Okay. I just want to slam on the brakes here, just a little… Just a little slam.
There’s a LOT of personal blame going around in these comments. As if everyone who ever had burned any fossil fuels ever is somehow personally responsible for everything that’s currently happening.
Here’s some news, we’ve been burning shit for more than a millennia. People, in and of themselves, don’t require so much heat and energy to create a problem. At least not individually. As a whole, small problem. Individually, microscopic problem at most.
Everyone seems to have fallen into this trap of everyone being personally responsible for the climate change. The vast majority of the issue is companies. Everyone wants to point at trucks and delivery vehicles and whatnot as major contributors when they do talk about contributions from companies, and you’re still way off base. It’s not even the air traffic that’s the problem. It’s the fucking boats. Nobody thinks about it, because nobody sees it. Either the boats are off at sea, or they’re docked in some yard, away from your vision. 90% of the time, they’re sailing. When they’re sailing, they’re operating the motors 24/7. Each ship, when operating, will consume more fuel in an hour than any one person would use in a year.
Since it’s mostly unregulated international waters, who are they reporting any of that shit to? So they don’t.
Yes. Climate change is real. Yes, we, personally, should be doing what we can to curb it. The fact is, if all of us did everything possible (switching to all renewable power, using EVs and all renewable powered appliances, etc) it would barely make a dent. All of the “personal responsibility” arguments are just a smokescreen from the big, very guilty corporations, to victim blame the public into turning on eachother so they can continue to destroy the environment unchecked. Based on these comments, they’re succeeding.
I’m not saying to not be mad. Be mad, get angry. Just be mad at the right people here. I’m not evil because I drive my 1.5L 4cyl sedan to the grocery once a week, and have a natural gas water heater. Sure, I should change that, and I’m sure I will be changing that when I can, but I’m not the problem. The greenhouse gasses I emit over my lifetime won’t offset the emissions of transport ships in a single year.
Just… Be mad at the right people. Stop making people feel bad for being given bad options because the automotive industry actively and knowingly rejected electric vehicles due to how deep they were with the oil industry. So people had to buy internal combustion vehicles because there literally was no other option at the time. I’ve had my car since 2014. In 2014, the model S (the only model at the time), was $70k USD to start. I didn’t have $70k USD to spend on a car (I still don’t). I spent less than one-quarter of that price on my vehicle, and I was barely able to afford it over a 5 year finance. Yet, based on these comments, I should be ashamed that I can’t afford a BEV? Or that I live too far from everything that I can’t ride a bike or something?
Come on people. You know who is really at fault here. Let’s just be angry at the right people.
Boats are actually one of the most efficient and scalable methods of transport. Sure they produce a lot of emissions, but it’s still very small in the context of global emissions (2.5%) and are an invaluable asset. There are many other things you should go after before shipping.
I agree with your sentiment but if everyone is just pointing fingers we’re going to keep steamrolling ahead. We need to put the pressure on politicians by actually giving a fuck.
I’m fucking tired of people like my parents making tiny sacrifices and then patting themselves on the back for “doing their part for the climate”. Meanwhile they own 6 fucking cars. I’m fucking tired of how most people ridicule climate activists and act all frustrated that 500 strangers had their commute lengthened.
I agree that “taking personal responsibility” is mostly bullshit and isn’t going to fix climate change, but I still think everyone should do everything in their power to curb their impact. Not for the minute gains that they’ll make but as a form of activism in itself.
I agree. I said as much, but it’s good to say it again. It may not be your fault. You may not be the worst offender. That doesn’t mean you should do whatever the hell you want.
everyone should be doing everything they can to slow or stop the constant march that we’re seeing towards higher and higher global temperatures.
My main focus is that the entire narrative that I’ve ever seen is basically making people mad at their countrymen, neighbors, whomever, for driving the gas guzzling F350 trucks and rolling coal on hippie EV owners and crap… And yes, that’s one problem. That’s not the only problem, but it’s the only one that seems to be discussed.
We can’t relax on the push towards better options for everyone, but we also need to apply pressure where it needs to be, so that the very environmentally unfriendly practices of businesses also get the attention they need to be fixed.
My little sedan gets so little use because I refuse to drive several hours a day for work, so I found a job where I can work from home. It’s easily one of the most substantive contributions that I can make towards the goal… Drive less. I don’t have the funds to buy an EV right now, so if I can follow that first rule of “the three R’s” … Aka reduce, then that will be for the best.
But that leads me to another problem. People seem to think that recycling is as good as reduce/reuse, and bluntly, it’s not. Recycle is last on the list because it’s what you should be doing when reducing and reusing isn’t possible. But I digress.
There’s a lot of problems. I just want people to put pressure on global logistics companies that are running large diesel ships 24/7 so that we can get useless knickknacks from China, non-stop.
This is lunacy. You’re saying “let’s stop blaming the wrong people and have a calm rational discussion”
Religious idiots refuse to believe in global warming, scientists are lighting themselves on fire to warn people and no one cares because of religion (which is the only reason people doubt this), and it’s too late and we’re going to all die.
Calmly coming up with sensible solutions to be angry at the right people is ridiculous. Companies are also still just people. There is a reason why people allow global warming, don’t believe the environment could be destroyed, and vote for corrupt idiots who tell them fantasies: the reason is religion. People are corrupt and stupid and believe religion and until all of the religious fantasy pushers are destroyed, this trajectory will continue.
The only problem is there is no stopping this trajectory. We are all in a large house, we’ve lit in on fire, the entire structure is ablaze, and you’re saying “let’s talk about who is really to blame…”
Instead, we should philosophically make peace with our own doom, however that’s done. Everyone religious is to blame and should feel bad. The religious all enabled ignoring the problem by encouraging illogical stupid thinking.
I don’t blame religious people specifically. I would agree that a lot of the problematic people are religious, but I don’t think they’re a problem because of their religion specifically.
It’s conspiracy theorizing nutbars who believe in crap like the earth being flat. Not specifically or exclusively flat-earth types, they’re just a really good example of the climate/science denying fuckheads I’m referring to. That’s one big group of problematic people. The other big group is capitalists, which are frequently conservative/right/religious types. Capitalists only give a shit about one thing, and it’s disgusting. Money. If whatever is happening is not making them money, then they could not possibly give any fewer shits about it. This is the root problem in corporations. The fucking corpos who would never bother to care about anything that helps anyone, unless they can profit from it. There’s very little profit in saving the environment.
Unless they’re legally obligated to do something differently, and unless that difference will benefit them monetarily, they don’t do it. Hell, if it wasn’t for federally mandated occupational health and safety, they would still be sending folks into tunnels carrying nitroglycerin to blast open the next section (and other extremely dangerous and frequently fatal tasks). But because of shit like OSHA, they can’t so much as order you to climb a ladder if they haven’t met a minimum standard of safety.
Again, angry at the right people here.
Now, IMO, the conspiracy people need medication and therapy, and the capitalists need to be given a long walk off a short pier, while being told there’s money at the end of the walk. Some people we would just be better without. To be clear, I’m more civilized than to take any physical action against them, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting someone to do it. They’re environmental criminals, every last one. The problem with their crimes is that everyone will suffer for them.
My main focus with my statements is that people shouldn’t waste time arguing with their neighbors and countrymen (those who have no authority over anything outside of their personal lives), and focus their efforts on enacting systematic change. The former is kind of a waste of time, and who gives a shit if Walter believes that corpos can do nothing wrong, driving around in his F350… If we change the system and ban ICE vehicles, Walter’s next vehicle will be an EV, whether he likes it or not.
It is absolutely the religious people who have caused the destruction of the global ecosystem and will lead to its collapse.
If you ask 100 atheists if environmental catastrophe is upon us, nearly all will say yes.
It is only the delusion that magical sky god and his special friends jesus and mohamud and budah look over the planet and are testing our morality that allows dipshits to believe the earth can’t be destroyed by sufficiently altering the chemical composition of its atmosphere and by generating sufficient waste byproducts.
These people ARE the problem.
Religion allows the political problems to exist because philosophically people view existence and reality in a distorted fairy tale manner.
What I’m trying to say is that they’re not like this because they’re religious. It’s very very likely they’re religious because they’re like this.
I’m not convinced on the cause and effect here. I’ve met plenty of people who are science deniers, or at least those that vastly misunderstand science, and/or believe in this ridiculous nonsense that are not religious. Those people exist.
My strong opinion here is that people aren’t this dumb because they’re religious. They’re religious because they’re this dumb. The implication that religion is the root of the problem precludes the possibility that someone is a flat-earth/climate-denier/science-denier, without first believing in religion… So every last one of those people must be religious.
By turning it around as I have, you can have people who are climate/science deniers, separate from their religion.
The side effect of this is that it places personal responsibility on those that would deny science (it’s to tiring to type out all the denials these people have so I’m summarizing to just science from here on out). It’s their own idiocy that causes them to deny science. That idiocy may also lead them to religion, but they’re an idiot first. They weren’t conditioned to be an idiot through indoctrination. By pinning everything on religious types, it implies they’re indoctrinated by religion to deny science, which, that kind of indoctrination exists, but IMO, it’s not the primary reason why people become science deniers.
They have a foundation of (or lack thereof) knowledge which may or may not lead them to religion, science (or the denial of it), or belief in any number of things that are wildly untrue.
IMO, these kinds of people are the kind that don’t want to ask the hard questions, or strain their brain trying to make moral or ethical choices for themselves. They desire a voice, whether divine or otherwise, to essentially tell them what to think. They want the answers to the questions, without doing any work to derive what those answers might be, or put in the effort to figure out which of their derived potential answers may be correct. They lack the ability, motivation, or desire, to put in any mental effort with regards to the big issues.
Religion gives them a warm, soft, comforting blanket of answers to questions they couldn’t even be bothered to think of. So many people who lack the intellectual capacity for critical thought, flock to it in droves. Same with most of the pseudo science bullshit conspiracy theories. Same with just about every consumer crap you can think of. A good example of this in consumerism is with Apple. I don’t want to throw shade at Apple users, there’s plenty of very smart people using apple products, but their marketing for the masses was on point. “It just works”. And for the most part, they’ve dummy-proofed the shit out of everything they make. So much so that a lot of the remotely advanced, or customization options of most of what they do, is hidden behind layers of bullshit dialogs, or squirreled away in some obscure settings menu most people don’t even know exists. They’ve used the same design language for years in their UI across all platforms, so anyone who learns it once, can use it across all platforms and devices. Yes, they’ve made improvements, mostly adding to the experience in a way that’s mostly transparent to the overall design language.
Apple treats their primary customer base like toddlers. Giving them more of the same but better (somehow). There’s a simple set of rules to follow that have been the same, at least in concept, since the 80’s. 40 years of regurgitation of the same design, over, and over, again. Standardization to the point of being nauseating.
All of this shit from Apple is design to appeal to the lowest common denominator. If you know enough, you can get pretty advanced with it, but if you’re intellectually stunted, you don’t need to learn anything new to keep up with the latest and greatest products.
This is the kind of person that we’re talking about. They want answers given to them without effort. They want to have others think for them. So when climate deniers make the case that they don’t need to do anything differently, and all this science/climate doomerism is just FUD, they climb aboard, because doing the bad thing that they already know how to do, and change nothing, and being given permission to act like a complete fuckwad to the environment by some dickhead looking to make money, is a good enough reason for them to change nothing. Vehicles require gasoline. The furnace runs on fossil fuels, not any of this fancy heat pump bullshit (actually really great technology, but they think it’s BS). Plastics make their lives easier and are easily recycled (ha. No), etc… they want to maintain the status quo, and not think about all the horrible damage they’ve quite clearly and obviously caused.
There are many stupid people who realize they are stupid and look to the intelligent for answers.
Stupidity is not a flaw in and of itself.
The problem is religion enables people to easily have these moronic beliefs that make no sense and still fit in and be normal, and puts them in a position in which they are obliged to defend this stupidity as non-stupid to show loyalty to the sky god.
And although we can agree that Apple is terrible in every way, and that all Apple users have similar intellectual abilities to that of a flat-earther praising the sky god, that doesn’t negate that religion is the cause of all problems in society and if all the religious proselytizers and preachers were put on a large boat that headed to Antarctica that mysterious “sank” just before making landfall, literally every problem in the world would be solved.
Thank YOU!
I am tired of this bullshit and all the bots/trolls/ai supporting it and passing on propaganda for the same people that created the issue in the first place.
So I fully agree with you!
“You know who is really at fault here. Let’s just be angry at the right people.”
Yep, and everyone is attacking me specifically citing boats, and yeah, boats contribute, and they’re an example of things that people don’t think about, but they’re hardly the only problem.
Even if we isolate ourselves to just consumer vehicles, if you look at what vehicles produce the most greenhouse gasses and which are driven the most, all of that is generally done by and for the benefit of companies. Whether it’s Joe driving 2+ hours to get to the office because his boss won’t allow him to work from home for no practical reason, or simply vintage car collections owned by millionaires or billionaires, which are true to their roots and are super inefficient… Or overpowered SUV/limo/busses (like tour busses) driving all the time to get from one place to another for a small group of people who would probably fit into much smaller and more efficient vehicles. But no, all these yuppies are blaming Jack, who works from home, and drives like twice a month because he hasn’t dropped $100k on an EV that he’ll never use, to replace his Toyota Corolla from 2010, which still works perfectly. Yeah, Jack is the problem (/s).
Everyone is so hung up on pointing fingers at eachother and their neighbors for continuing to drive combustion vehicles. I paid around $15k for my vehicle, 10 years ago, and I’ve moved into a fully work from home position. It sits in my driveway 8 out of every 10 days, at least. The days I do drive it, I’m usually on the road for less than an hour. Yet the comments here would have me think that I need to go buy an EV. Why? My car works perfectly. I would literally be wasting more resources by throwing out my perfectly working car, to buy a new driveway filler… The heck?
I feel you! We are in the same (man powered) boat 🙂
I do, but like most other people, I’m preoccupied with short term crises since, well, I need to survive those in order to be ready for the long-term ones.
In my opinion though, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. The elite will manage to hang just a bit longer, but eventually they’ll cook and burn with the rest of us, or in their bunkers.
Anyways, shit’s already fucked to the point that I’ve given up. Just sit back, relax and take whatever life gives ya.
This is exactly the messaging of the oil companies and others who oppose climate action now that it’s too hard to deny. They want us to think it’s hopeless and give up trying to change anything. It’s not too late. Green energy is growing exponentially and has been possibly the fastest technological adoption in history. Millions of people are working on the science and technology to solve these problems. We just need some more collective action at the local and national levels. Carbon taxes, funding for green initiatives, local agriculture, and support for alternative transportation like e-bikes or other PEVs to start
Did you miss the memo that current AI is already using more power than everything we’ve managed to save with green energy in the last decade? We ARE fucked, the only thing we’re still debating is the exact timespan. Which is asinine, the result will remain the same either way.
The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war, becausing nothing else will convince people. We’ve been trying (and failing) for decades.
If the power is renewable, who cares how much it uses? Things are far from hopeless.
Because that power could have been used by someone else who’s depending on coal instead. You cannot separate power sources when on the grid.
That’s why we’re working to get rid of fossil fuel power generation entirely.
Humanity is just going to go through a culling. There will definitely be humans and there will definitely be habitable areas of the planet but there won’t be room for all 8 billion of us and depending on how much we actually do right now will determine how big the actual final number is
And honestly, would that be such a bad thing? 8 freaking billion of us is at least 7.5B too many.
And you’ll be first in line to be a member of the 7.5B that gets culled, right?
You can kill me right now if you want.
I dunno why the assumption is that everyone who makes the observation on overpopulation is so self-interested that they can’t imagine their own demise as part of it. We’ll all die in the approaching climate disaster, including you and me. The difference between now and later is small on a geological timescale.
You can kill me right now if you want.
Spare your self-contempt for somebody that cares.
You asked.
I did, unfortunately.
I never had kids of my own, because I didn’t want any, but the last 15 years or so I’ve becoming increasingly grateful that I made that decision. It at least allows me to sit back and contemplate doom without worrying about what my kids’ life on this planet is going to be like after I’m gone.
I’ve always done the reducing, reusing, and recycling, because it’s the right thing to do. Cut waaaaay back on dairy and beef purchases, I eat a lot of plant protein and use plant milk now. But it’s all a drop in the bucket. Only the governments can actually fix this, and they won’t because they are owned. I just sit around hoping it won’t get TOO bad before I’m dead.
The fiduciary responsibility scene from the new Fallout show hit hard.
S1E6
“Morton played a rancher who owned half of Missouri.”
“And what happens when the cattle ranchers have more power than the sheriff?”
“The whole town burns down.”
“Right, the whole town burns down. Vault-Tec is a trillion dollar company that owns half of everything. And after ten years of war, the U.S. gov’t is broker than a joke. The cattle ranchers are in charge, Coop.”
climate scientists have already lit themselves on fire trying to warn people and it didn’t actually do anything
people are too religious to believe in science
People are setting themselves on fire, throwing food at famous art or stopping traffic because it feels like a bad dream where you see the disaster coming and you’re trying to shake people to get them to understand that we have to DO something, and they just stare straight ahead like zombies.
These are people who are scared and frustrated because we’ve tried EVERYTHING and nobody actually cares. When I tried to impart this message on reddit, people were like “I get it but why can’t they just promote recycling or protest peacefully?” and then a 50-comment deep thread about whether or not the liquid soup can work its way through the screws on the plating that covers the artwork and what kind of lasting damage it might do.
Meanwhile, our destruction is literally around the corner. I don’t get it.
We deserve what’s coming.
The Religion: $$$$
“Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve”
He was talking about money!
I mean, I get the desperation. But drop everything and…do what?
Calling for a massive strike is one thing. But just “drop everything” with no follow up is a weird reaction. It sounds way too much like, “drop everything and panic.” Not “sacrifice everything to try to save what we can of the livable world.”
It’s called: click bait
Or more nefariously, doomerism.
Well, the only thing that could reasonably help us would be to demolish the 1% and the corrupt politicians who support them. And yes, that would include an armed uprising.
Not that that I see that happening unless it gets much worse. We still have (some) bread and games left to pacify the masses.
either travel until your last penny or buy a house in a very very remote location and stockpile enough food for a year or two. Continuing your life as usual and recycling your tin cans is the definition of insanity.
If your bucket list is “travel the world” then sure. If your bucket list is “enjoy a lot of chill times with my friends and family” then I don’t really know what you expect to change.
I mean think of how many people know someone who died young and live with the very real knowledge that they could die at any moment, what do you expect them to change knowing that climate change might make life hard at some point in the next 2 - 100 years? Does that meaningfully change someone’s life when they already know that they could be killed in a car accident the next day?
Do you think preparing for collapse now in a remote location is really the sensible thing to do? I sometimes wonder myself how fast it will happen. I think the planet will be uninhabitable within 300 years and chaos will ensue within 30 but i’m not sure the chaos will be without warning unless we hit an environmental tipping point and there’s sudden major temperature change (like earth becoming 20 degrees warmer or cooler within a week), which could happen.
A house in a remote location is insanely naïve. Rambo isn’t real life, if you want a snowball’s chance in hell of making it in that kind of a scenario you need to have group support. When the sea people came you didn’t want to be in major metros on the coast, but you also didn’t want to the the guy alone who became the lonely corpse in the countryside. There’s a happy medium where you have the best chances of survival. This is just delusional apocalypse porn.
The vast majority of people who think they can survive an apocalypse with a backpack of tactical axes and MRE’s are delusional cosplayers. Even the people already out in the wilderness with gardens and animals and stockpiles of guns are woefully naive to how hard it would actually be to survive if the walmart they go to every week closes down.
All that said, there is absolutely good that could come from investing in some cheap land further north. Not to become some kind of wild survivalist but to do exactly what you said, be a part of smaller communities that can band together and share resources. The hardships coming are not going to be like The Walking Dead, this shit is going to take years or even decades to ramp up, but that’s still lightning fast on a climate scale, meaning there will be storms on top of storms, inundated cities and coastlands, refugees swamping places that can’t handle it, and a lot of really hard times with a failing economy and shortages of everything from food to power to fresh water. We will slowly see a pretty major social shift in the first-world as people are displaced and the wealth divide becomes extreme, there will be shanty-towns on American and EU soil that rival the poorest countries. But yes, it will take a long time and there’s going to be an absolute mess of politics and economics and social upheaval through the entire time.
And there’s no fixing it. This is the hardest part to sink into people. That it’s not a “rough patch” that this temperature increase is effectively permanent. No human is going to see the Earth cool back down unless someone does a major, rapid, and successful, geoengineering project. All things that are still more fantasy than remotely reality at this point.
The PBS show Frontier House disabused me of any notion that it would be anything but insanely difficult to survive after societal collapse. Three families had to live as if they were in the 19th century in a valley in (I think) Montana over a summer to prepare for winter.
None of them would have done it. Not even the couple who busted their ass and wouldn’t have had children to feed.
Drop everything
… and? Panic? Die?
The people who tweeted this suck at Communication 101. You’ve gotta have a specific and clear call to action. Something like “Join this protest at XYZ” or “Demand your Congressman support ABC.”
You can’t just say “Drop everything. Forget about your job and your kid’s education.” That’s not an effective message.
Unless their point is we’re past the point of protests and political policies doing anything and we’re all gonna die. In which case, say that. “Drop everything and go die, cause we’re fucked.” You gotta be clear!
I think part of the post is the implication that there is no more call to action, only a downward spiral that no action could solve.
wish it would just happen already. years and years of these warnings…just happen. let it all go to shit, let me start looting grocery stores and hiding out in the woods like some post-apocalyptic film. “but you’ll probably die” good.
Yeah I’ve understood since high school, what the fuck do you want me to do about it when I can barely keep myself and my family alive as is?
This particular author wants you to panic.
We are certainly facing many environmental crisis, there’s no doubt about that… But the data here seems limited. I assume we simply don’t have measurements older than 50 years to add to this graph?
Edit: Here is a better graph!
Still alarming, but the data only goes back so far… It feels like something everyone needs to pay attention to and take seriously, but perhaps turning down the Vault-Tec guy knocking at your door is still a reasonable action to take.
Seems like the authors doomerism is working. Look at some of the assholes in the comments. It feels like they get off of the negativity.
Is shit bad? Yeah. But giving up helps no one and is a punch in the face to all the people that are fighting tooth and nail every single day.
While I get the sentiment and believe action is necessary, this is the wrong way to approach it. Panic is not the way we will solve this crisis.
There’s a way out, and if we get through we’ll be in a better place than we’ve ever been. We need to mass invest in green technology. Solar, wind, nuclear, throw everything at it and see what sticks. Solar is already on the right track to save us, but it’s better if it goes even faster and have a few back up plans.
Is it on its way to save us though? Sure the global north might be able to escape the worst and maintain some semblance of normality but how does that work for the remaining 90% of the world? Those that can neither afford nor have the time to wait until the “green energy revolution” reaches them? Do we just accept they’ll never be able to reap the benefits of their own exploitation?
I know you don’t have the answers but these are questions we nees to grapple with that nobody seems to know how to answer…
A lot of places in the global south are already using solar and wind because it’s cheaper than trying to get on the oil competition, cheap Chinese solar is increasing this. What would really help is western governments investing in designing open source solutions that make staying off oil easier but apparently the only thing that matters to us is short term profits
Panic is not the way we will solve this crisis.
In this case panic is preferable to completely ignoring the problem as is currently humanity’s strategy.
But spreading panic is counterprodictive
if a group of people are in a burning building and about to die, panic would actually help them get out
in this case, however, it’s unlikely anyone is going to get out of this building, and it’s too late to change things, so perhaps you are right
we should just find ways to make peace with the destruction of much of life on earth
Excellent example of what I mean. In a burning building panic isn’t helpful and hinders the actual correct response, just like with climate change.
that’s not true. in a burning building, freaking out and getting the fuck out of the building is smart and why it’s instinctual
sitting around and debating the best way to proceed is stupid AF
that’s not true. in a burning building, freaking out and getting the fuck out of the building is smart and why it’s instinctual
Not at all, why do you think during fire drills you’re instructed to stay calm?
They say that when there are large number of people and a risk of people being trampled or when there are young students and teachers need to keep count to make sure everyone gets out.
At this point, the risk of every person on earth dying due to inaction or calmly discussing small ways to change is much higher than if everyone panics. People should have panicked 50 years ago when they looked at data.
But go ahead, have calm rational discussions about policy decisions that can reduce exponential growth of destructive forces by 30 percent. Because nothing stops exponential growth like mild decreases in the rate of change.
platitudes will not save us from math
?
small gestures that make us feel good will not have a meaningful impact on the exponential changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere that will result in the destruction of the biosphere and are counter-productive because they create an illusion of safety and control, like like putting your seat belt on just before you slam into a wall while speeding at 300 mph.
better?
There is very little we can do when the primary producers or pollution are oil companies and our leaders are not willing to hold them accountable.
Iguessilldie.jpg
Are you driving a car?
Ok, stopped going to work and am now fired. I guess I’ll starve to death in a few weeks. That should reduce my impact on the climate.
You can get involved in local politics and support zoning reform. Lookup strong towns, they probably have an initiative in your area.
Depending on where you live it may not be reasonable for you to ditch your car, but you can still change your mindset. You can buy an ebike and ride it whenever possible. You can advocate for bike infrastructure and zoning reform. Its a massive uphill battle but if you genuinely care about climate change you can add your voice to the cause.
Wow this makes a lot of assumptions about privilege and class/financial circumstances.
Do you try to minimize your reliance on driving a car or do you throw your hands up and claim that other people need to change, not you?
This agenda of personal responsibility is exactly what keeps us from holding the true guilty parties accountable. This is like saying the abuser isn’t the abuser, because you can go to therapy or leave any time. But we can’t leave any time.
Love,
A work from home vegan.
Advocating for zoning reform and reducing car dependency isn’t exactly the “agenda of personal responsibility”. We can make a difference in our communities and use that as a springboard to pressure politicians to make change.
It’s not one or the other, it’s both. Just because your reducing your climate impact is negligible doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and do it.
What is your objective, to hold people accountable or to save the planet? Saying that individuals are responsible for the majority of climate emissions is not about shifting blame. Oil companies and bad luck (society picked fossil fuels before we really understood climate change) are to blame, but now we have to switch to damage control mode and that falls on individuals (and the government and corporations, but in a democratic free market society those both wrap back around to individuals anyways). It’s just the hand that we have been dealt.
This agenda of personal responsibility is exactly what keeps us from holding the true guilty parties accountable.
I think it’s the opposite. It’s the agenda of “it’s someone else’s problem” is what’s holding us back. It’s almost a classic case of the prisoners dilemma where individuals (both people and corporations) make the decision that is less favorable for everyone overall because they are afraid of what happens if they make the best decision and no one else does.
We all have a responsibility, and if we individuals all start making better choices, then some corporations will cater to that, and it can snowball.
It’s not an either or scenario. It’s if we want to get there fast, which we need to, everyone rushing there right now is the best…while waiting around for others to solve the problem will not get us there fast enough.
Personal responsibility was an ad campaign created by the oil industry. Every American could reduce their carbon footprint by 90% and we still wouldn’t make a dent in the carbon large corporations create.
I still actively reduce my footprint, but no matter what I do, until we hold corporations accountable it doesn’t fucking matter.
It’s not one or the other. It’s both. We all have to change, individuals and corporations. It’s the “well I don’t have to do anything” people that are a big part of the problem too.
You guys act like those corporations sell if there is no demand.
Nah that isn’t true though. The biggest emitters are utilities and oil companies. Cut your fossil fuel usage and the rest follows from there.
Are you an Italian actor portraying a stereotypical Native American with a single tear running down your face, being paid by big oil?
“has different opinion than me. Must be paid actor” -super genius
As little as possible. I walk, take public transit or bike when safe and possible instead of driving a car. My partner and I only own 1 car as well since I need it so infrequently.
With that said, the fact that we have created such car dependent cities and towns are the direct result of oil and car companies. So they created an environment that requires people to use a car, so beyond the pollution they generate, they have forced us into a system where we have to create pollution to live. So they are still the ultimate root cause, but nice try
Great job on limiting your carbon emissions.
I think the argument of who is the “ultimate root cause” is kinda irrelevant at this stage as far as actually saving the planet goes. But when the “the vast majority of carbon emissions come from 10 companies” or whatever factoid gets brought up, usually the context is that individual contributions are meaningless. And that totally isn’t true. It would be like smokers saying the tobacco industry is the ultimate root cause for their smoking addiction due to their false propaganda and advertising. Okay, that may well be true… but it’s still their responsibility to quit.
Smoking is a single habit that a large percentage of people have no problem never being tempted to do.
Unsustainable practices pervade societ in a way that requires real education and lifestyle changes to avoid. It’s not enough to “just stop polluting,” you first need to learn how to. The fact that beef is unsustainable, that other meats are still far less sustainable than a plant-based diet, that some plant-based foods are still unsustainable. Where to get the sustainable plant-based food without them being packaged in disposable plastic – and at prices you can afford, at the job you work at where commuting doesn’t require a private vehicle. Learning that basically everything sold online from overseas is unsustainable, especially most of the stuff that advertises itself as sustainable. Learning to be content with what you have, unless it’s a gas-powered dryer because wouldn’t a heat pump clothes dryer be better? But really you should air dry your clothes!
Unsustainability isn’t a single habit like smoking, it’s entire lifestyle and thought patterns and ignorance and you have to learn about it all and change deeply ingrained habits. That’s why blaming the individual is so unproductive. Governments should have responded to the danger of climate change a long time ago but chose not to, even actively accelerating it for profit. The failure lies there.
Again- this isn’t about blaming the individual. I agree individuals are largely not to blame (the exception being people that know they are living an extremely unsustainable lifestyle that harms the planet and they just don’t care).
My point is that, even having been dealt a bad hand, individuals still have the power to make a real difference by making environmentally conscious decisions. Therefore the narrative that corporations are to blame and therefore individual contributions don’t matter is not true.
Drop everything and do what exactly
For a start you could get active in local politics and support zoning reform. Car dependent infrastructure is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and I am not just talking about car exhaust.
If we want to solve climate change we need to change our way of life, and that means ditching as many cars as possible.
I don’t disagree with you, having walkable infrastructure would be great.
It just doesn’t really seem achievable in any meaningful way.
A few hundred km from here a gargantuan hydrogen facility is being built - using solar to cracking hydrogen from sea water. It will take decades to build, and is a big undertaking.
I offer the above as an example of something difficult but reasonably achievable.
Lobbying local government to favour walkable infrastructure just doesn’t seem like a viable pathway to meaningful change in a reasonable time horizon.
Yes I should take 15 minutes every election cycle to vote for the right person. Beyond that though my input wouldn’t be very valuable.
what? it’s too late for that.
we are all actually going to die. changing a zoning rule? you think that’s going to help?
if there’s an avalanche that is seconds away from enveloping you in snow and killing you, do you suggest walking a few steps to the side? it won’t do anything. the math is too much at this point to change with recycling a can or planting a tree. the only thing that will get the world to finally believe in math is massive amounts of death
make peace with death, it’s coming for us all
Block ambulances and throw stuff at paintings.
ME? I KNOW WHO I AM
I AM DUDE
Molotovs?
TBH this is the answer. If govs are willing to sell themselves and all legislature to the highest bidder, then it’s time for mass protests, strikes, and molotovs.
that could have changed the trajectory 50 years ago
if people had been scientifically literate and recognized the problem
it’s too late now
this will happen when the pain of reality (regular temperatures in the 100s) overcomes the stupidity of religion, but there won’t be any going back
Removed by mod
Saving the environment? In this economy?
There’s a actually a super interesting explanation (and time will tell how accurate that explanation is) regulations from 2020 limited how much sulfur dioxide ships could emit and it turns out the sulfur dioxide was actually creating a slight cooling effect, so now we’re experiencing the full brunt of our existing emissions as the world climate rubber bands to where it would have been if ships weren’t spewing toxic sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. So presumably this recent trend will stabilize at some point and we’ll have our new normal
This is also why geoengineering is so extremely risky. If you ever stop for any reason the climate will rubberband to where it should have been rapidly
This is a pretty terrifying explanation.
It’s less terrifying than the initial graph since it at least suggests this is a temporary period of rapid ocean warning while the climate rapidly reaches where it should have been. I’m (overly-)hopeful that the brief period of rapid climate change will finally spur more meaningful action by governments, but probably not. It’s going to take an entire region of a western nation being unmistakably destroyed by climate change before that happens. Unless a powerhouse like China or potentially India decides to force the world into meaningful climate action
But doesn’t this mean that geoengineering is also effective at giving us extra time? We’d start using safer gases that have the same cooling effect while we try and go carbon negative worldwide
But doesn’t this mean that geoengineering is also effective at giving us extra time? We’d start using safer gases that have the same cooling effect while we try and go carbon negative worldwide
Personally, I think that’d actually have an overall negative effect. Governments and corporations desperately don’t want to do anything about climate change, and giving them more time with cooler temperatures will (my opinion) just allow the world to further delay doing anything about it, allowing them to bake in even worse temps if they ever had to stop geoengineering for whatever reason.
This is a really morbid take, but all these big heatwaves, radical weather, and rise in weather related deaths cannot be ignored, and that’s unfortunately damn useful. It makes it harder to be a climate denier/skeptic, makes people more angry when nothing is being done about curbing emissions (hopefully leading to more climate protests), and really forces society to place a skeptical eye at all the new fossil fuels being brought online around the world, all because they can personally feel it.
If it could be made to be business as usual, I think we’d see the “Gosh darn it guys, we reaaaallly should do something about all this. Eventually.” mentality just continue until it once again becomes too hot physically to ignore.
Geo-engineering is a rabbit hole we do not want to dive into. We have the ability and knowledge to fight climate change right now, the only thing we don’t have is the political willpower. Geo-engineering is a distraction, please don’t give it the time of day.
This whole affair is caused by too many people existing. Mass death is the only solution. Relax and enjoy the ride to a better future!
Although I also think there is a correlatin between number of people and detrimental climate effects, it’s wrong to reduce the causes to that. Despite the fact that “the richest 10 percent of people produce half of the planet’s individual-consumption-based fossil fuel emissions, while the poorest 50 percent — about 3.5 billion people — contribute only 10 percent”, it is mainly due to our modern way of life and production. As you probably know, the climate started the downwards spiral since the industrialisation. If we werent producing so insanely much GHG-emitting stuff, it wouldn’t be such a problem. (Regarding temperature alone. There are of course also other detrimental effects on our eco-systems due to things like overuse of fertilisers for example.)
You realise that the link you posted is full of shit, do you? The Oxfam shifts the blame from consumers to the owners of manufacturing and logistical facilities. It states that Bezos is responsible for all the associated costs of the shit YOU buy. But guess what? If you wouldn’t buy that shit, Bezos won’t be selling that shit and there would be no pollution.
Get your facts straight next time.
Get your facts straight next time.
This is also covered in others, more recent findings. Want me to dig them out for you?
If you wouldn’t buy that shit, Bezos won’t be selling that shit and there would be no pollution
Which is part of what I meant by:
“it is mainly due to our modern way of life and production”
But not in such a condemning way as you.
The fact, that you were able to write your comment, shows, that even you felt the necessity to buy stuff. And I am 100 % sure that the device, you used for that, was not produced free of GHG emissions or under ecologically (or even socially) perfect conditions. As bad as this is, this is the case for most people. But did you have a choice? Can you live an average life in our current society without stuff like that? Do you even have the option to choose alternatives?That’s my point. This kind of “you buy, you choose” attribution of causal chains, is surely true to some degree. But imo it’s an oversimplification to label it completely like that. I can’t even buy fucking organically grown tomatoes in my closest supermarket. So I don’t even have the option to choose the better alternative. This also applies to several other basic foods. Yet, I also need them. Most of the times such items are more expensive than the worse ones. The latter is a huge deal for people who really don’t have that much money. So they literally can’t buy the better options.
The market self-regulates that kind of stuff by itself to some degree. But not completely. And policies worldwide, especially in industry nations, fail to address these issues, thereby fueling the problem. Then of course there are further problems, like a lack of education and awareness about it and so on.
Another thing: how easy do you find it to see which product is the better one from an ecological perspective? How do you know it’s not just greenwashing? Do you feel like it’s an easy choice?
If so, congratz, you are a lucky one. But for most of the rest of us, that’s really not made sufficiently transparent.Again, something which needs to be regulated.
And then, Bezos and co. could make their whole business conpletely green. Do they want to? Nope. Bezos and co. also could decide not to take their private jets, or live in a private mansion, live lifestyles which cause so incredibly more emissions than the one of average Joes and Janes. And again, they decide against it. But yeah sure, go on making each customer and the whole of humanity responsible.
Not the amount of people are the problem, but their disregard for eco-systems, especially the failings of policies. Humanity managed to survive for thousands of years without fucking up the whole planet. Shit really started to spiral downwards since the industrial revolution.
Again, something which needs to be regulated.
And it is! In developed countries. Like here in Europe. I don’t have issues buying “organic” tomatoes or “free range” eggs, because they all are (veg only while in season obviously, can’t grow shit under snow).
The problem here is not Bezos, it’s YOU who do not demand better. Most smaller delivery vehicles here in the UK are fully electric. Our grid is regularly 100% powered by renewables and the amount of hours keeps growing every year. BPA is banned in food packaging. A lot of pesticides and fertilisers used elsewhere are banned. Business parks like Stockley Park have insect hotels and bee hives, as well as dedicated waterbodies for amphibians, etc. Why? Because WE demand it! And you don’t. Instead you ban contraception and abortions.
And it is!
Insufficiently.
Like here in Europe.
It must be a very different kind of Europe than the one I live in.
I live in Germany and regularly encounter such troubles to find ecologically optimal products. Most of the time because there aren’t any available for me. Then there is a huge lack of transparency and sometimes of course the price. Although the latter is not really problematic for me, it is for a lot of other people. Those products, which are environmentally detrimental, are usually much cheaper than the ecologically better ones. You are being financially punished for choosing the better alternatives.“free range” eggs
Despite the fact that a non-plant based diet is worse than a plant-based one in terms of ecological impact, the industry has been subject to a lot of critique due to insufficient regulations towards the treatment of egg-laying hens. Not only that, but also controls are often not conducted, even though it says so on paper.
The problem here is not Bezos, it’s YOU
Even if we neglect the ecological irresponsible business practises conducted by Bezos & friends, when it comes to individual ecological impact, wealthy people are usually causing a multitude of the damage which is caused by not-that-wealthy individuals. It seems to be a problem inherent to the lifesytle.
Most smaller delivery vehicles here in the UK are fully electric.
That’s cool. However, there is more to electric vehicles which must be considered when we think about ecological impact. (Lifetime, resources, production, etc…) Even if that’s given, this alone doesn’t solve the climate crisis. Although it certainly seems to be a nice step in the right direction.
Regarding the remaining list: that’s surely nice to hear. Still, there are still a plethora of unsolved problems. Even in your country.
And you don’t.
How about you don’t generalise a whole population?
Instead you ban contraception and abortions.
You must have mistaken me with someone from another country. It might help to be less prejudiced.
And it is!
Insufficiently.
Like here in Europe.
It must be a very different kind of Europe than the one I live in.
I live in Germany and regularly encounter such troubles to find ecologically optimal products. Most of the time because there aren’t any available for me. Then there is a huge lack of transparency and sometimes of course the price. Although the latter is not really problematic for me, it is for a lot of other people. Those products, which are environmentally detrimental, are usually much cheaper than the ecologically better ones. You are being financially punished for choosing the better alternatives.“free range” eggs
Despite the fact that a non-plant based diet is worse than a plant-based one in terms of ecological impact, the industry has been subject to a lot of critique due to insufficient regulations towards the treatment of egg-laying hens. Not only that, but also controls are often not conducted, even though it says so on paper.
The problem here is not Bezos, it’s YOU
Even if we neglect the ecological irresponsible business practises conducted by Bezos & friends, when it comes to individual ecological impact, wealthy people are usually causing a multitude of the damage which is caused by not-that-wealthy individuals. It seems to be a problem inherent to the lifesytle.
Most smaller delivery vehicles here in the UK are fully electric.
That’s cool. However, there is more to electric vehicles which must be considered when we think about ecological impact. (Lifetime, resources, production, etc…) Even if that’s given, this alone doesn’t solve the climate crisis. Although it certainly seems to be a nice step in the right direction.
Regarding the remaining list: that’s surely nice to hear. Still, there are still a plethora of unsolved problems. Even in your country.
And you don’t.
How about you don’t generalise a whole population?
Instead you ban contraception and abortions.
You must have mistaken me with someone from another country. It might help to be less prejudiced.
Do you understand?
No.
Yea, the graph showing us up 4 standard deviations isn’t easy to understand implications. But I imagine on a person level, it’s something like “if you live somewhere hot and humid, you better make sure you can afford to run and repair your AC”. On a global level, mammals have existed for 200,000,000 years, yet in 200 years we’ve toyed with global extinction for shareholder profits.
Meh, humans will survive, literally, unless Antarctica heats over 200 degrees from now, we can survive somewhere on the planet. We won’t prosper, there will be billions of deaths and an unimaginable about of loss, but short of planned deliberate nuclear war or large asteroid, we’ll survive a little.
Cool, nothing to worry about then!
I bet this is also somehow the immigrants’ fault. /s
(Looking at you, right-wing voters in EU. ò.ó )
I have a coworker who hates undocumented immigrants because she thinks they’re all unvaccinated and spreaders of disease. This would be an unremarkable bit of stupidity except that she’s also anti-vax.
How does that even go together? Being anti-vax and at the same time condemning people for not being vaccinated?
That’s pretty much why I mentioned it. It’s absolutely batshit crazy.
