This is great! Hope it shocks some of them to get on track.
How long has Subaru been a laggard?
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Climate Change Fight |OT|
- Thread starter Pomerlaw
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This is great! Hope it shocks some of them to get on track.
How long has Subaru been a laggard?
OP
OP
I don't have children and I don't do transatlantic flights...sorry pals, that should easily cover my washing with warm/hot water + my meat consumption every 2nd day.
Your move, SUV driver with 4 children and 30 business flights/year.
Your move, SUV driver with 4 children and 30 business flights/year.
Hi all!
Some good info in the OT, but I am a bit distressed to see political action is so rarely quoted as a mean of change.Not even in the OT. It is by far the most efficient way to fight climate change today.
It's all good to take care about your own carbon footprint, and it's important to be as much as possible in line with what you ask governments and companies, but it's ultimately important to remember this is not a personal issue; eco-paranoia will not serves you nor the fight.
While it's true than putting the brakes on meat or refraining from using the plane would help, what is needed are deep, rapid and global policies. It's great that you eat less or no meat, but it would be much better if agriculture, the food industry and land use could be reshaped in a more sustainable way (animals have a place there too)
It's nice that you choose to go working by bus, but the world won't change significantly before carbon and pollution is taxed, and before better transportation is widely available and more competitive.
Also don't loose sight of the data. On a global scale and strictly speaking about global warming, the energy is by FAR the sector that needs to be reformed dramatically. The world could go vegan or car-less and we would still be heading towards a climate catastrophe. This will likely continue to trend that way because energy usage is still increasing, and paradoxically some green tech could require a lot of electricity.
In the US transports unsurprisingly plays a bigger role, but energy remains the worst offender depsite large shares of Nuclear. They both dwarf agriculture emissions :
Of course emissions are not everything and there are LOTS of reasons to change how we produce and eat food too.
Sorry if I sound patronizing but if you want to fight climate change, you can "start with yourself", but don't forget where is the true fight: involve as much people as possible, go to protests, lobby your deputies, spread the facts and fight fake news, shame or avoid irresponsible multinationals or banks, organize community led initiatives, vote.
Also remember no matter how green you are, billions of people will simply not care, and million will even will be opposed to change; it will need to be (democratically) "forced" on them, as is most piece of legislature really.
Some good info in the OT, but I am a bit distressed to see political action is so rarely quoted as a mean of change.
It's all good to take care about your own carbon footprint, and it's important to be as much as possible in line with what you ask governments and companies, but it's ultimately important to remember this is not a personal issue; eco-paranoia will not serves you nor the fight.
While it's true than putting the brakes on meat or refraining from using the plane would help, what is needed are deep, rapid and global policies. It's great that you eat less or no meat, but it would be much better if agriculture, the food industry and land use could be reshaped in a more sustainable way (animals have a place there too)
It's nice that you choose to go working by bus, but the world won't change significantly before carbon and pollution is taxed, and before better transportation is widely available and more competitive.
Also don't loose sight of the data. On a global scale and strictly speaking about global warming, the energy is by FAR the sector that needs to be reformed dramatically. The world could go vegan or car-less and we would still be heading towards a climate catastrophe. This will likely continue to trend that way because energy usage is still increasing, and paradoxically some green tech could require a lot of electricity.
In the US transports unsurprisingly plays a bigger role, but energy remains the worst offender depsite large shares of Nuclear. They both dwarf agriculture emissions :
Of course emissions are not everything and there are LOTS of reasons to change how we produce and eat food too.
Sorry if I sound patronizing but if you want to fight climate change, you can "start with yourself", but don't forget where is the true fight: involve as much people as possible, go to protests, lobby your deputies, spread the facts and fight fake news, shame or avoid irresponsible multinationals or banks, organize community led initiatives, vote.
Also remember no matter how green you are, billions of people will simply not care, and million will even will be opposed to change; it will need to be (democratically) "forced" on them, as is most piece of legislature really.
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I was going to reply to this, but got beaten to it:
Excellent post. Thanks for taking the time so I didn't have to :)
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Right in the OP, last paragraph.
Absolutely I stand corrected! Pardon my rush, glad it's there!
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These corporations aren't doing shit just for themselves. They are acting on behalf of us, the consumers.
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i dont recall users saying hey polute our environment we don't give a fuck. Besides the fact that this is beside my point, which was people shaming others for eating meat or not doing every little thing to "save the environment", as if one fucking individual not eating meat is going to make a fuck all of a difference to climate change. It seems some peoples ire is directed at the wrong target.
Just like recycling was put off as a "consumer" responsibility, companies used to do this and offer refunds for returning their trash and such for doing so but they found it to be expedient to blame consumers so they didnt have to pay for it.
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L O fucking L. That's exactly what people are saying with your actions of consuming meat, upgrading their phone & PC every year or two etc. You can't blame corporations for fulfilling your needs as a consumer when fulfilling those needs is inherently polluting no matter what. There is no miracle technology that will bring that meat on your table without massive environmental impact. There is no miracle technology that will mine (and generally even process) those ores without ravaging the environment. By continuing consuming meat (& dairy) your signal is that you DO NOT give a single fuck about the environment as you throw a large amount of yearly monetary support to the meat & dairy industry to allow them to continue on, because that's one of the easiest & biggest single changes that a person can make in their everyday lives that has a big impact on saving our environment (not just greenhouse gas emissions, but water pollution & preservage, saving forests, insect armageddon etc.).
This isn't just some corporation issue. EVERYONE. And I mean EVERY. SINGL:E. FUCKING. POS. HUMAN BEING. Needs to do their part in their everyday lives as much as possible. YES, every single person who doesn't eat meat or use dairy is a huge fucking step forward and is hugely important. Even if other industries got to zero pollution today, meat & dairy production is going to continue ravaging the environment at an ever increasing rate and nothing is going to change that except INDIVIDUALS making the decision that they are going to change their diets. No one can or is going to make that decision for you and for as long as you don't make that decision, you are contributing massively to the destruction of our environments & climate change. That's not on corporations, that's ENTIRELY on you & individuals.
If you think some political party could force people to abandon meat, fucking L O L again. Trying to do anything like that is political suicide and a surefire way for any country to get the Hitler 2.0s in power who promise that us treehugger progressives will not touch their sacred bacon & hamburgers. It's also a pipedream that lab-grown meat is some kind of miracle cure for anything. Alternatives already exist. People shun them because *reasons* (aka, they are mentally on the level of fucking 3-year-olds who are incapable of learning to eat new things). There will be a large subset of people who will also never touch anything that doesn't come from a living animal. The hillbillies who want that real, bloody steak on their plates and the anti-vaxxer, "natural remedy", alternative "medicine" kind who don't want anything "unnatural" inside their bodies.
Take some fucking responsibility in your own life instead of shifting all of the blame on the big bad corporations. We are all in this together and we need to solve it by us ALL making changes in our lives. That includes "small" things like individuals stopping to or heavily reducing eating meat & dairy (which isn't small at all as just a single person not eating meat & dairy will save massive fucktons of water & land/forest area as well as reduce stress on the environment in a multitude of other ways). Every single human being changing their lifestyles matters at this point. There is no miracle technology in the horizon that will solve all our problems if we otherwise continue living like we do today. It has to be a combination of corporations being pressured to make more ecological choices, individuals reducing their consumption (of pretty much everything) and more environmentally friendly technology.
There's truth in what you say for sure, but you have to understand everyone on the planet isn't going to just change everything in their life, no matter how pissed off you get at them. The nature of societies are still top down, and the major changes will ultimately have to come from the top, namely companies, but even more so governments, that should regulate the former.
You can absolutely blame companies for producing what you buy in a stupid way. You can absolutely expect and fight to eat meat produced in a most sustainable and sensible way. You can absolutely take your car to work while voting and protesting for better transports and infrastructure. The list is long and there are counter arguments to every point you opened your post with. The means of productions are not immovable. Of course that doesn't mean we should not be as considerate as possible when buying stuff, don't get me wrong.
You will not change the world by changing your personal habits only. Expecting everyone would follow suit is honestly just a fantasy. You have to remember even if you do change your life for the better, a vast majority of people will not care, not have the means or budget to, or even fight against changing their habits. So part of it must be imposed to them, and an environment where they can/will do it must exist.
You're also extremely focused on meat, which while a big contributor overall(not really in the US btw), is absolutely not the main reason climate is changing at the moment. Everyone could go vegan tomorrow and we'd still be heading for a catastrophic warming. I think you got your facts wrong on this point and fail to see the bigger picture. With that said I'm totally convinced the developed world consumes way too much meat.
first of all, you're way to angry about this.
second of all if you think a political party can't force meat consumption to go down, what makes you think you are going to with your aggressive militant asshole attitude? Your coming across the same was as people perceive the angry vegan shaming them for eating meat.
thirdly, apparently you haven't read any of my posts in this thread or other threads, but i'll summarize for you.
We put a metal roof on our house, because it looks cool, but also the metal can be recycled at the end of the roofs life instead of thrown away like shingle roofs and also the roof lasts at least 30% longer than a tar and shingle roof.
we put solar panels on, not because its green, thats just a bonus, it was 99% financial decision
we got rid of a ten year old+ ICE car for a EV, this has since become the most used car, and whoever has to drive further on a given day uses this car instead of our other ICE car.
every. single. light. in our house is LED
we put extra insulation in and tried to make the house as energy efficient as possible
I get free range eggs direct from my next door neighbor
we've cut back on meats but especially beef, for health reasons more than anything.
we recycle everything our trash company allows us to
we compost our fruit, vegetable and eggshell waste which we use in our garden
we've planted 15 trees on our property since january, the rest of which is natural bahia grass
so once again, your ire is directed at the wrong fucking person.
Hello. I've been an academic researcher in solid state physics for the past 10 years (mostly working in Japan though I'm in Europe for 2 years now), working on photovoltaic solar cells and involved in a few initiatives related to energy issues and of course climate change. I will try to participate to this topic whenever I can, and hopefully bring insights regarding points on which I may be knowledgeable. Don't hesitate to @ me.
Meat isn't just climate change, though. It's one of the biggest climate change inducing things but It destroys insanely huge areas of land and pollutes our waterbodies, which aren't entirely related to climate change but are at the very least equal in how problematic they are for ecosystems. And the science isn't all in agreement over the level of effect of different things. Whatever the case, meat & dairy production is one of the biggest pollutants, but some methods put it at #1 while others at "only" #3 or something (depending on what factors are put into the calculations).
And meat & dairy are the single biggest things INDIVIDUALS can fairly easily change in their everyday lives that has a big impact on climate change & overall environmental protection. It doesn't require any significant monetary investments (vegan diet is/can be dirt cheap) and nowadays it shouldn't be too hard to get adequate food (from a nutritional POV) no matter where you live, as vegan alternatives are becoming more mainstream/known/widely available. No matter if it's THE biggest contributor to climate change overall, it's one that individuals have the most power over and it's an easy change for everyone.
Of course reducing/stopping eating meat isn't the be all, end all solution to climate change. It was just an example I focused in my post. The things I talked about apply to other areas as well, where overconsumption by us consumers is the issue. This is very much a thing that needs to happen on all levels of society as much as possible. It cannot be a top-to-bottom issue. It needs to be top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top and middle level issue all at once. Everyone participates to the best of their possibilities & abilities. If your public transit system is shit and you require a car, fine. If your city does improvements to public transportation that would help you too, then why in fuck are you still driving a car? Like, using Finland as an example, I can't fathom why anyone in Helsinki wants to drive a car.
I know most people won't do shit. That's why I have very little hope that we can actually properly tackle this issue. Few are doing anything and even many of those are not doing enough. It's all a shitshow starting to happen. I'll do all I can (vegan, no car, almost no air travel, fix electronics rather than throw them away at first sign of issues, not upgrade electronics every 1-2 years, green energy, small apartment, recycle, am mindful of water usage, vote for climate/environment conscious politicians & all dat jazz) but I do not think humanity has it in them to change course. We see the iceberg 50+ years in advance but still we sail head on towards it.
Well sorry if I'm frustrated because the future of humankind & many people I hold dear to me are threatened. Just because I call you out on your defeatist "I'm not responsible" attitude that you decided to bring up in your post, that doesn't make me militant. I also mostly used "they" and a general "you" in my post, it wasn't all targeted directly at you. And if you or anyone else gets butthurt about hearing the truth, that's your problem. Unlike racist schpiel that tries to bring up "facts" about racial stuff that is all BS, these ARE the actual facts. Meat & dairy production IS massively harmful to the environment (not just in relation to climate change), no amount of "I buy from a local producer" is going to change that. They are not pleasant. They are not fun. We are all responsible for this fucking mess and no amount of "buh... buhh..... BUT THE CORPORATIONS" is going to change the fact that most people (especially in the west) are at the very least equally responsible (if not more, in a way) because of how we CHOOSE to live our lives. Plus corporations are made of people as well. They aren't sentient beings on their own.
so, let me put it this way.
Its a helluva lot easier write and pass legislation that says "hey companies stop doing X or Y is going to happen to you" than it is to guilt shame the entire western world into changing their behaviors.
also same side, same side. I made a comment responding to someone. and you went off on me. I never said we *shouldnt* try to do those things. Just that in the grand scheme of things compelling corporations to do better is far more effective than guilt shaming people.
1 or 2 persons not eating meat isnt doing shit to fight climate change. Its a systemic problem on an industrial scale.
Here are some very good climate websites:
The fight against climate change is more about adaptation now, so maybe there needs to be a thread on that? We're already on for 2 degrees now with no further emissions, and God help us if we do stop all emissions and lose global dimming - that would plop another degree on. It's quite a grim challenge we have.
IIRC the effect of losing dimming from aerosols is roughly canceled out by the slow drawdown of atmospheric carbon by the oceans.
I'm not totally sure, but some bloke called Kevin Anderson has been yapping on about it. Anyway, here's a recent paper on the phenomenon for the wrapping of mental chops: https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2670
Awesome, I'd love your input on how you see the future of the technology, and the rebuttals you can offer to the naysayers "Takes more energy to produce than it itself produce", "not that cheap", "comes with massive pollution" etc. But I don't mean to ask too much of your time though!
You sound better and more convincing where you're not shouting at people :p I think we're all quite panicked at the situation. You don't have to sell me the importance of reducing meat consumption, but I think you're still overestimating this thing in particular. The associated factors with farmings (deforestation, soil degradation etc) are taken into account of the most often quoted analysis like the ones of the IPCC. It's not really a study vs others but I feel more often like a specific scenario cherry picked by vegans blogs vs the scientific consensus.
It's true though, cutting meat is probably the easiest, cheapest effective thing you can do at your level, but basically; what harbl-kun has said. People elect politicians, so if that means bottom to top to you, sure. You will not make people lives change on a massive scale without politics, economics and the participation of the private sector. "We live in a society" I guess. The good thing though is that it means not ALL people need to be willing to make big changes. Enough people need to make these change happen for everyone.
Great links! Instead of Earthm I recommend the similar but much more evolved www.windy.com , a truly amazing ressource.
I keep reading conflicting things about what to drink as a replacement for Milk. I was under the impression that Soy milk was the most environmentally friendly alternative but some friends have informed me that it is not as good as I thought. Can anyone comment on this?
I've seen the term Climate Crisis instead of Climate Change being used sporadically in the last few weeks. I think it's especially powerful as it drives home the dramatic situation and makes sure that everyone is constantly confronted with the fact that it's actually a big problem.
It's a small thing but I'd like to encourage everyone to use Crisis in the future!
It's a small thing but I'd like to encourage everyone to use Crisis in the future!
Absolutely no worries mate, I'll do my best to answer whenever I can. But on many topics, I won't know more than a regular curious person with access to SciHub!
There are lots of urban legends related to renewable energies indeed; and on nuclear energy as well, for what it's worth. My general opinion on the topic is the following: yes, renewable and nuclear have issues, but we know much better how to address those issues than we know how to address the consequences of climate change.
I'm glad to see Extinction Rebellion and Ende Gellende picking up steam. But I can't help but shake this defeatist attitude I've ended up. I just don't see any mechanism in which we make meaningful political change fast enough. XR got a few states or parts of states to declare "climate emergency", Greta Thunberg has the world listening, but very few politicians are willing to be radical enough, and conservative meat eating gas-guzzlers are a big voter demographic.
And while the playbook of trying to influence politicians directly is the best we've got so far, it seems so damn impossible. I mean, look at the EU elections recently. Sure, the greens are increasing. But they're still way way behind the conservatives and liberals who keep pretending that "business-as-usual + nuclear" is going to solve everything (note that I'm personally pretty nuclear-positive, in terms of keeping it open and researching the shit out of 4th gen reactors).
I'm thinking what we need is direct action against fossil fuel producers. We should have a global carbon tax and massive investments in renewable energy and electric transports, but that's not going to happen for decades at the level that is needed. School strikes are cool, but compared to the fossil fuel lobby, they're pretty toothless. Fossil fuel companies don't suffer any losses for school walkouts. And before any carbon-tax or restrictions on fossil fuel production goes through national parlaments (much less international organizations), the shit is so watered down it's ridiculous.
Closing down coal mines, stopping production of oil pipelines, oil fields, etc. should be the priority. If governments can't make co2 expensive, activists are going to have to. But doing that on a global scale, in a non-violent way is hard. And doing it a violent way might lead to a public opinion-sway in favor of further subsidies and help to the industry. Not to mention the fact that I doubt enough environmentalists are hardcore enough to literally risk their lives for the cause. And I don't blame them. I was thinking of going to some XR manifestations nearby, but I'd have to bring my two-year-old, and it just didn't feel safe, so I chickened out. And I'm at least sympathetic to the movement. But I still couldn't get my ass in gear.
Potentially, if this Greta-style movement continues and we get a massive green wave in a few years time, politics might be the answer, but at this point, it's fucking bleak.
Edit: I realize I might not be adding anything worthwhile. I just had to vent.
And while the playbook of trying to influence politicians directly is the best we've got so far, it seems so damn impossible. I mean, look at the EU elections recently. Sure, the greens are increasing. But they're still way way behind the conservatives and liberals who keep pretending that "business-as-usual + nuclear" is going to solve everything (note that I'm personally pretty nuclear-positive, in terms of keeping it open and researching the shit out of 4th gen reactors).
I'm thinking what we need is direct action against fossil fuel producers. We should have a global carbon tax and massive investments in renewable energy and electric transports, but that's not going to happen for decades at the level that is needed. School strikes are cool, but compared to the fossil fuel lobby, they're pretty toothless. Fossil fuel companies don't suffer any losses for school walkouts. And before any carbon-tax or restrictions on fossil fuel production goes through national parlaments (much less international organizations), the shit is so watered down it's ridiculous.
Closing down coal mines, stopping production of oil pipelines, oil fields, etc. should be the priority. If governments can't make co2 expensive, activists are going to have to. But doing that on a global scale, in a non-violent way is hard. And doing it a violent way might lead to a public opinion-sway in favor of further subsidies and help to the industry. Not to mention the fact that I doubt enough environmentalists are hardcore enough to literally risk their lives for the cause. And I don't blame them. I was thinking of going to some XR manifestations nearby, but I'd have to bring my two-year-old, and it just didn't feel safe, so I chickened out. And I'm at least sympathetic to the movement. But I still couldn't get my ass in gear.
Potentially, if this Greta-style movement continues and we get a massive green wave in a few years time, politics might be the answer, but at this point, it's fucking bleak.
Edit: I realize I might not be adding anything worthwhile. I just had to vent.
I've been to several XR meetings and actions, and there are usually parents and babies present.
And to your point of it all feeling impossible. I completely understand that feeling and share it, but I choose to get involved anyway. I don't have much hope for the future, but if there's a chance we can mitigate the damage it's the best thing we can do under the circumstances. And now that I've been active for a while, I feel a lot better.
I think it's the feeling of many here, it should be the feeling of anyone realist about what is unfolding before our eyes to be honest. I share your vision for the most part ( not on nuclear beyond keeping them on for the shortest time possible, but I live in a country where many of my friends saw the risks first hand ). Activist are doing god's work but I also feel it has to keep being just civil disobedience and not full on rioting.
It is clearly too late to avoid the worst part, and change on the scale it should happen is also very unlikely to happen. But any move still counts, it will always be less worse by taking action. Plus you can be on the good side of history, not much of a relief but yeah.
Yep, Japan is the worst. They're even building some at home, now, in 2019, and right in Tokyo Metro. Unbelievable.
There's lot of groups taking action but there's still no acknowledgment at all from Abe.
The event in question was a road block. Which I assumed could mean both pissed off drivers as well as police. I saw pictures of the event after and people were being carried away. Granted, I know I didn't have to be one of them, but it still feels like it's a situation where things can spiral. Also, I'm just generally totally paranoid about freak accidents around my kid.
I guess there's something to be said about doing your best to mitigate disaster rather than just riding it out. Might start going to action-planning meetings instead. But since I genuinely want to advocate the most radical actions (non-violent, but still) I should be prepared to put my money where my mouth is. But yeah... I'll have to figure something out.
Bad as things are, Climate Scientist Micheal Mann wrote a piece on feeling hopelessness.
Totally understandable! I would suggest going to an intro meeting and see what local working groups there are. For example, you can work with media, logistics, communication, activist support, outreach and a range of other things that don't involve interacting with police or putting yourself in harm's way.
I haven't seen it posted here but I have recently found out about ecosia:
This is a search engine which donates it's profits to the reforestation of deforested regions in the world. They appear to be doing great work and I would suggest that you guys make this your default search engine and use their browser, and spread the word about them. It's much better than ploughing more money into Google.
This is a search engine which donates it's profits to the reforestation of deforested regions in the world. They appear to be doing great work and I would suggest that you guys make this your default search engine and use their browser, and spread the word about them. It's much better than ploughing more money into Google.
I used to be highly skeptical but it seems they are not bullshitting indeed. Performance is not on par though.
And in a timely fashion : https://www.theguardian.com/environ...le-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions
Tree remain one immediate and cheap way to fight climate change, and to alleviate heatwaves. There's also no one to complain about them, unlike (sigh) renversables.
They seem to be doing a great job - they publish their financial reports every month, stating how their funds are spent. This is the latest report:
Their total income for May 2019 was: Euro1,347,484, and of this they spent Euro 694, 204 on replanting and reforestation projects. The remainder was spent on marketing (Euro 219,329) reserves (Euro 141,546) and operational costs (Euro 290,382).
They spent over half their gross income on replanting and reforestation, which is pretty extraordinary as far as I can see. In what way do you not think that performance is on par?
I definitely agree that reforestation, and preserving the forests we have, is key in fighting climate change.
I'm guessing he meant the search performance isn't on par, not the budgeting.
Ah right yes the search engine certainly isn't as good as Google and although I have not had any issues, you could always use it for an initial search and if you cant immediately see what you need then you could go to Google.
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Some good news for a change! (and Doug Ford being an ass as usual)
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