It's just dawned on me that if these scientists had shared the opinions and feelings in the Era Climate Change OT they'd get reported for doom posting 💀😂
What people can do is go into science/engineering/technology and work on solutions for these things. I believe technology of the future can solve these problems, we just need to get there faster.
Other ways are to work and become successful/wealthy enough to have some financial or political influence.
Unfortunately I don't think there is an easy to way to effectively contribute.
The problem is that all of this is coming in the midst of a widespread cultural rebellion against the concept of expertise itself.
You can see the trajectory of this playing out over the past 60-70 years: a slow buildup of anti-intellectualism, anti-elitism, and rejection of authority that has culminated in far too many people simply not trusting experts in any field, and not believing what they're told by anyone who isn't telling them what they want to hear or are predisposed to believe. And it's being fueled by forces who have learned how to use social engineering to profit off all that fear and distrust.
It's the same thing humanity experienced at the beginning of the Dark Ages. And it's come at absolutely the worst possible time for our future survival.
And I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it, apart from just doing the best we can in the spheres we control.
You can see the trajectory of this playing out over the past 60-70 years: a slow buildup of anti-intellectualism, anti-elitism, and rejection of authority that has culminated in far too many people simply not trusting experts in any field, and not believing what they're told by anyone who isn't telling them what they want to hear or are predisposed to believe. And it's being fueled by forces who have learned how to use social engineering to profit off all that fear and distrust.
It's the same thing humanity experienced at the beginning of the Dark Ages. And it's come at absolutely the worst possible time for our future survival.
And I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it, apart from just doing the best we can in the spheres we control.
It is only the middle of May and to the north and west where I live is on fire. Had quite a bit of smoke earlier today, which when I was younger was pretty unheard of at this time of the year. Last year it was June. Usually it is not till August before smoke from fires ever reach here.
Going to be a great summer! /s
Going to be a great summer! /s
That is not the implication.
The implication is that BP knew they could stop change by blaming individuals; one weapon amongst all their other tactics. True change would come from systemic reform - precisely what they work to avoid.
As for whether we individually should do what we can? Of course. Read my earlier posts. But we must also agitate for that greater reform and not lose focus on what really needs to change.
As another person smoked out in their home, sweating and unable to open a window. I'm sending you the people hugging emoji. I'm computer illiterate apparently, but I just want to let know /hug
Well said.
While advocating for having less kids can make sense in a lot of circumstances, advocating for zero children - total anti-natalism - is so odd. If one wants a rapid extinction of all humans then why not cheer on deadly pathogens or encourage mass suicides? I don't think it's a coincidence that the periods of my life where I was most anti-natalist were also some of the periods where I was most suicidal. Like if one wants all humans to disappear, why even bother to exist?
Yes. It feels like saying "I'm so upset about climate change and fossil fuel companies that I'm going to … refuse to do things that are good for the environment in order to stick it to BP."
Encouraging apathy and inaction in others on any issue is worse than just doing nothing.
In terms of positive effect on the world, doing something good is generally better than doing nothing, and doing nothing is better than telling others not to do anything.
Like move this to any other issue. Is volunteering at a homeless shelter pointless because it won't solve homelessness? Is doing a river clean-up pointless because it won't solve plastic waste? Is tutoring a child pointless because it doesn't fix the educational system?
The enormity of a problem is not a reason to give up on doing good things. It is wild that these threads always get multiple people telling others not to do anything, and then threads on things you can do get very little engagement (like the Climate News thread, or my thread on Plastic Pollution.)
I think nothing major will be done to tackle climate change before it starts affecting billionaires' bottomline. Billionaires will then lobby politicians to make laws to handle it. But it will be too late by that point.
The general population will not take it seriously before we see parts of the world that has been liveable before, later become uninhabitable due to extreme heat. Climate change refugees if you will.
But, again, it will be too late.
The general population will not take it seriously before we see parts of the world that has been liveable before, later become uninhabitable due to extreme heat. Climate change refugees if you will.
But, again, it will be too late.
Do you honestly think that is the context of my posts? I'm stunned at this misreading.
I'm actually insulted. How dare you suggest I'm spreading apathy. Quite the opposite.
If you bother to read them, you'll see I consistently encourage people to do what they can. I can also point out the tactics used against us.
edit: Nepenthe below articulates it well.
I don't think it's unhelpful to do things in your personal life to mitigate your carbon footprint. I just worry that people will take that to mean that this is an individualistic problem which, in a society as lonely and atomized as ours is already (by design), can be a potential death knell to collective organization and action. Because this is a systemic problem with capitalism. Ergo, we should be prioritizing systemic solutions above all else.
Aw shit, no, it's not directed at you. It's directed at that relatively common sentiment, which is represented multiple times in this thread and in the many others we've had over the past few years.
I was just meaning to jump off of the sentiment ArkhamFantasy summarized; I think your posts have been really good in this thread, and I apologize for inadvertently sniping at you. I'm really sorry.
Ah, no, I see, I'm sorry. I obviously misunderstood where you were directing that. I can get a bit too sensitive sometimes. It's all good.
This is false since we are already doing major things although not quite enough.
You did nothing wrong - I should have been clearer. The joys of internet communication!
I think that's a fair point to make. Perhaps one could make a distinction between the sorts of individual actions that take time / resources in such a way that they further atomize or work against systemic solutions , and those that don't .
I see how, for instance, giving up a car could be an unworkable, time consuming, ascetic task in many places when one should instead just keep the car if they need it and spend that time and effort fighting for transit and transit-oriented development instead.
But then on the other hand there are important actions that take almost no time, low effort, and either cost zero money or save money - giving up red meat, eating less animal products, buying less stuff (especially tech items), etc. Just doing that stuff alone can cut one's impact on the world by 30% or more, and it can go hand in hand with collective action for systemic solutions.
The issue here is that we're dealing with a globally systemic issue and what we're doing is still too little and too late.
We spent decades whittling away precious time and entertaining bad faith arguments from conservatives and industry, and as we've done so, the bill has been mounting and come due, now with substantive interest. So the cuts need to be much steeper and much faster and we're not there.
And this is largely the issue that some subset of people keep bemoaning about apathy and (for whatever reason) anti-natalism seem to be missing. We are where we are, things don't look great in the near future where time matters, and people are in more of a begrudging acceptance phase of the scale of what may come.
Are things getting better? In some parts, sure, but it's not enough still on the timescale we need. It doesn't mean people are hopeless, but don't blame people for not being wildly enthusiastic that we're going to magically solve an enormously complex problem in like 50 years.
Eating less meat is very beneficial. However, the situation with flying is different. The fuel efficiency of flying is generally higher than driving, especially in the US, where many people drive excessively heavy trucks. Moreover, the average turnover rate for cars in the US is about 10 years. The production of a single truck equates to several transatlantic flights in terms of carbon emissions. This aspect is often overlooked in efficiency calculations. A plane is on service for 30+ years.
Cars are, without a doubt, the single biggest contributors to climate change in western society.
In Germany, although cars are generally lighter, the turnover rate is still alarmingly high, around 6 years on average, and even 3 years for the upper middle class. The upper middle class typically owns more than 2 to 3 cars per household. In contrast, lower-income households average only 0.6 cars each. Lower-income groups are significantly (magnitudes) more resource-efficient.
i guess we just have to warm up to the idea of a very real toasty carbon ball floating in space
. . . wait are we in danger of being an teeny tiny itty bitty dwarf star if all the hydrocarbon components of this planet ignite?
. . . wait are we in danger of being an teeny tiny itty bitty dwarf star if all the hydrocarbon components of this planet ignite?
No, just try and be much more considerate of what impact your own choices can have on our environment and maybe make some changes. It won't kill you I promise.
As someone living in germany and I can imagine how the people will vote, all we can do is having a guy (friedrich merz) as the chancellor not seeing the problems :)
Ultra worst case scenario is: more and more votes for the party, who flat out deny the existence of it
I can relate. I am no climate scientist but I have spent a lot of time with the topic over the past 6 years. My despair reached a tipping point when I started to look past climate change itself and also looked at issues that we hardly talk about, but which equally bad (destruction of the biosphere, waste production, water acidification, decrease of soil quality, incoming resource scarcity etc.) Climate change itself is already despair inducing, but it is merely one symptom of many of what we are doing to the system we call earth. And we can't even deal with this one syptom, how can we expect to handle the sickness?
OP
OP
Until China, India and the United States sort their shit out with large restrictions and reductions, paper straws and only buying one phone every decade isn't gonna do shit haha.
Literally visited Chicago (from the UK) the other year and it's like recycling was some sort of futuristic invention that hadn't arrived in the city yet. Nowhere was there to recycle anything everywhere I went. Fully 100% recyclable aluminium cans straight into the black bin.
Literally visited Chicago (from the UK) the other year and it's like recycling was some sort of futuristic invention that hadn't arrived in the city yet. Nowhere was there to recycle anything everywhere I went. Fully 100% recyclable aluminium cans straight into the black bin.
The give up video games line is absurd, thus my response. I somehow doubt you're up to that standard.
Well I guess that is some optimism sort of lol
Well, while it is true that people buck against inconvenience, it's worth noting that society at large never had a real chance to change. Those at the top continuously suppressed and downplayed data, politicians let themselves be bought by powerful interests that contributed to climate change and we've been fed a steady diet of the idea that change can only be a slow, painstaking process that moves at a snail's pace and anything radical is doomed to fail.
Nobody wants to change because generations of people have been bred to not want to change by the top 1% and the corporations that have benefited the most
From what I know letting a machine separate trash is much more effective compared with asking citizens to throw stuff in the right container. So maybe that's what they are doing.
Folks can't have it both ways. They can't have reductions and restrictions while still getting to consume at the same levels. Perhaps, the pursuit of infinite growth is the problem.
Actually I haven't played bought or played a game in about 3-4 weeks, so just lately I am 👍 not through any deliberate cut back though I have to say.
I don't mean to crush anyones optimism but it's worth pointing out that the 2.7 degrees of warming we're on track for means 2 billion people leaving the 'climate niche' by 2030, leaving the level of temperatures humans are able to successfully live and thrive. Also places like India and Nigeria, of nearly a billion people just between them, would be completely fucked. Optimistic is not how I would feel in that scenario. If people have optimism then use it now. Do things now.
What happens at 2.7 degrees
Also slightly off topic but The Guardian have been smashing it over the last few days/week. I follow a lot of climate scientists that have been pulling their hair out because the media has been doing a piss poor job conveying the gravity of things to people and they've been expressing gratitude for their recent pieces.
The throwing the right trash to its appropriate bin is only a streamlining process for the deposits. There is not much to gain. However, the amount of trash in the US is simply on another level compared to Europe… at least in my experience.
On the other hand the US is drinking way less bottled water as you have a fountain everywhere.
It's not really optimism to note that 2.7 degrees is a tremendous improvement from the track we were on 20 years ago, and that the actions we take for the next few decades can push us down into the 2.0-2.5 range. Every tenth of a degree makes a huge difference.
That's a much more realistic and constructive perspective than just 'it's fucked, just give up' or the occasional 'humans will go extinct.'
It all depends on whether or not we can stop the processes that will naturally produce carbon. Less co2 per year helps but we may have started natural processes we cannot stop.
On top of that, a lot also depends upon how much more the oceans can continue to absorb all the excess heat.
Well, maybe it was not evident by my 'sort of' at the end was not a ringing endorsement of that optimism. More a 'well, at least you can something relatively positive in the bleakest shit imaginable.' You're right that's by no means a good result
Not to mention the bigger things:
- Dont get pets
- Dont get kids
We're walking towards a dystopian future and to get past this we cant lay the blame on individuals. Without getting corporations on board or by essentially switching out every single oil and coal powerplant in the world in a few years there's not really anything we can do.
My understanding is that pet food is primarily made from the waste products of meat production for human consumption. Also keeping pets is something that people have done for thousands of years, so while there are more and less sustainable ways to care for pets (like buying them less plastic bullshit that they don't need) it isn't really something that has to go away completely.
Same with kids. Less kids? Sure. But being anti-natalist doesn't make sense unless one's goal is human extinction.
The point is that the goal isn't to have zero impact on the environment in any way. There are things that have impacts on the world that we can reasonably deem "worth it." Like a lot of medical advancements and accessibility devices are necessarily made of plastic, and while plastic waste is a real problem, the amount of waste those specific things produce is okay; it's "worth it." Same with having kids, it's necessary if one wants humans to continue existing. We can focus on the much more reasonable and attainable goal of making these worthwhile things less impactful instead of just eliminating them.
None of this matters unless the billionaires and corporations stop. Like the poster above said doing this as an individual is like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble. You're basically letting billionaires and corporations live great lives while you suffer in hopes that your thimble will make a dent.
Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
www.theguardian.com
That coexists with things like giving up red meat, reducing animal product intake, conserving water, and minimizing air travel being changes everyone (who is able) should make because they are generally good things that have a generally good effect.None of this matters unless the billionaires and corporations stop. Like the poster above said doing this as an individual is like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble. You're basically letting billionaires and corporations live great lives while you suffer in hopes that your thimble will make a dent.
100 companies are responsible for 71% of the emissions.Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
Like should I not bother donating to refugee relief since I can't stop wars? Or stop supporting pedestrian improvements at county board meetings since they won't completely replace our car-centric infrastructure? None of it matters, right?
If you care about these issues then why would you discourage people doing the tiny things they can and encourage apathy? It's more harmful to the cause then literally doing nothing.
None of this matters unless the billionaires and corporations stop. Like the poster above said doing this as an individual is like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble. You're basically letting billionaires and corporations live great lives while you suffer in hopes that your thimble will make a dent.
100 companies are responsible for 71% of the emissions.Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
If you don't want to change that's fine, but there's no reason to come in here and tell everyone their hard work doesn't matter, it's fucking insulting and there are other ways to make yourself feel better about your bad habits.
None of this matters unless the billionaires and corporations stop. Like the poster above said doing this as an individual is like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble. You're basically letting billionaires and corporations live great lives while you suffer in hopes that your thimble will make a dent.
100 companies are responsible for 71% of the emissions.Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
It does matter in a way. If more folks give up meat, this means less meat needs to be produced which in turn lowers emissions. Folks don't even have to give up meat entirely, a large number of folks cutting down would be good as well.
Does that means it's all on individuals? Nah. It's mostly on corporations but corporations are going to do these things because we allow them to and support them.
No, I don't think I will.
It has nothing to do with me. It's just math it has no bias. I know it's a tough pill to swallow knowing that until corporations start changing individual contributions aren't going to impact the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere. Even if by some crazy technological break through you could lower ALL of our food emissions to 0. (20-25% overall) that's 75-80% of greenhouse emissions that haven't changed. I know I'm pessimistic but it's just reality.
While funny, what's closer to the truth is probably that the rich and powerful are prepping for that case while pretending that there's no problem, so that the avarage people won't rise up against them.
The math of individual impacts on any global issue is not a reason to not do good things that are good for the world and help people - or to go even further and discourage other people from doing them.
If it were, there has never been any reason for any common person to do nearly any charitable act or good deed.
Currently the biggest problem is that many developing nations literally do not have the money or resources to protect themselves from disasters or prioritize low-carbon emissions.
So....theoretically....we have a couple options, one of which is far better than the other.
The 1st option is, richer nations like the US and the EU come together to fund low-carbon projects and relief funds for developing nations, allowing them to better face the brunt of climate change.
The 2nd option is, richer nations basically abandon developing nations and leave them on their own. One even worse idea I had is that if developing nations get desperate and try to use high-carbon emission systems just to hopefully meet their energy needs, a richer, cleaner nation may even consider that an attack as that would make climate change worse.
So the worst option potentially is, rich nations warring with poor nations and just killing a bunch of people to prevent any increasing carbon production in developing nations. Or mass migration from those nations as climate change gets worse, potentially also leading to wars as countries increasingly do not want to accept any more refugees.
I'd like to say option 1 is viable, but I just don't really have much hope that it is.
So....theoretically....we have a couple options, one of which is far better than the other.
The 1st option is, richer nations like the US and the EU come together to fund low-carbon projects and relief funds for developing nations, allowing them to better face the brunt of climate change.
The 2nd option is, richer nations basically abandon developing nations and leave them on their own. One even worse idea I had is that if developing nations get desperate and try to use high-carbon emission systems just to hopefully meet their energy needs, a richer, cleaner nation may even consider that an attack as that would make climate change worse.
So the worst option potentially is, rich nations warring with poor nations and just killing a bunch of people to prevent any increasing carbon production in developing nations. Or mass migration from those nations as climate change gets worse, potentially also leading to wars as countries increasingly do not want to accept any more refugees.
I'd like to say option 1 is viable, but I just don't really have much hope that it is.