sleepwalking towards catastrophe. Until the majority of the population in a country actually understands how dire the situation actually is, we won't get governments that will act at the speed we need them to, so the other really useful thing you can do as an individual is to raise the alarm amongst your friends and family, and help them understand how bad it actually is, so that they will vote for leaders that take Climate Change seriously.
It shouldn't be us. It shouldn't be our generation. We *shouldn't* have to make those sacrifices. Nobody would have had to if they'd listened the first time, or the second, or the third... We've been let down. Unfortunately, we *do* have to make those sacrifices. That's our lot, and we *can* do it, and still live awesome lives. We're more resilient than they were. We're more determined. We know it won't go away; we've grown up with it not going away. We get to be the ones to make our world as good as it's gonna be. If you want to travel, that's great, there are good and bad ways to do that, but you could also try to *do* something with that travel. You could find quirky low-carbon ways to get about and use that attention to spread a message, as one example. There are good and bad hobbies but I'd bet that you could find a way to do most of the bad ones in a more climate-friendly manner anyway. Another thing to do is cut down on meat if you can. One option might be to focus on fish instead of meat; it's generally better for you and much better for the environment, though veggies are still better so it's a good time to get healthy too. Eating local helps too, so the food industry isn't being paid as much to haul food long-distance; in winter, that might actually mean that preserved meat's better than trying to go full-veggie, if you're from northern climes. Eating seasonally can be absolutely delicious; if you eat what's in season, it's *actually* fresh. You won't change the world on your own, but if our generation makes a little bit of effort *as a whole,* we can do a lot of good. The more you can do, the better, but you don't have to do *everything.*. Campaigning also helps. We're not old enough to make direct changes to policy but we can sure as hell make our voices heard while the geezers are squabbling over loose change, make it real hard to ignore us. I've been chronically ill for a while so I can't physically campaign right now, but I'm going to be out there as soon as I can. Post-Covid, of course. We *can* do this... but hopefully we won't have to. Hopefully it'll be fixed before we have to really play the horrible catcup game. We just need to be prepared for that not happening because, right now, it *isn't.* Also, search with Ecosia! Its engine isn't as good as Google's but there's no actual good reason not to plant a tree with every search (unless you've got one of those other charity search thingies).
What I find even more concerning is that people want to go back to normal as soon as possible. We need to have a drastic mindset shift to cope with the effects of climate change as a society.
My dad is a research scientist (fish). I know from growing up speaking to his fellow scientists that they alway er on the side of caution. Their projections are always on the conservative side. So when I hear climate scientists speak, if they saying things are bad, then you know it's really really bad.
I feel I'm always in danger of slipping into some kind of numb 'learned helplessness' kind of a state. This pandemic has further solidified how the majority of people who need to act will not. If a quarter of the population acts, it won't make a difference if 75% decides to either act as if business is usual as the planet burns, or to outright start poluting more out of spite. This isn't a new view of mine either. You routinely see "It was cold outside (in Winter), global warming is a hoax!" spouted out. That's the metric of 'this problem exists' for them. They will not even acknowledge a problem until nowhere on the planet is ever cold again. We have to lose actual seasons and for it to permanantly be hot everywhere (inhabited, hopefully) on the planet before they'll concede the vast majority of trained experts are not lying through their teeth. You can't reason from that, as it doesn't come from a place of reason. Until we can route out that kind of thinking, I cannot concieve of how we can possibly mitigate the coming disaster even slightly. If we stopped all carbon emissions immediately, we'd still have issues with the climate warming. Yet we can't stop immediately, years after missing every target. We aren't even slowing down. We're not even slowing down at speeding up the rate of emissions. The absolute best humanity can current muster is that we're perhaps reducing the rate at which the rate of increase itself increases. That is beyond dire. I suppose our only hope is that we as a species can ultimately adapt (in lesser numbers) to a drastically different biosphere with drastically reduced amounts of life (until evolution can adapt the rest of the planet to fit the temperature). Perhaps one day the more out-there hypothesises like creating an artificial cloud layer to reflect more of the sun's heat will become practical, but even that is fraught with a myriad of issues.
Would you be willing to make a video listing just a bunch of things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint and ideas on how to tell others about it? I will definitely be posting this video on social media cause I think it’s a great wake up call!! It would also be awesome if you made a video or you know of some that give list that I can show people.
How good to see an honest appraisal of the situation we find ourselves in. I've been an environmentalist since the 1980s and during the 90s was going on about 'sustainable development' and in the nougthies was banging on about carbon rationing, but over the last decade it has become increasingly clear we are sprinting towards the edge of a cliff - to a certain huge crash, and the inevitable death of billions, maybe everyone. I've been shouting the 'apply brakes' message, most recently via XR, which gave me a modicum of hope as it became a hugely popular movement. But, Covid19 notwithstanding, we are still speeding towards that cliff, and no amount of braking will stop us going over. The solution is to work through the fear and grief and arrive at acceptance. Once there, live life fully, doing as much as you can to preserve the environment for whatever species survive us, helping others especially those less privileged than ourselves, and sharing as much love and kindness as possible. Do these and you should be happy, and fulfilled knowing you're doing what you can.
Hello Kurtis, I'm a big fan of your content and your heartfelt approach to science. Your epic Foucault Pendulum live-action animation (over 24 hours long if I remember correctly) was a real mind blower. But can I share with you what a "climate change denier" thinks? For starters, your list of the dire consequences of climate change is very sobering. But what a skeptic like me looks at is the long *history* of similar dire predictions. I'm a man of science, and a pillar of science (especially a theory) is whether it can be used to make predictions, especially hard predictions. For example (because I debate with Flat Earth folks), the fact that we can predict with down-to-the-minute accuracy the timing and locations of total solar eclipses 25 years in the future is a pretty good indicator that the Heliocentric model is extremely accurate. But I've been studying the many-decades-long track record of "climate change" predictions and I haven't found a single one that's come true. Not one. Furthermore, they always seem to be "off" in the same direction: the prediction is always worse than the eventual reality. Which means there is a systematic bias in the guiding philosophies governing these predictions, many of which have as a central premise that increased CO2 drives negative climate consequences. Which remains unproven (there seems to be more noise than signal, in radio terms). Thus the models which have this as their starting point tend to get the future very wrong. I believe in being a good steward of the environment. But I also think that our societal decisions should be based on science which is able to accurately predict things. Sure, there are some crackpots on my side of the aisle, cheering "Screw the Environment!" but there are a great many level-headed minds who are studying global climate models very carefully, with a skeptical, scientific eye. I recommend you (just to play devil's advocate) treat this as a Debate Team exercise: what if you were to argue FOR Climate Skepticism? Who would you study? What research would you read? I can recommend Tony Heller here on UA-cam, plus Anthony Watts, Will Happer, and Bjorn Lomborg, just to name a few. Cheers!
I fully agree with the general sentiment of this piece, and thanks for doing it. I just have a nugget of positivity that can help here. Climate change is absolutely not permanent. We can take CO2 out of our atmosphere in several ways. Firstly there is the natural way of regrowing forests. Sure, trees are only a carbon sink in the sense that when they decay after dying, they release the CO2 back into the atmosphere, but my house is built out of wood, as nearly everyone's house is. That wood will not decay anytime soon as it is protected from water and the elements by the exterior surface of my house. If we adopt electric engines in the forestry business, and electric engines in the transportation sector transporting the lumber, and electric engines in the machines used to construct houses, and we get our grid greener to power these electric engines with green electricity, the process of building things out of wood becomes a way of essentially permanently (or, more accurately, several hundred years) sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Us humans are real, real good at building stuff. In the same vein, industrial scale reforestation of deserts is totally possible. Desalination plants and pumps can send water into irrigation systems which provide water to the trees in the desert until the desert becomes a self sustaining forest capable of retaining their own water. These solutions are a bit far off, and enormously costly, but compared to the cost of dealing with climate change, they are very cheap. However, I think the best solution right now isn't very greed looking on the outside. We already have technology for large scale industrial plants which take CO2 out of the air. The only problem right now is they are not financially viable. They take tons of money to operate and don't produce any products to be sold, so right now they are economically non-starters. These plants, already, without much financial investment, are VASTLY superior at removing CO2 from the atmosphere compared to trees. Once the CO2 is harvested, it needs to be pumped deep underground, where the CO2 initially came from. When these systems becomes optimized with further development and deployment, a single plant will be able to permanently store more CO2 per day than a city could produce. So we just build one in every city around the world. Are these solutions difficult? Sure. It is certainly much harder to take CO2 out of the atmosphere than it is to put it up there, but the idea you have that once we put CO2 out there, we can't get it back is wrong. We can today. We are not stuck with our level of the greenhouse effect for ever.
Many good points. Sidenote though, grassland is far more permanent and better at absorption than forest of managed correctly, and most of the desertification is on Savannah. Reference Allan Savory and planned grazing for the details.
jweezy2045 Thank you for your message.Personally I agree with you and as one person stated solving climate change is a three pronged attack which is Mitigation,Adaptation and Finally Restoring the Climate.It is these technological advancements that make me hopeful for the future of our climate as well as our living conditions.We have the power to not just mitigate Climate Change But to reverse it we just need to find ways and give ourselves the willpower to work for a better future.The points this guy also made is exactly why I’m going to be an activist once this Pandemic is over.
Ae Norist I was talking about planting forests as a way to combat deforestation. Deforestation? Can be reversed by planting forests. Desertification of savannah? Can be reversed by planting grassland. Greenhouse effect? Can be reversed by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere. You name a negative effect of global warming, and I can name a potential industrial scale solution to solve that problem.
I'm from iceland and iv'e for a long time cared so much about climate change, the planet, and the damage we're doing. It hurts me deeply to see the ice melting here, with my own eyes, and knowing such insanely amazing animals will die because of us. I SEE THE CHANGE WITH MY OWN EYES, WAKE TF UP. I want to do everything i can to make a change as a citizen. I'm only 15 though, so i still live with my parents who don't really care. But when i move out, i will live as green and plastic-free as possible. It pisses me off more than anything to see the denial and lazyness of people. They keep waiting another ten fucking years because they can't feel the change, or just don't care. Fuck humans honestly, i have no hope but i will do my part. Will definantly read the book but loose all hope for the future and possibly become depressed.
I'm working on something about that, yes. Its a great thing that nearly *everyone* can do, which is great. I'm vegan (gave up meat 17 years ago). But if you can vote for climate leaders, I'd argue that's more important. If you fly a lot and admit that you can stop doing that - its even more important. If you have a bunch of investments and can pull them out of anything that helps oil, thats. also more important. Basically, its complicated.
Kurtis, I appreciate and I'm looking forward to the direction you are taking your channel. I hugely value your views. I hope you don't mind if I comment in a slightly challenging way at times. It's always with respect and meant to move the discussion forward towards positive conclusions and solutions. Your point about people rebooking their flights to Mexico - As a species we reject a narrowing of our opportunities and abilities to act. Throughout our entire existence as a species our horizons have continually opened. That is our nature. It is the condition that has shaped us throughout our evolution. If we are going to succeed in finding a sustainable path forward for humanity it will have to be in a way that does not feel like a constraint on our lives, on a narrowing of our sense of freedom in how we interact with the world. We can accept (for some with great difficulty) a quarantine for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic, because we know it is for a limited time and for the cause of enabling us to return to our normal lives afterward. But any climate change solution that involves a PERMANENT reduction of our sense of freedom will not happen. It simply will not be accepted. We will die off before we accept that. Perhaps we can accept short term constraints for an immediate improvement of some kind. But in the long term, we must find solutions that are in harmony with our nature. If they are not in harmony they will be rejected. And if we therefore find no solutions, then we will simply die off. When I say "we must etc" I do not mean that I think we "should". I'm looking at it from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. As a species we are what we are and that is not going to change in just a generation or two. Evolution does not work that way. However our climate IS changing in just a generation and if we can't find a way to adapt to it, by altering our activities to mitigate the change, we will not survive the change. However any alteration to our activities will only be accepted by the bulk of the population if it is in harmony with our nature, as we are today. This is why people struggle to recognize the harm of their own actions such as flying. If we simply tell people, "stay home", that solution will be rejected, even if it means the end of our species. So if we are going to succeed, we must find solutions that respect the freedoms that it is our nature constantly to seek.
Why is nuclear power not an option for decreasing carbon emissions? Modern nuclear technology allows for very little toxic bi-products and nuclear meltdowns are near impossible.
It is an option, I think, but it is not well-known. It is associated with technology and industry, so people have the intuition that it has a high carbon footprint and is part of the problem. Add to that the required investments, the fact people confuse danger and risk of accidents, as well as the inherent problems of nuclear waste and security that are left to solve, and it looks like a big pile of yikes despite the huge contribution it could make to transition to better energy generation. On the bright side, with renewable energy often being intermittent, *not* leaning on nuclear fission means there's only one viable path left to work on for people: consuming less energy.
Nuclear is generally has the highest cost to build, operate and maintain, even when waste materials can be recycled. Plant type Total system LCOE (2025) Ultra-supercritical coal 76.44 Combined cycle 38.07 Combustion turbine 66.62 Advanced nuclear 81.65 Geothermal 37.47 Biomass 94.83 Wind, onshore 39.95 Wind, offshore 122.25 Solar photovoltaic3 35.74 Hydroelectric 52.79 www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
It's main problem is the cost - initial investment is several billion dollars, and then fuel costs come after that. Renewables are just so much more cost effective. Nuclear can obviously provide much more base load power constantly than a solar grid but it isn't cost effective.
Yes it could be one step on the way and a part of a solution to reduce emissions. But nuclear technology is in no step of the process a ecosystem friendly or circular thinking industry. Long term storage is a nightmare. To me an equal option would be to lower our energy consumption so that we don't even need that much energy. Insolate buildings better, and travel a little less. Like, live within some sort of ecosystem budget.
How you feel now and how you look at your past selfs plane travels is how doctors look back at the dark ages. We got out of it by working together and sharing.
Great video! I would suggest taking "COVID19" out of your description though. Its common that videos featuring that direct reference are getting hidden/less revenue than those without. Love ya Kurtis! Want to make sure you get the coverage needed.
I really appreciate your efforts in spreading education and positive inspirational messages. We really need more influencers like you. Thank you for uploading this. I think many of us on the internet need to see more videos like this. Stay safe and positive :')
Hi, a (long) comment from here in Northeastern Romania. Climate change has been very obvious to us in the last few years. I'm not exactly an expert so you can take my words with a grain of salt. The last "real" winter I experienced was in 2014. Ever since then, winters have been a joke: a week or two of snow, a month of negative temperatures of around -4 degrees C (which has been a bit frustrating, as ride my bike to school and I can't go under -2 degres Celsius) and finally about 3 or 4 weeks of light snow again. In March we've been getting temperatures above 25°C. Then, around this time of the year (mid-May to early July) we'd get basically a "rain" season. It is very frustrating because more often than not we cannot go out due to the everyday rains; me and my family are very keen to mountain climbing and we can't climb them if it's raining (we're afraid of lightning). After the rain season, July through October, we'd get a "dry" season, bringing droughts. This has been happening for the last 3 years. I can only think of the regions on the globe where there are only two seasons, dry and wet. Seems like we're heading towards a similar climate. I've learned that this type of weather (basically British-style rain) was never seen before in our region. We'd get hot summers with rains here and then (seems like they were Cumulonimbus storms). Using weather maps to look at wind currents and knowledge from older people, I've come to some kind of theory: we had worse winters and springs because there was this strong cold wind blowing from Siberia. In the meantime, Siberia warmed up (possibly a runaway effect as less snow meant darker ground and thus faster warming) and it no longer produced the heavy cold wind, letting the wind currents from the Atlantic inland. I can't say I understand the system fully, but since the problem seems to be Siberia warming up, I'm quite positive it's because of global warming. Thanks for reading my comment about our experience here. I hope the hypothesis I've come up with makes sense to someone who actually studies the subject.
Great video. Could you put some numbers on sea level rise? From what I've read, the science says a meter or two by 2100. I'd guess accelerating numbers every century after that, topping out at 70(?) meters in a couple thousand (?) years. The thing is, I think that's slowly enough that we'll be able to deal with it. It's not as urgent as loss of land due to extreme heat and drought or ocean ecosystems collapsing due to heat and ocean acidification. I'm not saying it won't be a problem, but it's near the bottom of the list. I think we may be over emphasizing it and feeding denial (giving ammunition to the people who have been misquoting Al Gore).
Talking is obviously the easiest step to take on a personal basis, but consider the fact that this isn't the only problem in the world. There will always be too much 'competition' for the issue to be resolved by talking alone. We (as in individual members of society) need to adopt a entrepreneurial approach to actually solve this and other problems. People care about things that affect their livelihood, health, and survival. However, they only care if it's a problem right now. So, we make it a problem right now by creating businesses large enough to affect people's livelihoods, etc. The reason climate change hasn't hit home is because too many people are invested in fossil fuels and their benefits. So, we must take away or neutralize the benefits, be it by government, or by business. The direct adversary of this problem is obviously big oil, so we need to find a way to do something about them. So, if you really think this is bad, do more than talk about it. Plan for it, build a career around it, DO SOMETHING. We will effectively kill ourselves otherwise.
Kurtis first thing i am in worry now and to me this video is more impact full than those optimistic videos.. Now let me tell you why i think people are not listening or now worried. The problem is that the world is divided in upper classes and lower classes.. upper class people are so confident that they can do anything from money and they just dont care about earth because they know eventually i can live on money and about lower class they are just so busy in sustaining their life that these issues are not must important to them as food! So i think problem is the capitalism.. and uneven quality of life people are living in. And since in capitalism money is more important gov is not paying attention in reducing carbon dioxide because that will mean less profit or even loss to individuals.
I think a real problem is that in movies about climate change they always make it seem either like a brush off we’ll manage or something that will kill us all. That’s problematic as people expect to see something cataclysmic and then deny it when it doesn’t.
To tell people that climate change is real, we first have to teach flat earthers that the earth is round to tell people that the earth is round, we first have to teach people to believe in science and I don't know how to make people trust science
You don't need to be sorry that this video was "depressing". Your aim here is not to entertain people, it is to tell the facts. And that's why we clicked on the video.
I hope the children of the future will see videos like this and know that there are good people out there who genuinely wanted to help. Thank you for trying to bring attention to this Kurtis. I don't mean to be defeatist but even if things get worse forever all we can do is our best, and you're inspiring people to do that.
I hope that the parents of the children of the future don't leave it up to them. I hope everyone alive today, especially older and richer people (who have emitted more than any other demographic), takes responsibility, and takes action.
Kurtis, I love you, man, and I agree with everything you have said in this video, but I felt like I was just watching a vegan standing on a soapbox in the middle of town and telling everyone about how we’re stealing food from the honeybees. I look at this through an economic lens and I would like to hear more arguments for the invisible hand using increasing in strength to move industries into more sustainable production. My far-right father-in-law would not listen to the “jokers who think climate change is the most important issue facing our generation”, but he would probably be open to talking about re-tooling industry to become more long-term sustainable in a supply/demand sense.
You're right that not every talking style is going to get across to everyone. I hope you can have chats with your father-in-law in a way that connects meaningfully with him. I do know that the ways climate scientists have been trying to engage the public about this over the last 30+ years... that method has largely been failing. We need to try whatever methods of non-violent communication/action we can. I wish you luck! 💚
Kurtis Baute, thanks mate! I’m actually kind of excited that we are currently being forced to rethink our industries (don’t get me wrong though, Covid is terrifying and people dying is horrible). This could be a very good opportunity for us, long term. We may see a paradigm shift to rather than just a gradual moving away from inefficiencies.
UBI still leaves the market ultimately in charge of economic allocation. Basic necessities like water, food, electricity, healthcare, and housing should be guaranteed and outside of the realm of currency.
Thank you for being the person to do this. It makes me so happy to see someone who sees how it really is instead of putting on a pair of rose colored glasses and saying "it's gunna be okay" Love you Kurtis thank you for being the person you are
I think it's really hard to see the issue clearly, because everyone wants to wear the rose coloured glasses. I'm hoping we can make that change. Thank You! 💚
I too study environmental science, and when trying to talk to people about it I'm met with blank stares or eye rolls. This video pretty much summed up my frustration, I'll be sharing it.
In my circles of friends and family furtunately nobody denies human caused climate change, but here on youtube and even in state media (I live in Hungary at the time) I see so much, that makes me really sad. I think, more and more people start to see, that climate change is real. But too many (maybe the majority of people here) belief it has nothing to do with us. And no matter how convincing we are with hard facts, many stick, to what they 'want' to belief in. My two favorite examples are cyanobacteria and termites. Both are tiny living organisms, that heavily influence there surroundings and impact the environment. But if you seperate just a handful of those, you would think they could never have the effect , which they actually have. Ok, I came up with this short storry 9 years ago, when I was studying Biology (I am most interested in evolotionary biology and how the environment is effecting it, but work right now as a paleoartist, and scientific sculptor. For those who are interested: sebastianjasper.com/en/home/). I was often thinking, someone should make a funny short storry or cartoon about one celled organisms, which live happyly in the precambrian oceans. Until a bunch of sunbathing Hippy cyanobacteria come along, do nothing, just ly lazy in the sun, while they are pooping oxigen. Nobody thinks, that is a big deal at firs, but then the anearobic neighbour cells start to suffocate. And since anearobic cells are the majority of living things, that's a verry bad thing. Some get alearted, and start to spread the word, but nobody is doing anything about it! Eventually the air, and later the oceans become saturated with oxigen. Following that the rocks start to oxidate, and huge amounts of rust are washed into the waters, the PH of the water becomes more acidic too, and minerals are dissolved and enriching the oceans too. That leads to a massive mass extincion of one celled organism. The ones, who can, hide in extreme environments, which are safe from the poisenous and highly reactive oxigen. And despite this armageddon for bacteria, the green hippy-bread is still doing the same thing and enjoing life! It has a happy ending though! Because oxigen is as reactive, as it is, it enables lifeforms, to become much more complex. But eventually another often flegmatic and sometimes hippy organism apears: an conceited ape, diging out burnable black stones to forge weapons with and to power there factories. This too goes on for centuries and even millenia. Some living forms start to disapear forever, houses get a blackish coating, and the air get's worse. A few start to become vocal, but everybody else is ignoring it. It get's hotter, the storms are more extreme, but these apes are pumping still more and more of that gas into the air. Everything is happening in the same fashion as with the bacteria, but those apes are still shutting there eyes and ears and continue. And hypothetical end: Eventually these highly raective carbon-compounds, which saturate the new air give rise, to even more complex, half organic, half robotic creatures, which are not affected by these poisenous gases. But the flora and fauna, we once knew doesn't exist anymore. And the only remaining ones live in enclosed, and by new means extreme environments, downlooked as primitive by the new life around! If someone can make a cartoon or an animated short film of that, than please steal this idea!!!! But I would be glad, if you (who makes this real) put my name to it! I don't have the annimation skill, nor time or money to make it myself, but I want people to understand how this works, and that they know, that everything we do does have an impact on our environment, even if it seems to be nothing. Best, Sebastian Jasper
Can someone please analyze how Dr. Bjorn Lomborg fits into this? He claims he is not a climate skeptic/denier/etc. but he keeps arguing how the consequences of climate change won’t be the end of the world (it will cost us some percentage of global GDP in 2100). Additionally he uses cost-benefit-analysis to argue to put money into different projects that do more good. It’s hard to argue against that but I feel very conflicted when I hear those totally opposite viewpoints on the topic of climate change. I feel like there is something wrong about Lomborgs arguments but I don’t want to blame him just because he doesn’t share my view.
Literally the first time I'm hearing his name, which is a red flag as I've been full-time reading all the serious climate literature I can get my hands on. From what I can tell he cherry picks and miss-represents data (source below), and is a proponent for geo-engineering, which any legitimate climate scientist will tell you falls somewhere between a 'dangerous idea' and 'the most dangerous idea in humanity's troubled history'. So I guess you can keep trusting your gut :) www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/bjorn-lomborgs-lukewarmer-misinformation-about-climate-change-and-poverty/
This is the kind of thing I get inspired to work hard at. It's terrifying how immense this issue is (I live in Australia, where I live I had at one point three fires larger than my town all around me. Thankfully the firefighters are heros that stopped them from destroying everything). One reason for the lack of action is because of their lack of relation to the areas affected. I think we need a massive campaign to encourage VR into their lives, as seeing things more or less in person is completely different to seeing it on the news. Because I have felt a little bit of what's already burning, I (and many like me) would be more likely to try and get something done. If we got all of humanity to connect in this way and made it mandatory to experience others experiences we will be able to get ourselves out of this massive hole. TLDR: Potential solution to help get at least a majority of the population to act. (Please read this :P)
Kurtis, please put links to your videos that explain what each of us us can and should be doing as individuals to help as much as we can. Recycling and changing our light bulbs is the drivel we mostly get from officials. I hope you are able to get outside regularly and get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. Stay safe and healthy (and hopeful!) You are such an inspiration and source of informaion for so many.
Thank you Anne. I am working on a bigger project that will address what we can all do to make a difference to the system at large. Stay tuned. For now, please share this video, talk about climate whenever you can, and vote/protest for climate. Stay safe. I hope you're safe too.
I applaud you sir. Its been 30 years of "we'll find more oil" instead of "let's get renewable" There have been wars over oil and even when the oil is out - it will haunt our climate for centuries or more. But don't listen to me, listen to pretty much every expert to dive into the subject.
okay so i was talking to some friends over the weekend and we were all saying how if people would just shut up and do something, like whats happening with corona, then we could fix climate change. BUT NOBODY IS DOING THAT!!!!!!!!! AHRRGGHR ITS SO absolutely infuriating.
Hey, if half the world died it would all be better. If we cut all carbon emissions then probably billions would have to die. So how about we all go buy electric cars so we don’t emit carbon. NO. Electric cars do cause carbon emissions but people buy them because they make themselves feel good because they don’t think they emit carbon. Get woke
It’s been interesting to me during this pandemic that you can actually see the fossil fuel industry in a state of panic when they realize that the bottom has fallen out on crude oil and gas prices. I think what’s happening currently is a stark realization that if most humans discover that thing can be done sustainably, there will be a tremendous push for us to do so.
I'm in denial about climate change. About all of the things you were in denial about in college. But more than that, I'm in denial that there is nothing I can do to help.
Hi Kurtis, I just wanted to point out your continued use of future tense about climate change despite that it's costing 100's of thousands or possibly millions of lives every year RIGHT NOW. It's obviously important to highlight that this is a threat that will continue to grow exponentially in the future, but I think these subtle wording differences are important to include in the conversation the immediate impacts which are usually "less deniable" and more actionable. Love your work, don't lose hope!
Top of the news??? Climate change got 4 hours of major news coverage last year, total. grist.org/climate/major-news-networks-devoted-less-than-four-hours-to-climate-change-in-2019-total/
I really really feel and hear you here. How did we let this happen in our own lifetimes? Someone else was going to sort it out...that was a common feeling and I guess that shows we had a niave ? faith in human nature. A natural mistake, but a dangerous one. Thank you for your words and for sharing the feelings and thoughts, as dire as they are.
I exactly feel this way! When I asked my mom about her fears growing up, she didn't fear about the future. For me it is our changing climate and the amount of people and animals that will die because of greed and further destruction of our earth. I don't want to say that I feel hopeless. I do have hope but am still grieving what has already been lost. Thanks for the book recommendation, Kurtis :)
Guten Tag Ich schreibe auf deutsch damit du es nicht verlernst, sonst kann ich auch auf englisch schreiben.😉 Bei uns sind gerade vegane Cannelloni im Ofen, zum warten bis sie gut sind habe ich mir dein Video angeschaut. Vor ein paar Tagen habe ich das Buch „unhabitable Earth“ fertig gelesen. Ich musste es in Etappen lesen weil es so deprimierend war. Vielen Dank für dein Video, mir geht es genau gleich. Ich schaue mir den Himmel ohne Kondesstreifen an, und bin so froh. Gleichzeitig befürchte ich, dass nach dem Lockdown alles wieder weiter geht wie gehabt. Vielleicht wird sogar noch weniger Wert auf Umwelt und Klima gelegt, da dieRegierungen sparen müssen. Bist du bei einer Klimagruppe aktiv? XR, Fridays for future oder so? Denkst du diese Gruppen können etwas bewirken? Ich fühle manchmal genau gleich, so enttäuscht, wütend, frustriert, hoffnungslos, rasend. Passion an fury said my ex-girlfriend;) Es bräuchte eine Revolution, so vieles geht schief es fehlt an so vielen Orten, Einsichten, Menschen mit Mut,... Immerhin habe ich gehört, das Amsterdam seine Wirtschaft nach Corona nach dem Modell der doughnut Ökonomie aufbauen will. Ich hoffe sie bleiben dabei und es funktioniert. Vielen Dank und einen schönen Easter Monday
I found your channel via the "This is your brain on stale air" on Tom Scott's channel. Your channel is amazing. The fact that this doesn't have more views is making me very upset. More people need to think about this. I shared this with friends and family and got the book.
Dude, blaming individual people on their life choices isn't going to change anything. Guilt-ing people doesn't change behaviour. Besides, 71% of emissions are caused by 100 companies. Even if everyone cancelled their holiday plans for the next 20 years, nothing would change. We need large systemic change, which is very unlikely to happen in a society that is profit driven.
I agree - life choices aren't going to get us there. 100%. But it's a shorthand for "they don't let climate change influence their actions" they don't let it change how they vote for climate candidates, they don't protest, they just take their canvas bags to the mall and they feel like they're doing their part.
@@ScopeofScience Fair enough. I just don't see much point in guilt without systemic analysis. It is very hard to motivate people on a vague fear. Especially with an issue like climate change. I think it is much easier to encourage action in people, if you relate it back to issues in their daily lives. All of these issues are intersectional, and the solution will have to be. I direct you to PhilosophyTube's video on Climate Grief. I think it very effectively breaks down why people don't act upon climate change. Edit: Just noticed in one of your replies that you are working on a video about climate grief. Good on ya :D
Most of the stats I refer to were from the book I reference (some of which are in this article here: nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html).
In order to make a system that supports climate change and environment sustainability, a UBI is needed to keep people able to use the system. If you look back at the time of the first climate change conferences, less developed nations stated that for them to support themselves, they needed support from the wealthier nations to make the required changes and grow to help their people. The developed nations decided that they didn't want to commit to these agreements, as if would be too expensive.
this video inspires me to think even more about the things I do in life. I think your videos are extremely important Kurtis. thank you for making them I will make sure to share them among my friends and family and I will try to have the biggest impact I personally can have in my surroundings. I hope everyone who watches this video will do the same. I know it looks like everything is lost and nobody can make any difference but that shouldn't be an excuse to not do anything. we need to try our best.
I'm hoping this pandemic does wake ppl up to the fragility of our civilization, and how necessary it is to take action. We're getting a lot of data now about how much CO2 has plummeted during these last few months!
After my previous, dark comment, I'm not going to respond to one other thing in which I may sound like a Pollyanna. 3:10 Yes, indeed we would need to engage in a massive change in our society NOW, just to maintain the status quo or stave off disaster. I acknowledge that. But if we did (that's the Pollyanna bit) we could in fact turn this process around by engaging in a massive, global tree planting campaign. It would need to be at a scale larger than most of us can imagine. But a large part of the problem we have created has its roots in the last 1000 years of deforestation. So if we did indeed not only cut back massively on our carbon footprint, but also turned around our relationship with nature so that we could, in 30 years, rebuild the ecosystems we've destroyed over the last 1000, we could actually turn this problem around.
I have a few points on this video. While I agree that we need to do more for the climate, I don’t agree with many other points you make, but I’m glad that we talk about this issue! I think there’s a big difference between denial, knowing and acting. I disagree on the fact that many people are denying climate change, most people seem to care about it, and know about it. At this point it feels like it’s only a minority that actually denies the science of climate change being a thing. Now the fact that most people still fly for example, or do anything that might contribute to the problem, that’s something else. Humans aren’t rational, we don’t just change our points of views and opinions when faced with facts. That’s not how it happens, you’re also the proof of this. It seems like you did your masters on this subject, and yet you didn’t change your way of living over night. It takes time, thinking about it, talking with people. Especially for something as slow as climate change. Pandemics are better off in a way, because they are so immediate. It takes a lot of time for different people to change their minds, and also to start thinking about not going on vacation by plane. Also, if you’re loved ones are only realistically reachable by plane, people will continue to fly to go see them. Shaming people for it might not be the right solution all the time. I agree that we might need to rethink the way we travel and interact with each other, but shaming people and blaming them for not being at the point other might be in the thought process isn’t going to solve it, in my humble opinion. So I disagree, people are not in denial. But realistically, what can people in their every day life do, when they have to go to work everyday, take care of their kids, etc. There’s just so much energy you can put into things, and I believe that you can only pick your battles, not everyone can solve every problem. Medical staff aren’t necessarily the most eco friendly right now, should we blame them? Probably not, because we can’t be on all fronts at once. So I do believe that working on things like renewable energies, but also nuclear, optimizing air travel, etc. Do go a long way to try to diminish the extent of the problem. Also, I’m really interested in the fight against malaria, where did you get the 5.1 billion number? This seems... odd and not really on pare with the numbers I’m familiar with, mostly coming from the WHO. Either way, I think even if we disagree on this topic, discussing about it is the first step towards doing something about it, at least at our scale. While that might not seem like enough to you, there are probably many other fields, medical, humanitarian, economic, you name it, where someone thinks the rest of the world isn’t doing enough to save the day. Thanks for your videos, I mostly watch them because I kinda of disagree with you most of the time, and think it’s a healthy thing to do! So keep it up :-)
I've been making videos on how to convert your gas car to Electric for 20 years now, first on VHS tapes. My 8 year old UA-cam channel has 200 subscribers. Talking is good but doing is better .
We're hard wired and change is VERY difficult. Keep calm, keep your loved ones close and hug them ... often! Ask questions and listen but try not to play " I'm right and you're wrong " .. there are no winners down that road. Be the best person you can be and vote for those that can make a change. Everything else is just noise.
I wish more people could see this. I'll do my best to show this to friends and family
Thank you. Please do! 💚
Thank you MrNeutross, and thank you too Kurtis. It lightens my heart to see people wanting to do something about this. I will definitely talk more with people about climate change.
But it's important to understand why the other person is denying if they do that. Since if we keep on trying to share facts, they will only deny things more since we are affecting their world view.
You make a good point Sivah. I think trying without thinking about the approach is on average better than doing nothing, but reading up on what's effective and trying is much better. i'll have a look at the "motivational interview" conversation teqneeq, and if you have any recommendations, I would appreciate beeing told about them.
@@jrgenchristensen7240 Basically you need to be a billionaire you can worry about anything other yourself and paying your bills. Before that happens no one is going to care about anyone else.
It blows my mind that we only seem to act on clear and present dangers once people start dying. I'm counting myself in this group.
Please Note: People are now dying.
In forest fires in California, in Australia, people are dying.
In floods in Iran, people are dying.
In smog-choked India, people are dying.
It's about timeframe and immediacy.
We react only when people are dying quickly, indiscriminately, directly around us and we see a clear causation.
Most climate victims are either far away, die slowly (smog) or of things we can (wrongly) dissociate from cc. "We always had hurricanes" (ignore frequency and severity).
Problem is we are still mostly monkeys, evolved to care about very immediate dangers. Thinking in decades is a fluke, caring about a problem that takes 8 days to kill you is what we are hardwired to do.
@@ScopeofScience but in most places people are not dying in noticible ways, so in most places no action is taken.
@@aenorist2431 This. And since our brain will surely not evolve into a "better" tool in the next decades I'd say it's rather possible that homo sapiens is going down the drain. We should still fight global warming at least on a personal level though because it's the right thing.
@@ScopeofScience get back to me when the rich are dying. then we'll talkskies.
I completely agree with your frustration; I feel so stuck that I can't seem to do anything about this global issue!
Hey, I see you. Every time you talk about climate change with someone, you are helping. Every time you share a link about climate, you are helping. If you can vote for climate, you are helping. We're all in this together. We can do this. 💚
Block Builder
It’s funny the power of not doing. That can be exactly what you need to do. Perhaps not going out in our cars and riding bikes instead helps the climate every bit.
Kurtis Baute
In our highly social world the one thing we can do physically which improves our climate is to, physically, not do anything which can substantially affect our climate. It would be quite extreme to say “Stop breathing so less CO2 is emitted”, so there’s always a limit as to how far anyone can do nothing, so getting on the internet and talking is something nice.
@@ScopeofScience Yes, that's a good way of looking at it. Thanks for the response! :)
Our actions are always "Reactive",
while they need to be "Proactive"...
even if we acted now on climate change it would be reactive, but it seems like we won't react at all
Well we are all a bit late on that "reaction" to climate change.
As a zoomer, I feel like I’ve been born into a doomed world.
You are awesome
💚
One of the depressing parts about Covid is how people can't wait for "things to go back to normal" like as if it was something that came from nowhere and won't happen again and again.
This was so painful to watch that I had to pause several times, but thank you for the honesty. I appreciate your videos very much. I will share this as much as I can.
Thank you. Yeah, as David Wallace Wells put it in The Uninhabitable Earth: “[we’re now in the] end of normal; never normal again.”
One of the most frustrating things for me is when climate "Skeptics" say the climate has always changed it goes up and down it's just natural and of course it has, but they fail to realise the people who discovered that and research past climate change, are the same scientists who are telling you that the climate change happening now is caused by humans.
Another one is it used to be global warming now it's climate change or Visa versa, when in reality both are still used as they mean different things. Global Warming refers to the current situation. Whereas Climate change is not a specific change in the climate but is focus on all of the past and present changes in climate.
Also that people don't know that climate change is in the discipline of Geography, so will often gets random scientist from physics for example and let them horribly explain or fail to explain any of the processes, due to it not being there subject. And then dismissing geographers because that doesn't sound right when talking about climate change.
@pneumatictrousers That's factually wrong though. The overwhelming majority of scientists agree human activity is causing climate change. Deniers like you refuse to listen to scientists to begin with.
@@Alex-cw3rz Minor point: Climate change is absolutely geo-science as you say, but the front lines are filled with biologists. Entomologists, marine biologists, botanists, ecologists... They are *grieving* right now. They're seeing beloved organisms that they have worked with and cared for and *loved* die off, constantly. But they will stop grieving. They will get on the fucking warpath.
First step: Fire. To borrow an xkcd joke... "Your car's temperature has changed before." I'm... mostly kidding.
* nods aggressively *
4:55 "armed conflict should increase by around 10 to 20 percent"
sounds doable..
When food is scarce and economy's fall we get desperate it's not exactly a choice at some point
@@crashfan11 Water too. If the glaciers in the Himalayas continue to retreat, that's a lot of people who lose water security.
nailed it.
yes.
Thanks Charlie!
This video is so important! I'll make Portuguese captions so all of my friends can have access to it
Thank you!
Just approved the subtitles, thank you so much for doing that!!
Crazy how a video this important only has 5.9k views in 3 hours. I’ll do my best to share and spread the word because change is literally the MOST essential variable in creating a solution.
When you talk about climate change, you talk as if it isn't happening currently. Climate change is this pandemic; is it the whole of australia burning. This is killing people now. The climate of earth will continue to change, and life will continue to be forced to adapt. The issue is just how much time does life, and humanity, have to adapt?
Not entirely true the pandemic wasn't made by climate change
But due to climate change melting ancient ice it is releasing viruses we have never seen before and they can become pandemics so climate change causes more viruses to come back into functional order due to melting ice but it doesn't make them in the atmosphere or something along with stuff he said
@@RichARock the pandemic isnt created by climate change, no. Do the effects of a changing climate help with controlling it? Definitely not
Climate change doesnt make problems. It makes other smaller problems a lot bigger and harder to manage. Mostly due to the lack of stability in the world around us
It's tricky to talk about in present tense because even though YES it is happening now, its also a different sort of monster then we'll see in 10 years, or 30. We're just in the First Act, and so far, its sure looking like a Tragedy.
@@ScopeofScience I'm currently in university studying the same things you're talking about. It's very exciting to see what might occur in the next 100 years, with how insanely new this is all to us
The denial about the climate of earth noticeably changing (lighting the frickin Australia on fire) scares me, and shows how much dumbness has taken over humanity
And people wonder why Gen Z is depressed. This. Exactly this.
Nah gen z is depressed because they spend on their time on phones and tv and care too much about what people think
SubzeroBEZERKER we aren’t depressed because of screens. We’re depressed because of what’s on them: shootings, death counts, natural disasters, hate crimes, and horrifically inefficient politicians who put verbal Band-Aids on the problems at best and rub salt in them at worst. We’re depressed because we have good ideas with no one listening to them unless they’re criticizing our naïveté or discounting us because of our diminutive age. We’re depressed because we can see the world we want but, when faced with the world we have, we can’t figure out how to get there. We’re depressed because we can see the errors of humanity, but we get trampled on whenever we point them out. So take your ageist bullshit elsewhere, thank you very much.
@@mericaman1269 "care too much about what people think" that is true but "gen z is depressed because they spend on their time on phones and tv" is false. Pointing fingers at the symptoms, not the problem. For many of them, the digital world is an escape from the sh** they put up with
Seriously.
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Previous generations had wars to fight and nukes pointed at their borders. I feel it kinda scapegoats the issue, but perhaps it also contributes to it
"There is No War in Ba Sing Se"
MömpfLP great reference. It really reflects the current moment. Avatar is really long lasting
@@zc119 it seriously really is though haha.
What am I as an individual supposed to do (17 y/o)? Should this influence my career choice? Should I not have hobbies or possessions which somehow contribute to the problem? There are many things I wanna do in life which may increase carbon emmisions (such as travelling). I feel like I can't contribute *enough* without making serious sacrifices in my life. (I could go on but I think I'll stop now)
What advice would you give?
It's a game of balance imho. We will always have a carbon footprint. It'll take a couple technological and social leaps to zero it out. In the mean time best individuals can es to educate people around you (being careful to not alienate them), prefer recyclables, avoid overconsumption, and travel responsibly. For that last one, one may avoid usual destinations in order to not contribute to overtourism, prefer trains, and avoid private cars (which kill us everywhere in time and space, use public transit & eco vehicles like bicycles), and travel less.
We want to ideally stop all emissions, but we don't want to go back to 1700s in the process. So we'll need to hit a balance somewhere.
Firstly, you can't help that you live under a system that almost forces you to use more than your share of Carbon, so realise that although it would be good for you to reduce your personal Carbon Footprint, it's system change that we truly need, at the state level.
That said, the 2 biggest things we can do as individuals is limit our red meat consumption, and limit our flights on jet aircraft - but really more than anything else we need to vote for people that will deliver massive systemic changes, and not just people that promise to tweak the edges of the old system while we keep sleepwalking towards catastrophe.
Until the majority of the population in a country actually understands how dire the situation actually is, we won't get governments that will act at the speed we need them to, so the other really useful thing you can do as an individual is to raise the alarm amongst your friends and family, and help them understand how bad it actually is, so that they will vote for leaders that take Climate Change seriously.
It shouldn't be us. It shouldn't be our generation. We *shouldn't* have to make those sacrifices. Nobody would have had to if they'd listened the first time, or the second, or the third... We've been let down.
Unfortunately, we *do* have to make those sacrifices. That's our lot, and we *can* do it, and still live awesome lives. We're more resilient than they were. We're more determined. We know it won't go away; we've grown up with it not going away. We get to be the ones to make our world as good as it's gonna be.
If you want to travel, that's great, there are good and bad ways to do that, but you could also try to *do* something with that travel. You could find quirky low-carbon ways to get about and use that attention to spread a message, as one example. There are good and bad hobbies but I'd bet that you could find a way to do most of the bad ones in a more climate-friendly manner anyway.
Another thing to do is cut down on meat if you can. One option might be to focus on fish instead of meat; it's generally better for you and much better for the environment, though veggies are still better so it's a good time to get healthy too. Eating local helps too, so the food industry isn't being paid as much to haul food long-distance; in winter, that might actually mean that preserved meat's better than trying to go full-veggie, if you're from northern climes. Eating seasonally can be absolutely delicious; if you eat what's in season, it's *actually* fresh.
You won't change the world on your own, but if our generation makes a little bit of effort *as a whole,* we can do a lot of good. The more you can do, the better, but you don't have to do *everything.*. Campaigning also helps. We're not old enough to make direct changes to policy but we can sure as hell make our voices heard while the geezers are squabbling over loose change, make it real hard to ignore us.
I've been chronically ill for a while so I can't physically campaign right now, but I'm going to be out there as soon as I can. Post-Covid, of course. We *can* do this... but hopefully we won't have to. Hopefully it'll be fixed before we have to really play the horrible catcup game. We just need to be prepared for that not happening because, right now, it *isn't.*
Also, search with Ecosia! Its engine isn't as good as Google's but there's no actual good reason not to plant a tree with every search (unless you've got one of those other charity search thingies).
Just go!
Asbjørn Birkelund the vast majority of emissions come from mega corporations.
Also people are in denial about how big of an impact animal ag has on climate change. We all have our role to play!
The thing that's worries me is what "they that died with the virus, not because of the virus" is going to look like
What I find even more concerning is that people want to go back to normal as soon as possible. We need to have a drastic mindset shift to cope with the effects of climate change as a society.
My dad is a research scientist (fish). I know from growing up speaking to his fellow scientists that they alway er on the side of caution. Their projections are always on the conservative side.
So when I hear climate scientists speak, if they saying things are bad, then you know it's really really bad.
Go vegan, drive electric, buy sustainable and vote for the party with the best renewable energy policies
better yet, use electric-powered PT
4 months later and this video is starting to die. PLEASE, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN SHARE THIS VIDEO!!! IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO HELP.
Finally other people who get this! Thanks to Tom Scott for sending me.
I feel I'm always in danger of slipping into some kind of numb 'learned helplessness' kind of a state. This pandemic has further solidified how the majority of people who need to act will not. If a quarter of the population acts, it won't make a difference if 75% decides to either act as if business is usual as the planet burns, or to outright start poluting more out of spite. This isn't a new view of mine either. You routinely see "It was cold outside (in Winter), global warming is a hoax!" spouted out. That's the metric of 'this problem exists' for them. They will not even acknowledge a problem until nowhere on the planet is ever cold again. We have to lose actual seasons and for it to permanantly be hot everywhere (inhabited, hopefully) on the planet before they'll concede the vast majority of trained experts are not lying through their teeth.
You can't reason from that, as it doesn't come from a place of reason. Until we can route out that kind of thinking, I cannot concieve of how we can possibly mitigate the coming disaster even slightly. If we stopped all carbon emissions immediately, we'd still have issues with the climate warming. Yet we can't stop immediately, years after missing every target. We aren't even slowing down. We're not even slowing down at speeding up the rate of emissions. The absolute best humanity can current muster is that we're perhaps reducing the rate at which the rate of increase itself increases. That is beyond dire. I suppose our only hope is that we as a species can ultimately adapt (in lesser numbers) to a drastically different biosphere with drastically reduced amounts of life (until evolution can adapt the rest of the planet to fit the temperature). Perhaps one day the more out-there hypothesises like creating an artificial cloud layer to reflect more of the sun's heat will become practical, but even that is fraught with a myriad of issues.
I Don’t say it in a rude way. But this COVID-19 has helped tremendously with reversing climate change a little
Let's not pre-empt the data!
Would you be willing to make a video listing just a bunch of things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint and ideas on how to tell others about it? I will definitely be posting this video on social media cause I think it’s a great wake up call!! It would also be awesome if you made a video or you know of some that give list that I can show people.
I'm working on it! Yes. Thank you
How good to see an honest appraisal of the situation we find ourselves in. I've been an environmentalist since the 1980s and during the 90s was going on about 'sustainable development' and in the nougthies was banging on about carbon rationing, but over the last decade it has become increasingly clear we are sprinting towards the edge of a cliff - to a certain huge crash, and the inevitable death of billions, maybe everyone. I've been shouting the 'apply brakes' message, most recently via XR, which gave me a modicum of hope as it became a hugely popular movement. But, Covid19 notwithstanding, we are still speeding towards that cliff, and no amount of braking will stop us going over.
The solution is to work through the fear and grief and arrive at acceptance. Once there, live life fully, doing as much as you can to preserve the environment for whatever species survive us, helping others especially those less privileged than ourselves, and sharing as much love and kindness as possible. Do these and you should be happy, and fulfilled knowing you're doing what you can.
Hello Kurtis, I'm a big fan of your content and your heartfelt approach to science. Your epic Foucault Pendulum live-action animation (over 24 hours long if I remember correctly) was a real mind blower. But can I share with you what a "climate change denier" thinks? For starters, your list of the dire consequences of climate change is very sobering. But what a skeptic like me looks at is the long *history* of similar dire predictions. I'm a man of science, and a pillar of science (especially a theory) is whether it can be used to make predictions, especially hard predictions. For example (because I debate with Flat Earth folks), the fact that we can predict with down-to-the-minute accuracy the timing and locations of total solar eclipses 25 years in the future is a pretty good indicator that the Heliocentric model is extremely accurate.
But I've been studying the many-decades-long track record of "climate change" predictions and I haven't found a single one that's come true. Not one. Furthermore, they always seem to be "off" in the same direction: the prediction is always worse than the eventual reality. Which means there is a systematic bias in the guiding philosophies governing these predictions, many of which have as a central premise that increased CO2 drives negative climate consequences. Which remains unproven (there seems to be more noise than signal, in radio terms). Thus the models which have this as their starting point tend to get the future very wrong. I believe in being a good steward of the environment. But I also think that our societal decisions should be based on science which is able to accurately predict things.
Sure, there are some crackpots on my side of the aisle, cheering "Screw the Environment!" but there are a great many level-headed minds who are studying global climate models very carefully, with a skeptical, scientific eye. I recommend you (just to play devil's advocate) treat this as a Debate Team exercise: what if you were to argue FOR Climate Skepticism? Who would you study? What research would you read? I can recommend Tony Heller here on UA-cam, plus Anthony Watts, Will Happer, and Bjorn Lomborg, just to name a few. Cheers!
Thank you for your emotional honesty Kurtis ❤️. When we just state the facts without feeling them, we don't communicate.
Thank you Adam. 💚
Nuclear energy is the answer
I fully agree with the general sentiment of this piece, and thanks for doing it. I just have a nugget of positivity that can help here. Climate change is absolutely not permanent. We can take CO2 out of our atmosphere in several ways. Firstly there is the natural way of regrowing forests. Sure, trees are only a carbon sink in the sense that when they decay after dying, they release the CO2 back into the atmosphere, but my house is built out of wood, as nearly everyone's house is. That wood will not decay anytime soon as it is protected from water and the elements by the exterior surface of my house. If we adopt electric engines in the forestry business, and electric engines in the transportation sector transporting the lumber, and electric engines in the machines used to construct houses, and we get our grid greener to power these electric engines with green electricity, the process of building things out of wood becomes a way of essentially permanently (or, more accurately, several hundred years) sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Us humans are real, real good at building stuff. In the same vein, industrial scale reforestation of deserts is totally possible. Desalination plants and pumps can send water into irrigation systems which provide water to the trees in the desert until the desert becomes a self sustaining forest capable of retaining their own water. These solutions are a bit far off, and enormously costly, but compared to the cost of dealing with climate change, they are very cheap. However, I think the best solution right now isn't very greed looking on the outside. We already have technology for large scale industrial plants which take CO2 out of the air. The only problem right now is they are not financially viable. They take tons of money to operate and don't produce any products to be sold, so right now they are economically non-starters. These plants, already, without much financial investment, are VASTLY superior at removing CO2 from the atmosphere compared to trees. Once the CO2 is harvested, it needs to be pumped deep underground, where the CO2 initially came from. When these systems becomes optimized with further development and deployment, a single plant will be able to permanently store more CO2 per day than a city could produce. So we just build one in every city around the world. Are these solutions difficult? Sure. It is certainly much harder to take CO2 out of the atmosphere than it is to put it up there, but the idea you have that once we put CO2 out there, we can't get it back is wrong. We can today. We are not stuck with our level of the greenhouse effect for ever.
Many good points. Sidenote though, grassland is far more permanent and better at absorption than forest of managed correctly, and most of the desertification is on Savannah.
Reference Allan Savory and planned grazing for the details.
jweezy2045 Thank you for your message.Personally I agree with you and as one person stated solving climate change is a three pronged attack which is Mitigation,Adaptation and Finally Restoring the Climate.It is these technological advancements that make me hopeful for the future of our climate as well as our living conditions.We have the power to not just mitigate Climate Change But to reverse it we just need to find ways and give ourselves the willpower to work for a better future.The points this guy also made is exactly why I’m going to be an activist once this Pandemic is over.
Ae Norist I was talking about planting forests as a way to combat deforestation. Deforestation? Can be reversed by planting forests. Desertification of savannah? Can be reversed by planting grassland. Greenhouse effect? Can be reversed by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere. You name a negative effect of global warming, and I can name a potential industrial scale solution to solve that problem.
I'm from iceland and iv'e for a long time cared so much about climate change, the planet, and the damage we're doing. It hurts me deeply to see the ice melting here, with my own eyes, and knowing such insanely amazing animals will die because of us. I SEE THE CHANGE WITH MY OWN EYES, WAKE TF UP. I want to do everything i can to make a change as a citizen. I'm only 15 though, so i still live with my parents who don't really care. But when i move out, i will live as green and plastic-free as possible.
It pisses me off more than anything to see the denial and lazyness of people. They keep waiting another ten fucking years because they can't feel the change, or just don't care. Fuck humans honestly, i have no hope but i will do my part.
Will definantly read the book but loose all hope for the future and possibly become depressed.
I have repeatedly read that going vegan is the best single thing we can do for the environment. Will you do a video on that please?
I'm working on something about that, yes. Its a great thing that nearly *everyone* can do, which is great. I'm vegan (gave up meat 17 years ago). But if you can vote for climate leaders, I'd argue that's more important. If you fly a lot and admit that you can stop doing that - its even more important. If you have a bunch of investments and can pull them out of anything that helps oil, thats. also more important. Basically, its complicated.
Great, provocative video. Recent sub and have been loving your videos Kurtis. Thank you for making these!
Thank you Matt!
im not enjoying the fact that you're wrong about me being in denial about climate change, cause I've been out of hope for a while
Thank you for keeping us in perspective Kurtis
Kurtis, I appreciate and I'm looking forward to the direction you are taking your channel. I hugely value your views. I hope you don't mind if I comment in a slightly challenging way at times. It's always with respect and meant to move the discussion forward towards positive conclusions and solutions.
Your point about people rebooking their flights to Mexico - As a species we reject a narrowing of our opportunities and abilities to act. Throughout our entire existence as a species our horizons have continually opened. That is our nature. It is the condition that has shaped us throughout our evolution. If we are going to succeed in finding a sustainable path forward for humanity it will have to be in a way that does not feel like a constraint on our lives, on a narrowing of our sense of freedom in how we interact with the world. We can accept (for some with great difficulty) a quarantine for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic, because we know it is for a limited time and for the cause of enabling us to return to our normal lives afterward. But any climate change solution that involves a PERMANENT reduction of our sense of freedom will not happen. It simply will not be accepted. We will die off before we accept that. Perhaps we can accept short term constraints for an immediate improvement of some kind. But in the long term, we must find solutions that are in harmony with our nature. If they are not in harmony they will be rejected. And if we therefore find no solutions, then we will simply die off.
When I say "we must etc" I do not mean that I think we "should". I'm looking at it from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. As a species we are what we are and that is not going to change in just a generation or two. Evolution does not work that way. However our climate IS changing in just a generation and if we can't find a way to adapt to it, by altering our activities to mitigate the change, we will not survive the change. However any alteration to our activities will only be accepted by the bulk of the population if it is in harmony with our nature, as we are today.
This is why people struggle to recognize the harm of their own actions such as flying. If we simply tell people, "stay home", that solution will be rejected, even if it means the end of our species. So if we are going to succeed, we must find solutions that respect the freedoms that it is our nature constantly to seek.
Why is nuclear power not an option for decreasing carbon emissions? Modern nuclear technology allows for very little toxic bi-products and nuclear meltdowns are near impossible.
It is an option, I think, but it is not well-known. It is associated with technology and industry, so people have the intuition that it has a high carbon footprint and is part of the problem. Add to that the required investments, the fact people confuse danger and risk of accidents, as well as the inherent problems of nuclear waste and security that are left to solve, and it looks like a big pile of yikes despite the huge contribution it could make to transition to better energy generation.
On the bright side, with renewable energy often being intermittent, *not* leaning on nuclear fission means there's only one viable path left to work on for people: consuming less energy.
Nuclear is generally has the highest cost to build, operate and maintain, even when waste materials can be recycled.
Plant type Total system LCOE (2025)
Ultra-supercritical coal 76.44
Combined cycle 38.07
Combustion turbine 66.62
Advanced nuclear 81.65
Geothermal 37.47
Biomass 94.83
Wind, onshore 39.95
Wind, offshore 122.25
Solar photovoltaic3 35.74
Hydroelectric 52.79
www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
It's main problem is the cost - initial investment is several billion dollars, and then fuel costs come after that. Renewables are just so much more cost effective. Nuclear can obviously provide much more base load power constantly than a solar grid but it isn't cost effective.
Yes it could be one step on the way and a part of a solution to reduce emissions. But nuclear technology is in no step of the process a ecosystem friendly or circular thinking industry. Long term storage is a nightmare. To me an equal option would be to lower our energy consumption so that we don't even need that much energy. Insolate buildings better, and travel a little less. Like, live within some sort of ecosystem budget.
Very great video. I learned some about climate change today. I will definitely order that book! Thanks
Thank you! Hope you're doing well, wherever you are.
@@ScopeofScience thank you so much. I'm an "essential employee" so I'm doing okay thankfully.
How you feel now and how you look at your past selfs plane travels is how doctors look back at the dark ages. We got out of it by working together and sharing.
Very big eye opener for a lot of people. thanks for this!
Great video! I would suggest taking "COVID19" out of your description though. Its common that videos featuring that direct reference are getting hidden/less revenue than those without. Love ya Kurtis! Want to make sure you get the coverage needed.
Just commenting in the hopes the algorithms shows this to more people
I really appreciate your efforts in spreading education and positive inspirational messages. We really need more influencers like you. Thank you for uploading this. I think many of us on the internet need to see more videos like this. Stay safe and positive :')
Nice video Kurtis - I mean not nice.... Not lovely.... Not pleasant or cosy...... But thank you - it's important.
Hi, a (long) comment from here in Northeastern Romania. Climate change has been very obvious to us in the last few years. I'm not exactly an expert so you can take my words with a grain of salt.
The last "real" winter I experienced was in 2014. Ever since then, winters have been a joke: a week or two of snow, a month of negative temperatures of around -4 degrees C (which has been a bit frustrating, as ride my bike to school and I can't go under -2 degres Celsius) and finally about 3 or 4 weeks of light snow again. In March we've been getting temperatures above 25°C. Then, around this time of the year (mid-May to early July) we'd get basically a "rain" season. It is very frustrating because more often than not we cannot go out due to the everyday rains; me and my family are very keen to mountain climbing and we can't climb them if it's raining (we're afraid of lightning). After the rain season, July through October, we'd get a "dry" season, bringing droughts. This has been happening for the last 3 years. I can only think of the regions on the globe where there are only two seasons, dry and wet. Seems like we're heading towards a similar climate.
I've learned that this type of weather (basically British-style rain) was never seen before in our region. We'd get hot summers with rains here and then (seems like they were Cumulonimbus storms). Using weather maps to look at wind currents and knowledge from older people, I've come to some kind of theory: we had worse winters and springs because there was this strong cold wind blowing from Siberia. In the meantime, Siberia warmed up (possibly a runaway effect as less snow meant darker ground and thus faster warming) and it no longer produced the heavy cold wind, letting the wind currents from the Atlantic inland. I can't say I understand the system fully, but since the problem seems to be Siberia warming up, I'm quite positive it's because of global warming.
Thanks for reading my comment about our experience here. I hope the hypothesis I've come up with makes sense to someone who actually studies the subject.
Great video. Could you put some numbers on sea level rise? From what I've read, the science says a meter or two by 2100. I'd guess accelerating numbers every century after that, topping out at 70(?) meters in a couple thousand (?) years.
The thing is, I think that's slowly enough that we'll be able to deal with it. It's not as urgent as loss of land due to extreme heat and drought or ocean ecosystems collapsing due to heat and ocean acidification.
I'm not saying it won't be a problem, but it's near the bottom of the list. I think we may be over emphasizing it and feeding denial (giving ammunition to the people who have been misquoting Al Gore).
It's not a protectorment. It's a government. Our government always finds a way to weasel out of helping it's people. It's sick.
Talking is obviously the easiest step to take on a personal basis, but consider the fact that this isn't the only problem in the world. There will always be too much 'competition' for the issue to be resolved by talking alone. We (as in individual members of society) need to adopt a entrepreneurial approach to actually solve this and other problems. People care about things that affect their livelihood, health, and survival. However, they only care if it's a problem right now. So, we make it a problem right now by creating businesses large enough to affect people's livelihoods, etc. The reason climate change hasn't hit home is because too many people are invested in fossil fuels and their benefits. So, we must take away or neutralize the benefits, be it by government, or by business. The direct adversary of this problem is obviously big oil, so we need to find a way to do something about them. So, if you really think this is bad, do more than talk about it. Plan for it, build a career around it, DO SOMETHING. We will effectively kill ourselves otherwise.
oh holy algorythm please spread this video
Kurtis first thing i am in worry now and to me this video is more impact full than those optimistic videos..
Now let me tell you why i think people are not listening or now worried. The problem is that the world is divided in upper classes and lower classes.. upper class people are so confident that they can do anything from money and they just dont care about earth because they know eventually i can live on money and about lower class they are just so busy in sustaining their life that these issues are not must important to them as food! So i think problem is the capitalism.. and uneven quality of life people are living in. And since in capitalism money is more important gov is not paying attention in reducing carbon dioxide because that will mean less profit or even loss to individuals.
I think a real problem is that in movies about climate change they always make it seem either like a brush off we’ll manage or something that will kill us all. That’s problematic as people expect to see something cataclysmic and then deny it when it doesn’t.
To tell people that climate change is real, we first have to teach flat earthers that the earth is round
to tell people that the earth is round, we first have to teach people to believe in science
and I don't know how to make people trust science
You don't need to be sorry that this video was "depressing". Your aim here is not to entertain people, it is to tell the facts. And that's why we clicked on the video.
I hope the children of the future will see videos like this and know that there are good people out there who genuinely wanted to help. Thank you for trying to bring attention to this Kurtis. I don't mean to be defeatist but even if things get worse forever all we can do is our best, and you're inspiring people to do that.
I hope that the parents of the children of the future don't leave it up to them. I hope everyone alive today, especially older and richer people (who have emitted more than any other demographic), takes responsibility, and takes action.
@@ScopeofScience Absolutely, well said
Kurtis, I love you, man, and I agree with everything you have said in this video, but I felt like I was just watching a vegan standing on a soapbox in the middle of town and telling everyone about how we’re stealing food from the honeybees.
I look at this through an economic lens and I would like to hear more arguments for the invisible hand using increasing in strength to move industries into more sustainable production. My far-right father-in-law would not listen to the “jokers who think climate change is the most important issue facing our generation”, but he would probably be open to talking about re-tooling industry to become more long-term sustainable in a supply/demand sense.
You're right that not every talking style is going to get across to everyone. I hope you can have chats with your father-in-law in a way that connects meaningfully with him. I do know that the ways climate scientists have been trying to engage the public about this over the last 30+ years... that method has largely been failing. We need to try whatever methods of non-violent communication/action we can. I wish you luck! 💚
Kurtis Baute, thanks mate!
I’m actually kind of excited that we are currently being forced to rethink our industries (don’t get me wrong though, Covid is terrifying and people dying is horrible). This could be a very good opportunity for us, long term. We may see a paradigm shift to rather than just a gradual moving away from inefficiencies.
its a great time to adopt a vegan lifestyle
I don’t want my future kids to suffer because of us... previous generations.
UBI still leaves the market ultimately in charge of economic allocation. Basic necessities like water, food, electricity, healthcare, and housing should be guaranteed and outside of the realm of currency.
Frustration is practically the only emotion I’ve felt over quarantine
As difficult as this is to hear, I (and many other people) need to hear it. Thank you.
Thank you. Now, lets get to work.
Right wing ideology and governments are the big roadblock here
Thank you for being the person to do this. It makes me so happy to see someone who sees how it really is instead of putting on a pair of rose colored glasses and saying "it's gunna be okay"
Love you Kurtis thank you for being the person you are
I think it's really hard to see the issue clearly, because everyone wants to wear the rose coloured glasses. I'm hoping we can make that change. Thank You! 💚
I too study environmental science, and when trying to talk to people about it I'm met with blank stares or eye rolls. This video pretty much summed up my frustration, I'll be sharing it.
It's just so frustrating that it's basically the end and no one cares
In my circles of friends and family furtunately nobody denies human caused climate change, but here on youtube and even in state media (I live in Hungary at the time) I see so much, that makes me really sad.
I think, more and more people start to see, that climate change is real. But too many (maybe the majority of people here) belief it has nothing to do with us.
And no matter how convincing we are with hard facts, many stick, to what they 'want' to belief in. My two favorite examples are cyanobacteria and termites. Both are tiny living organisms, that heavily influence there surroundings and impact the environment. But if you seperate just a handful of those, you would think they could never have the effect , which they actually have.
Ok, I came up with this short storry 9 years ago, when I was studying Biology (I am most interested in evolotionary biology and how the environment is effecting it, but work right now as a paleoartist, and scientific sculptor. For those who are interested: sebastianjasper.com/en/home/).
I was often thinking, someone should make a funny short storry or cartoon about one celled organisms, which live happyly in the precambrian oceans. Until a bunch of sunbathing Hippy cyanobacteria come along, do nothing, just ly lazy in the sun, while they are pooping oxigen. Nobody thinks, that is a big deal at firs, but then the anearobic neighbour cells start to suffocate. And since anearobic cells are the majority of living things, that's a verry bad thing.
Some get alearted, and start to spread the word, but nobody is doing anything about it!
Eventually the air, and later the oceans become saturated with oxigen. Following that the rocks start to oxidate, and huge amounts of rust are washed into the waters, the PH of the water becomes more acidic too, and minerals are dissolved and enriching the oceans too.
That leads to a massive mass extincion of one celled organism. The ones, who can, hide in extreme environments, which are safe from the poisenous and highly reactive oxigen. And despite this armageddon for bacteria, the green hippy-bread is still doing the same thing and enjoing life!
It has a happy ending though! Because oxigen is as reactive, as it is, it enables lifeforms, to become much more complex.
But eventually another often flegmatic and sometimes hippy organism apears: an conceited ape, diging out burnable black stones to forge weapons with and to power there factories.
This too goes on for centuries and even millenia. Some living forms start to disapear forever, houses get a blackish coating, and the air get's worse. A few start to become vocal, but everybody else is ignoring it. It get's hotter, the storms are more extreme, but these apes are pumping still more and more of that gas into the air.
Everything is happening in the same fashion as with the bacteria, but those apes are still shutting there eyes and ears and continue.
And hypothetical end: Eventually these highly raective carbon-compounds, which saturate the new air give rise, to even more complex, half organic, half robotic creatures, which are not affected by these poisenous gases. But the flora and fauna, we once knew doesn't exist anymore. And the only remaining ones live in enclosed, and by new means extreme environments, downlooked as primitive by the new life around!
If someone can make a cartoon or an animated short film of that, than please steal this idea!!!! But I would be glad, if you (who makes this real) put my name to it! I don't have the annimation skill, nor time or money to make it myself, but I want people to understand how this works, and that they know, that everything we do does have an impact on our environment, even if it seems to be nothing.
Best,
Sebastian Jasper
Thank you for sharing this, such an important message, thanks for the reminder to keep focusing on reducing our impact on the planet.
We need personal action, but also system change. VOTE FOR CLIMATE. Protest. Fight like your life depends on it, because it probably does.
Can someone please analyze how Dr. Bjorn Lomborg fits into this? He claims he is not a climate skeptic/denier/etc. but he keeps arguing how the consequences of climate change won’t be the end of the world (it will cost us some percentage of global GDP in 2100). Additionally he uses cost-benefit-analysis to argue to put money into different projects that do more good. It’s hard to argue against that but I feel very conflicted when I hear those totally opposite viewpoints on the topic of climate change. I feel like there is something wrong about Lomborgs arguments but I don’t want to blame him just because he doesn’t share my view.
Literally the first time I'm hearing his name, which is a red flag as I've been full-time reading all the serious climate literature I can get my hands on. From what I can tell he cherry picks and miss-represents data (source below), and is a proponent for geo-engineering, which any legitimate climate scientist will tell you falls somewhere between a 'dangerous idea' and 'the most dangerous idea in humanity's troubled history'. So I guess you can keep trusting your gut :)
www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/bjorn-lomborgs-lukewarmer-misinformation-about-climate-change-and-poverty/
This is the kind of thing I get inspired to work hard at. It's terrifying how immense this issue is (I live in Australia, where I live I had at one point three fires larger than my town all around me. Thankfully the firefighters are heros that stopped them from destroying everything).
One reason for the lack of action is because of their lack of relation to the areas affected. I think we need a massive campaign to encourage VR into their lives, as seeing things more or less in person is completely different to seeing it on the news.
Because I have felt a little bit of what's already burning, I (and many like me) would be more likely to try and get something done. If we got all of humanity to connect in this way and made it mandatory to experience others experiences we will be able to get ourselves out of this massive hole.
TLDR: Potential solution to help get at least a majority of the population to act. (Please read this :P)
Kurtis, please put links to your videos that explain what each of us us can and should be doing as individuals to help as much as we can. Recycling and changing our light bulbs is the drivel we mostly get from officials. I hope you are able to get outside regularly and get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. Stay safe and healthy (and hopeful!) You are such an inspiration and source of informaion for so many.
Thank you Anne. I am working on a bigger project that will address what we can all do to make a difference to the system at large. Stay tuned. For now, please share this video, talk about climate whenever you can, and vote/protest for climate. Stay safe. I hope you're safe too.
I applaud you sir. Its been 30 years of "we'll find more oil" instead of "let's get renewable"
There have been wars over oil and even when the oil is out - it will haunt our climate for centuries or more.
But don't listen to me, listen to pretty much every expert to dive into the subject.
okay so i was talking to some friends over the weekend and we were all saying how if people would just shut up and do something, like whats happening with corona, then we could fix climate change. BUT NOBODY IS DOING THAT!!!!!!!!! AHRRGGHR ITS SO absolutely infuriating.
Hey, if half the world died it would all be better. If we cut all carbon emissions then probably billions would have to die. So how about we all go buy electric cars so we don’t emit carbon. NO. Electric cars do cause carbon emissions but people buy them because they make themselves feel good because they don’t think they emit carbon. Get woke
I completely agree!
It’s been interesting to me during this pandemic that you can actually see the fossil fuel industry in a state of panic when they realize that the bottom has fallen out on crude oil and gas prices. I think what’s happening currently is a stark realization that if most humans discover that thing can be done sustainably, there will be a tremendous push for us to do so.
I'm in denial about climate change. About all of the things you were in denial about in college. But more than that, I'm in denial that there is nothing I can do to help.
Hi Kurtis, I just wanted to point out your continued use of future tense about climate change despite that it's costing 100's of thousands or possibly millions of lives every year RIGHT NOW. It's obviously important to highlight that this is a threat that will continue to grow exponentially in the future, but I think these subtle wording differences are important to include in the conversation the immediate impacts which are usually "less deniable" and more actionable. Love your work, don't lose hope!
What do you think about the threat of antibiotic resistance?
This video is on POINT! Thanks.
Virality is trendy. Climate science was bumped down from the top of the news.
for a while
Top of the news??? Climate change got 4 hours of major news coverage last year, total.
grist.org/climate/major-news-networks-devoted-less-than-four-hours-to-climate-change-in-2019-total/
I really really feel and hear you here. How did we let this happen in our own lifetimes? Someone else was going to sort it out...that was a common feeling and I guess that shows we had a niave ? faith in human nature. A natural mistake, but a dangerous one. Thank you for your words and for sharing the feelings and thoughts, as dire as they are.
I exactly feel this way! When I asked my mom about her fears growing up, she didn't fear about the future. For me it is our changing climate and the amount of people and animals that will die because of greed and further destruction of our earth.
I don't want to say that I feel hopeless. I do have hope but am still grieving what has already been lost. Thanks for the book recommendation, Kurtis :)
Guten Tag
Ich schreibe auf deutsch damit du es nicht verlernst, sonst kann ich auch auf englisch schreiben.😉
Bei uns sind gerade vegane Cannelloni im Ofen, zum warten bis sie gut sind habe ich mir dein Video angeschaut.
Vor ein paar Tagen habe ich das Buch „unhabitable Earth“ fertig gelesen.
Ich musste es in Etappen lesen weil es so deprimierend war.
Vielen Dank für dein Video, mir geht es genau gleich.
Ich schaue mir den Himmel ohne Kondesstreifen an, und bin so froh.
Gleichzeitig befürchte ich, dass nach dem Lockdown alles wieder weiter geht wie gehabt.
Vielleicht wird sogar noch weniger Wert auf Umwelt und Klima gelegt, da dieRegierungen sparen müssen.
Bist du bei einer Klimagruppe aktiv?
XR, Fridays for future oder so?
Denkst du diese Gruppen können etwas bewirken?
Ich fühle manchmal genau gleich, so enttäuscht, wütend, frustriert, hoffnungslos, rasend. Passion an fury said my ex-girlfriend;)
Es bräuchte eine Revolution, so vieles geht schief es fehlt an so vielen Orten, Einsichten, Menschen mit Mut,...
Immerhin habe ich gehört, das Amsterdam seine Wirtschaft nach Corona nach dem Modell der doughnut Ökonomie aufbauen will. Ich hoffe sie bleiben dabei und es funktioniert.
Vielen Dank und einen schönen Easter Monday
Ich habe nicht gewusst, dass er deutsch lesen kann
I found your channel via the "This is your brain on stale air" on Tom Scott's channel. Your channel is amazing. The fact that this doesn't have more views is making me very upset. More people need to think about this. I shared this with friends and family and got the book.
Dude, blaming individual people on their life choices isn't going to change anything. Guilt-ing people doesn't change behaviour. Besides, 71% of emissions are caused by 100 companies. Even if everyone cancelled their holiday plans for the next 20 years, nothing would change. We need large systemic change, which is very unlikely to happen in a society that is profit driven.
I agree - life choices aren't going to get us there. 100%. But it's a shorthand for "they don't let climate change influence their actions" they don't let it change how they vote for climate candidates, they don't protest, they just take their canvas bags to the mall and they feel like they're doing their part.
@@ScopeofScience Fair enough. I just don't see much point in guilt without systemic analysis. It is very hard to motivate people on a vague fear. Especially with an issue like climate change. I think it is much easier to encourage action in people, if you relate it back to issues in their daily lives. All of these issues are intersectional, and the solution will have to be. I direct you to PhilosophyTube's video on Climate Grief. I think it very effectively breaks down why people don't act upon climate change.
Edit: Just noticed in one of your replies that you are working on a video about climate grief. Good on ya :D
Great video, I'll share it with my friends. Though, the title isn't great. Maybe change it to "Denial about the impact of climate change".
It frustrates me to hear people think that the world is gonna be fine. That the economy is more important than our world. It gets to me so bad
I'm with you.
I'd love to read some of scientific articles you talked about, do you have sources for them?
Most of the stats I refer to were from the book I reference (some of which are in this article here: nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html).
What can I do to help?
what does UBI have to do width climate change?
In order to make a system that supports climate change and environment sustainability, a UBI is needed to keep people able to use the system.
If you look back at the time of the first climate change conferences, less developed nations stated that for them to support themselves, they needed support from the wealthier nations to make the required changes and grow to help their people.
The developed nations decided that they didn't want to commit to these agreements, as if would be too expensive.
Ah yes, I had enough of Covid-19 caused existential crisis, let's go back to the classics.
this video inspires me to think even more about the things I do in life. I think your videos are extremely important Kurtis. thank you for making them I will make sure to share them among my friends and family and I will try to have the biggest impact I personally can have in my surroundings. I hope everyone who watches this video will do the same. I know it looks like everything is lost and nobody can make any difference but that shouldn't be an excuse to not do anything. we need to try our best.
Soooooo, watch this before bed. Hellooo nightmares 😭 ❤️🌎
I'm hoping this pandemic does wake ppl up to the fragility of our civilization, and how necessary it is to take action. We're getting a lot of data now about how much CO2 has plummeted during these last few months!
After my previous, dark comment, I'm not going to respond to one other thing in which I may sound like a Pollyanna. 3:10 Yes, indeed we would need to engage in a massive change in our society NOW, just to maintain the status quo or stave off disaster. I acknowledge that. But if we did (that's the Pollyanna bit) we could in fact turn this process around by engaging in a massive, global tree planting campaign. It would need to be at a scale larger than most of us can imagine. But a large part of the problem we have created has its roots in the last 1000 years of deforestation. So if we did indeed not only cut back massively on our carbon footprint, but also turned around our relationship with nature so that we could, in 30 years, rebuild the ecosystems we've destroyed over the last 1000, we could actually turn this problem around.
I have a few points on this video. While I agree that we need to do more for the climate, I don’t agree with many other points you make, but I’m glad that we talk about this issue!
I think there’s a big difference between denial, knowing and acting. I disagree on the fact that many people are denying climate change, most people seem to care about it, and know about it. At this point it feels like it’s only a minority that actually denies the science of climate change being a thing. Now the fact that most people still fly for example, or do anything that might contribute to the problem, that’s something else. Humans aren’t rational, we don’t just change our points of views and opinions when faced with facts. That’s not how it happens, you’re also the proof of this. It seems like you did your masters on this subject, and yet you didn’t change your way of living over night. It takes time, thinking about it, talking with people. Especially for something as slow as climate change. Pandemics are better off in a way, because they are so immediate.
It takes a lot of time for different people to change their minds, and also to start thinking about not going on vacation by plane. Also, if you’re loved ones are only realistically reachable by plane, people will continue to fly to go see them. Shaming people for it might not be the right solution all the time. I agree that we might need to rethink the way we travel and interact with each other, but shaming people and blaming them for not being at the point other might be in the thought process isn’t going to solve it, in my humble opinion.
So I disagree, people are not in denial. But realistically, what can people in their every day life do, when they have to go to work everyday, take care of their kids, etc. There’s just so much energy you can put into things, and I believe that you can only pick your battles, not everyone can solve every problem. Medical staff aren’t necessarily the most eco friendly right now, should we blame them? Probably not, because we can’t be on all fronts at once. So I do believe that working on things like renewable energies, but also nuclear, optimizing air travel, etc. Do go a long way to try to diminish the extent of the problem.
Also, I’m really interested in the fight against malaria, where did you get the 5.1 billion number? This seems... odd and not really on pare with the numbers I’m familiar with, mostly coming from the WHO.
Either way, I think even if we disagree on this topic, discussing about it is the first step towards doing something about it, at least at our scale. While that might not seem like enough to you, there are probably many other fields, medical, humanitarian, economic, you name it, where someone thinks the rest of the world isn’t doing enough to save the day.
Thanks for your videos, I mostly watch them because I kinda of disagree with you most of the time, and think it’s a healthy thing to do! So keep it up :-)
I've been making videos on how to convert your gas car to Electric for 20 years now, first on VHS tapes. My 8 year old UA-cam channel has 200 subscribers. Talking is good but doing is better .
I wish this had a chance to get to the trending page.
We're hard wired and change is VERY difficult.
Keep calm, keep your loved ones close and hug them ... often!
Ask questions and listen but try not to play " I'm right and you're wrong " .. there are no winners down that road.
Be the best person you can be and vote for those that can make a change.
Everything else is just noise.