This should be front-page headline news every day, leading every TV newscast.

And yet it's not. Why? Because if it was, that might deter us from accepting the perpetuation of BUSINESS AS USUAL.
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If global temperatures increase by 1° Celsius or more above their current levels, billions of people will face wet-bulb temperatures every year so intense that their bodies will not be able to naturally cool themselves. Indeed, if global temperatures exceed 2° above pre-industrial levels, four billion people will encounter intolerable heat and humidity on a yearly basis, often in regions where air conditioning and other forms of relief are not widely available. That could include more than two billion people in Pakistan and India, one billion in eastern China, and 800 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Once global temperatures rise 3° above pre-industrial levels, much of the U.S. Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest will also regularly experience unlivable wet-bulb temperatures.

There is no universe in which this development will not lead to millions of deaths. "It is important to understand that wet-bulb temperatures of 95°F (35°C) are not conditions we can just get used to," Dr. Peter Reiners, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, wrote for Salon in 2021. "Human bodies have fundamental physiological limits; our planet's perturbed, angry climate doesn't care about them."
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Just one degree more above current temps will put BILLIONS of people at grave risk of death from climate chaos.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.salon.com/2023/10/16/heat-is-making-our-planet-uninhabitable-why-isnt-this-the-top-news-story-around-the-world/

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Heat is making Earth uninhabitable. Why isn't this the top news story around the world?

A recent study found that millions will be displaced as climate change makes their regions too hot to live

Salon.com

@breadandcircuses
Had a strange disagreement with someone who claimed media are 'fear-mongering' over climate change. My assertion to the contrary (that reality is far more terrifying than any headline) led to a permanent rupture.
This weird 'everything's fine' vibe coming from educated, left-leaning people scares the shit out of me. It's not doom-mongering to pay attention, to chart the graphs, to observe what's already happening to millions of people's lives.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/devastating-journey-to-escape-climate-catastrophe

Trapped as fire raged: deadly perils in Mexico for migrants escaping climate catastrophe

Higinio Alberto Ramírez nearly died in a devastating fire at a migrant center in Mexico after rising seas forced him from Honduras – but the climate crisis is not recognized as grounds for asylum

The Guardian

@clarebee @breadandcircuses

They're kinda right, for the wrong reasons.

The media's fear-mongering about climate change is a bit like.... fearmongering about how the barn door really needs to be closed, when the horses are already 4+ decades down the road and ravaging the countryside. They make a lot of noise about threats that are nowhere near the scale of what we're really facing, and thus scare people while also gaslighting them simultaneously. It's a very slick trick.

@violetmadder @clarebee @breadandcircuses
We also hear a lot of climate activists say stuff like "there is still time to turn this around," and I think what politicians hear is "we're not at a crisis yet." It is time for people to stop saying there is time. There isn't time. If we act now, we're still acting too late, but we might mitigate the worst effects.

@alun_parsons @clarebee @breadandcircuses

There's time to make it less bad than it would be otherwise.

Even that much is worth fighting like hell for.

@violetmadder @clarebee @breadandcircuses
I think the problem is what politicians and the media *hear*, we tell them "there is time", they hear "there is no urgency". But we know we're in the middle of a mass extinction. We know the Amazon is now producing more carbon dioxide than oxygen. I just see a lot of complacency from people like the IPCC.

@violetmadder @alun_parsons @clarebee @breadandcircuses Absolutely.

The certainty that the world as it is almost over should not prevent us from trying to mitigate the shitshow we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. It is our moral imperative to do that.

@TomSwirly @violetmadder @clarebee @breadandcircuses I never said it should. I said there is too much complacency.

@alun_parsons @violetmadder @clarebee @breadandcircuses Ooops, sorry if you thought I had that impression from you.

Your sentence, "If we act now, we're still acting too late, but we might mitigate the worst effects", sums up where we are precisely (and I favorited it!) so I am very much in agreement with you.