Earth’s climate is approaching irreversible tipping points

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4d ago

Earth’s climate is approaching irreversible tipping points

www.economist.com /interactive/science-and-technology/2025/08/13/earths-climate-is-approaching-irreversible-tipping-points

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Oshen, a British startup, intends to deploy small, self-sailing robots with solar-powered sensors in the subpolar gyre, where they will measure such things as sea and air temperature and wind speed. Marble, another British company, is developing drones that can monitor the position and size of icebergs, the location of the glacier front and the height of the Greenland ice sheet, three variables that are essential to accurately forecast melting.
Both Oshen and Marble say their work is only possible because smartphone technology has made sensors and processing power cheap. Control systems that once required proprietary software can now be run using free, open-source code.
That's really fucking cool
“The mental model of the climate threat among key people—particularly in senior parts of government—has yet to catch up with the fact that the nature of the climate threat includes things like tipping points,” he says. In his view, no government is considering scenarios like ice-sheet collapse with the seriousness afforded to other high-impact risks, such as pandemics. In fact, Mr Laybourn reckons, with the possible exception of the Nordic countries, most governments have not really been thinking about them at all.
Super ironic that the countries that are going to become much more habitable to humans are the ones most interested in preventing climate change.
- If the major Atlantic sea currents get disrupted as badly as it seems they might, we'll more likely end up freezing our asses off in truly arctic climates.
Not approaching, already passed
- Yes, but the number of species that will go extinct and the number of humans that will die can be minimized by changes we make today
  
  Nope. 2030. Zero. GL proving me wrong. You won't be here then to do so.
Actually trying to do something about it. I know it sounds glib but if every person tries to address one of the problems as best they can, the scales start to tip the other way.
I've been seeing articles like this for at least the last twenty years.
Welp, we all saw this coming and knew exactly what to do, aaand we ignored it anyway.
Humanity is only as smart as its dumbest citizens.
- Before the Internet at least the biggest idiots didn't have a platform to publish their bullshit. Now we have the Internet and everyone can post everything and everyone can believe everything.
  Humankind isn't ready for global communication.

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