As a layperson, I read that 2024 was the hottest on record, and I see charts that go up. I have no reason to believe that the charts will go down. I don't care if its 3 deg by the end of the century or 5 deg. But what about the century after that, or by 3000.

I'm not so concerned about disasters or economic impacts, I just have a deep moral belief that we should leave our environment the same as when we entered it. We know that fossil fuels release pollution that we have no technology to clean up. We we should not be using it. It's not rocket science.

Admittedly, it makes no rational sense go without today so that future humans can experience the earth in the same way I have. I understand why many people dismiss risks of things unlikely to effect them or their children, but to me to feels wrong, and I would like to have as little impact on the climate as I can.

https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-confirms-2024-warmest-...

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energy123 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The moral case is really for the billions of people near the equator who cannot afford for temperatures to go up much more. It's too hot there already. We are making their countries insufferable to live in and we aren't compensating them for it. It's a travesty.

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tuatoru 14 hours ago | parent [-]

They are getting cheap electricity from PV and batteries and cheap air conditioners to run on the electricity.

	▲	energy123 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		At least hundreds of millions, if not billions, can't afford airtight walls and a ceiling. Their homes are made of sheet metal and other scraps. They can buy a few panels for the family which rest on dirt to power their phones.

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tuatoru 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If there is any technological progress, people in 3000 will be so much wealthier than we are today that fixing any problems arising from climate change will be trivially easy for them.

That is, if there are any people in 3000. Nuclear war is still the number one problem. AI is a candidate for number two right now; the next decade should clarify things.

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thegrim33 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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	▲	jay_kyburz 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Each year over the last 20,000 years has been hotter than the last, on average. The "chart has gone up" every single year since when campfires were the height of human technology. If you look at the chart in the link above, it's very clear there has been a dramatic change in the last 50 years. There has also been a dramatic rise CO2 emissions in a similar period. I don't think its unreasonable to assume the two are linked. Even if you were to concede we cannot prove that our emissions are causing the change, we should at least acknowledge that there is some chance that they are. We can't do anything about the earth naturally warming itself, so there is no action required in that scenario, but we can reduce our emissions in the chance they are damaging the earth.

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kcplate 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> We know that fossil fuels release pollution that we have no technology to clean up. We we should not be using it.

The irony is that without them, you (wherever you are) and I (wherever I am) could not be trading messages. Every bit you send and every pixel lit has a fossil fuel cost associated with it.

Our world 100% runs on fossil fuels and right now there is no alternative that rids us of them that can be made without them. No replacement technology can be developed that won’t employ fossil fuels even further to excess in its creation. So “not using it” is not an option. Cutting back is not an option. The only way to replace them is to extract, refine, and burn more and hopefully that investment can be the one that gets us the returns we need to hopefully one day eliminate our dependency.