Scientists are having to deal with new developments and impacts that weren't so well understood. The more they learn the worse it gets. Crops sit in fields for long enough that the odds of getting wiped out are rapidly going up.
On the plus side, there's a whole lot of people who thought they wouldn't feel any consequences for gas guzzlers, mansions, jets, hot tubs, etc. Silver lining - they will get to experience this too. This is all happening now. India had a big failure in their tomato crop so the Indian cuisine now has to change and make do. The Kansas wheat harvest is in danger. Farmers are going out of business.
These articles discuss simultaneous failures around the globe where there just isn't food. It's coming and this year will possibly finally start to wake people up. Unfortunately it's way too late. That these effects are already piling up, we are rapidly running out of time before we have the same food shortages in the "developed" world.
CO2 concentration is our global thermostat and the concentration is increasing rapidly. The only thing that has changed is the rate of CO2 emissions increase has slowed thanks to alternative energies. The emissions themselves are at their highest level ever. Temperatures will not even begin to come down until we stop emitting CO2 and/or are scrubbing out more than we emit to reduce the levels. Then we have to scrub most of the CO2 out that we've emitted over the last 100 or so years. Probably terratons of CO2. Bonus - the earth and climate are way out of equilibrium. It will take years for any scrubbing and even stopping all use of fossil fuels to start having an effect on temperatures. It's a monumental task and by everything I know, impossible to even scratch the surface of CO2 concentrations in what is looking like the few years we have left.
It's hard to know how the general public will react when they figure out life as we know it is coming to an end but I suspect it will be just as intelligent as their response to warnings about global warming. As they say in Texas, "pray harder".
Sorry about the bummer. But for those interested in landing soft, here is some good information.
About seven or eight years ago, New York State began softly mandating the use of re-usable shopping bags. Anyone who wanted to be given a disposable plastic shopping bag had a pay 5ยข for one. That's right: five cents. That was the extent of the mandate.
And lots of New Yorkers were whining and complaining about what a terrible imposition it was! There was a simple, very easy thing to do (use re-usable shopping bags which are more durable and can be used hundreds of times) to help offset climate catastrophe, and a whole lot of people grumbled like big babies!
Also, when compact florescent light bulbs were first available, I recall a right-wing propagandist (it might have been Rush Limbaugh or someone on Fox Noise; I don't remember) complaining about these light bulbs because when you flick a light switch, these bulbs took a full second to turn on. So, regressives are unwilling to conserve energy for the future of the planet if it means having to wait one second for the light to come on.
We have more important concerns than the end of civilization!
Did you know that a celebrity just changed her hairstyle?
Maybe the next species will do better. Earth can wait. It'll still be here when we're not.