FWIW the better EVs totally nail fun and fast. They accelerate waaaay better than anything but the most expensive gas cars. Driving a Tesla is super fun. So unless the car being loud is a big thing for you, I don’t get this (I get that there might be other issues like lack of chargers).
Hey young people, this asshole thinks that companies shouldn’t have to disclose their climate risk to the SEC because “boo hoo, argle bargle, solar needs government
subsidies”. These are the folks that are determining the future of the bio-sphere. Concern #1, hows this affect my stonks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/15/when-it-comes-climate-sec-should-quit-pretending-be-epa/
Shocker
i still eat meat but i probably reduced somewhat. i try to buy “sustainable” and/or local meat, especially at restaurants, although it’s more to support the farmers trying to the regenerative/sustainable thing. we pay double our electric bill to allegedly purchase renewable energy only. heater is still gas (geothermal soon, when this one dies one more time), but stove is induction. i bike or bus to work. grow fruits and vegetables in the backyard, probably eliminates 80% of my yearly tomato and zucchinis purchases. i wondered if i can grow enough potatoes for the year. i harvest rainwater into upcycled soda concentrate barrels, which probably saves at most 1000 gallons per year, i don’t think that’s a lot or anything, but it would save my plants in a drought. also make our own compost, which for this locality eliminates some weight that would be picked up by trucks and then delivered around the city.
it’s not too far from the bare minimum i could be doing in terms of carbon footprint, but no kids so, i will stop contributing when i’m dead. but that’s not the point. the point is that the steps i’m taking are so small, they really only make a dent in my psychological state, rather than humanity’s bottom line. does your brain need you to do more to not get trapped in self reinforcing misery? start a garden. it won’t make a big difference, but you’ll feel better. a p-patch is just about what almost anyone can handle with minimal commitment.
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It seems like a lot of us are struggling with the chasm between what we can do and what makes a difference.
There was probably a time where individual action had the ability to make a difference. That time is long passed. We need globewide, concentrated action today in order to keep the damage to meer catastrophe. That isnt happening.
It has felt futile for at least 15 years. When An Inconvenient Truth came out I remember seeing it in a theater with my wife and my immediate reaction was that trying to coordinate a global effort to stop it is a waste of time, governments should pour massive resources into programs not aimed at stopping global warming but at making the world livable in post-warming. I still express this view from time to time but people ALWAYS react like I’m insane. Surely there must be some advocates for this? Or is my idea just incredible stupid?
This assumes that warming is finite and will end eventually, which won’t happen without the programs designed to end it. We’re going to need both to stave off massive societal collapse.
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This. The problem with warming is that its compoundable. Its like rolling a pebble down a snowy hill. If you stop it before it gets too big, its no big deal, but for each inch it travels it gets harder and harder to stop. Warming leads to melting, leading to permafrost destruction leading to more warming, more metling, and more permafrost destruction, repeated ad nauseum.
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What is the probability of and Earth → Venus vs. other scenarios?
To be clear, I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I have seen an awful lot of “this trend is reinforcing and will continue forever” predictions that have not come to pass. Is there a scientific consensus that the only options are unattainable government regulations vs. planetary environmental collapse?
Yes
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We’re never going to become Venus, at least not until the sun starts expanding. We’re never even going to live out Waterworld. We are going to see billions of climate refugees this century if our current path is unchecked, though. Entire cities (hell, entire countries) are going to be swallowed up or basically incinerated. And there’s nothing anyone living in those places can do because they’re some of the poorest places on earth and no one wants to help the brown people in the shithole countries not drown/starve/whatever.
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We’re also going to see increasingly severe weather extremes on a much more frequent basis all over the globe. Human civilization has existed during a remarkably stable period of earth’s climate, but we’ve spent the past 100 years pumping a bazillion tons of gaseous chaos into the atmosphere. Even if we stop tomorrow it will take hundreds of years for that to settle out into whatever the new normal is.
Are tweets not displaying? This is just a religious nut job video if you want to skip it.
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1427295383970099205?s=19
yeah something is up with tweets—AOC’s and DaleRupar’s are displaying normally either.
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I have very similar thoughts and I get the exact same reaction.
Part of the problem is a lot of the advocates do have some other views that are kind of shitty and so the stink gets on this particular one as well.
The weather scares me more than just the temperature increase and the resulting sea levels. We have a decent idea what the overall climate was like the last time there was this much CO2 in the atmosphere but we have no idea what the weather was like. Hurricanes, heat waves, cold snaps can all be alot worse and alot more common then they are now.
I thought this way also but if sea level rises much more, millions or billions(?) will be displaced from already poor countries. Shit will be chaos. I couldn’t imagine having kids right now and making them deal with this with any good conscious.
Right, I can see that. It would be a smoke screen that people throw up when they don’t really want to do anything about climate change at all.
Its also faces the same problem.
Adapting to climate change ALSO requires public investment by rich nations in poor communities… so probably not gonna happen so much either.
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