What shouldn't be done...about climate change

[Kalbear]

Since apparently we should not be active, talk about anything or do anything until its convenient for us to do so, let's carry on. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Since apparently we should not be active, talk about anything or do anything until its convenient for us to do so, let's carry on. 

Using my new sailboat to dump all my electric and gas powered tools into the river while cramming my face with cheeseburgers and avocados shipped 5000 miles to be digested.  Also burning all my trash in the backyard as a carbon offset while pissing myself laughing at Greta Thunberg's lack of specific policies.

[The Anti-Targ]

Thunberg being criticised as overly dramatic, because she's 16 and a girl. In other sorts of people it's praised as forceful and forthright.

58 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Using my new sailboat to dump all my electric and gas powered tools into the river while cramming my face with cheeseburgers and avocados shipped 5000 miles to be digested.  Also burning all my trash in the backyard as a carbon offset while pissing myself laughing at Greta Thunberg's lack of specific policies.

To be fair, the distance travelled is not biggest thing to be concerned about.

[Free Northman Reborn]

I’ll be honest. If this issue is approached as an exciting project to see how - through innovation and technology - we can reduce our ecological footprint on this planet then I for one will get quite excited about it.

If instead it is used as an excuse to load a bunch of guilt onto the people who built the modern world and who work their butts off to enjoy the fruits of their labour, then I just switch off.

And of course I’m a nobody, you needn’t care what I think. Except that I’m likely part of a large and disproportionally influential demographic group who shares this mentality.

The goal should be to get people excited about the grandeur of the project - like the goal to put humans on Mars. It should be something inspirational, not something that is guilt driven with the goal of impoverishing its participants.

The screamers and shouters may think their approach is working, but until you broaden the appeal of the campaign, you won’t succeed.

[Jen'ari]

@TrueMetis The rather large group-extinction rebellion that she is a supporter and mouthpiece for have demanded net zero carbon emissions by 2025 without any proposal for how this might actually happen, obviously I don’t expect a 16 year old to have the answers, but a group as big as theirs, making such large demands, might just, you know, have a few suggestions about how to implement them. I also never said that we should rely on this group to find the solution or that we shouldn’t be doing anything about it before a solution is found- by anyone,just that making demands with no proposals yourself isn’t a particularly good look.

Net zero carbon emissions by 2025, as said by another poster, is a pipe dream.

I also find it hilarious how not agreeing with Gretas style somehow makes you a climate change denier in the eyes of some people on here.

For the record I fully agree more must be done on climate change I just think she is entirely the wrong mouthpiece/poster child for getting the message across.

@Rippounet I’d say the problem with politicians implementing more drastic measures to combat climate change mostly comes from them knowing it will be a massive vote loser come election time, the average person isn’t going to be told they arnt allowed to fly, the car they own is banned from the road and there is only enough electricity to have power 4 days a week.

There also lies the problem that governments and companies arn’t willing or arn’t able(I’m unsure on that) to invest in renewable or even nuclear energy on a scale that will support actual energy demands, which I find disheartening.

Would you say to start with drastically limiting the amount of return flights someone could take in a year would be a good start?(except in extenuating circumstances). Moving to gas over coal or oil fired power stations immediately would surely be helpful too, in that the cost of converting would be less and it’s much cleaner, although still unfortunately a fossil fuel so would only provide a short term reprieve.

Trying to eat more locally sourced food is something else people could do although I accept this isn’t always practical.

Transport is another thing that needs addressing of course, I’ve somewhat put my money where my mouth is here as my electric car is being delivered this afternoon , unfortunately most people are not in a position to be able to make the switch, and the infrastructure for charging them on a mass scale is a long way off .

Obviously recycling is something everyone has done for years, it takes no effort and makes perfect sense, I honestly can’t understand anyone who doesn’t recycle, what does worry me though is even though we are doing it, a lot of waste doesn’t actually get recycled and still ends up in landfills, that needs to be not just reduced but eliminated completely imo.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I’ll be honest. If this issue is approached as an exciting project to see how - through innovation and technology - we can reduce our ecological footprint on this planet then I for one will get quite excited about it.

If instead it is used as an excuse to load a bunch of guilt onto the people who built the modern world and who work their butts off to enjoy the fruits of their labour, then I just switch off.

And of course I’m a nobody, you needn’t care what I think. Except that I’m likely part of a large and disproportionally influential demographic group who shares this mentality.

The goal should be to get people excited about the grandeur of the project - like the goal to put humans on Mars. It should be something inspirational, not something that is guilt driven with the goal of impoverishing its participants.

The screamers and shouters may think their approach is working, but until you broaden the appeal of the campaign, you won’t succeed.

You will never reach people who belive that the western lifestyle built on the destruction of nature and the exploitation of poor countries and people was made possible by their own hard work anyway. 

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, Wolfgang I said:

You will never reach people who belive that the western lifestyle built on the destruction of nature and the exploitation of poor countries and people was made possible by their own hard work anyway. 

How curious that it is so often the very same people who don't want to feel responsible for the mischiefs of their ancestors such as slavery and colonialism... *joke about cakes*

1 hour ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

I’d say the problem with politicians implementing more drastic measures to combat climate change mostly comes from them knowing it will be a massive vote loser come election time,

I'm not even sure that's true anymore, but that depends what you mean by "drastic."

What Greta is all about is underlining major corporations' responsibility and the politicians who are not moving toward regulating their activities.

There's little reason to think such regulation would be unpopular at all. The corporations would argue that they'll have to lay off people, that the economy will slump... etc. So the regulation also needs to be designed in such a way as the corporations are the ones who pay (make less profit) if they keep putting our collective futures in jeopardy.

It's not easy, and it involves a power struggle with hugely powerful economic forces. But there's very little reason to believe a politician initiating this power struggle would be unpopular. It's true heavy-handed government intervention has been made unpopular through ideology and propaganda, but the West has a tradition of respecting such intervention when it is needed and many people already hate large corporations anyway.
So again, no reason to assume this is something politicians have an excuse to shy away from.

Plus some of them aren't and still popular so...

1 hour ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

the average person isn’t going to be told they arnt allowed to fly, the car they own is banned from the road and there is only enough electricity to have power 4 days a week.

Some types of cars are already being banned in Paris, and I believe other major European cities are already moving in that direction.

There's grumbling, but pretty much everyone is accepting such measures. Not even the yellow vests opposed it. There's general acceptance that if one's car pollutes too much it should be retired. And general acceptance also that in time all combustion engines will probably have to be retired.

Flying is a different issue. In Europe it's only a minority of people who fly on a regular basis anyway and we already have proof (again, in France) that lowering the price of train tickets leads to people deliberately choosing train over plane. Of course France has bullet trains so they're a good alternative to flying in the first place... But developing transportation systems that can eventually be made green *is* part of the solution.
The US was always behind on that front.

As for energy, that's the crux of the problem and the solution is massive investment on a scale that will dwarf even the New Deal itself. We also have a solution for that though: a "green" central bank, separate from the "standard" central banks. It's crazy, but it's actually easy for world leaders to agree on the creation of a new International Monetary Fund for the development of green energy on a massive scale. Macron himself supported the idea, and he's not that much of an environmentalist to begin with... Such a new central bank/IMF would inject billions if not trillions to develop the infrastructure and technology to meet the challenge in the next two decades.

It can be done. Such things have been done before. But it all starts with public awareness and public pressure on politicians.

1 hour ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

There also lies the problem that governments and companies arn’t willing or arn’t able(I’m unsure on that) to invest in renewable or even nuclear energy on a scale that will support actual energy demands, which I find disheartening.

The entire point of scolding politicians is to show everyone that they need to use their power to rein in corporations.

But the public needs to stop believing whatever lies said corporations are spewing, stop swallowing neo-liberal propaganda and understand that these corporations are actually the enemy of us all at this point.

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I’ll be honest. If this issue is approached as an exciting project to see how - through innovation and technology - we can reduce our ecological footprint on this planet then I for one will get quite excited about it.

If instead it is used as an excuse to load a bunch of guilt onto the people who built the modern world and who work their butts off to enjoy the fruits of their labour, then I just switch off.

And of course I’m a nobody, you needn’t care what I think. Except that I’m likely part of a large and disproportionally influential demographic group who shares this mentality.

The goal should be to get people excited about the grandeur of the project - like the goal to put humans on Mars. It should be something inspirational, not something that is guilt driven with the goal of impoverishing its participants.

The screamers and shouters may think their approach is working, but until you broaden the appeal of the campaign, you won’t succeed.

"Tell me happy little lies and make up a cool story because I'm too much of a snowflake to handle the truth"

[TrueMetis]

9 hours ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

@TrueMetis The rather large group-extinction rebellion that she is a supporter and mouthpiece for have demanded net zero carbon emissions by 2025 without any proposal for how this might actually happen, obviously I don’t expect a 16 year old to have the answers, but a group as big as theirs, making such large demands, might just, you know, have a few suggestions about how to implement them. I also never said that we should rely on this group to find the solution or that we shouldn’t be doing anything about it before a solution is found- by anyone,just that making demands with no proposals yourself isn’t a particularly good look.

Net zero carbon emissions by 2025, as said by another poster, is a pipe dream.

I also find it hilarious how not agreeing with Gretas style somehow makes you a climate change denier in the eyes of some people on here.

For the record I fully agree more must be done on climate change I just think she is entirely the wrong mouthpiece/poster child for getting the message across.

Oh fuck off, we're not idiots and can read between the lines of what you're saying. If all you meant was it wasn't a good look you definitely wouldn't have approached the subject by attacking a 16 year old.

And as for a pipe dream, this is shit that wouldn't even require the kind of mobilization we went through in WW2. And nobody then went "it's a pipe dream." Nobody in Canada said "it's a pipe dream" to turn a Navy of a little over 3000 personnel and 13 vessels into something that could meaningfully contribute to the war. No, they got to fucking work and ended the war with a Navy of 95000 personnel and over a thousand vessels.

That's the real key, just get to fucking work, even if it turns out we don't reach the goal, we're still gonna be a lot better of than we would otherwise be. Nobody makes real progress by only chasing the easily achieved goals.

As for being the poster child? I happen to think on of the people who will be most impacted by climate change is an excellent poster child.

[sologdin]

used as an excuse to load a bunch of guilt

doubly misconceived.  there's no need for an 'excuse' as there's no wrongdoing; there's also no need to impugn the motives of advocates--an assumption of good faith is warranted bilaterally, surely?  it's not about trying to make anyone feel culpable--the point is to protect the modern world that you seem to agree is worthy of protection.

[Jo498]

A swede will be one of the people most affected by climate change?

I think y'all are still missing the important points. It's not a few guys unwilling to give up their gas-guzzlers and having wet dreams about life on Mars (read the bloody book about the "Martian" to realize that this is a cold and dry dream).

The comparison to an actual war is misleading. Of course almost anything would be possible with WW II like efforts. But this not going to happen. We knew most of what the "spoiled brats" are telling us since 20 years before they were even born. But we have done very little while continually paying lip service and producing even more hot air and CO2 by flying to big conferences in Rio, Kyoto, Paris and elsewhere. Why on earth should we suddenly change and not keep doing almost the same as for the last 20 years? In fact, most developments (societal, consumerist, geopolitical, economical)  in the last 20-30 years have been clearly in the wrong direction. Both directly through fast consumerism, SUVs, flying galore in the "West" and the industrial development of huge formerly third world countries in the East and South. And indirectly by losing control of rabid global corporations (led by the "financial sector"), losing control of public infrastructure through privatization, rising social tensions through precarization, concentration of wealth, migration, economic pressure by globalization. It's not flesh and blood, it's powers and dominations. They are in control, the structures are rigged in their favor and they are not going to budge.

But what should not be done?

Don't drive, if possible, walk, ride a bike, use public transport. But recall that the latter also uses up lots of resources. Also a new hybrid or electric car can make things worse overall because of the resources already used up by production. Try to change your life's needs so that they can be met locally without long commutes, drives etc.

Don't buy anything you don't absolutely need. Buy mostly used stuff (clothes, electronics, etc.). Share appliances, tools, cars etc. if possible. Use libraries. Buy local food. Grow or raise your own food. Reduce meat and dairy (except for locally grown).

Share housing, live below your means to save space and heating. Take cold showers.

Don't fly, don't take holidays in faraway places. Do a local tour with your bike or go somewhere by train.

Boycott or disinvest global companies with bad envirommental records.

 

[sologdin]

insufficiently grandiose, jo.  we need to dial up from cartographic marginalia to hardcore lovecraftian unnameable.  that's impossible, though.  so we're fucked.

except i like larry's idea from a prior thread about a space radiator.  it is basically this plus this, a pipeline to the moon,  built by AI 3D printers that use captured carbon as construction material.  after a generation of greenhousing the moon, it can be an interplanetary pleasure barge. 

[Jen'ari]

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

How curious that it is so often the very same people who don't want to feel responsible for the mischiefs of their ancestors such as slavery and colonialism... *joke about cakes*

I'm not even sure that's true anymore, but that depends what you mean by "drastic."

What Greta is all about is underlining major corporations' responsibility and the politicians who are not moving toward regulating their activities.

There's little reason to think such regulation would be unpopular at all. The corporations would argue that they'll have to lay off people, that the economy will slump... etc. So the regulation also needs to be designed in such a way as the corporations are the ones who pay (make less profit) if they keep putting our collective futures in jeopardy.

It's not easy, and it involves a power struggle with hugely powerful economic forces. But there's very little reason to believe a politician initiating this power struggle would be unpopular. It's true heavy-handed government intervention has been made unpopular through ideology and propaganda, but the West has a tradition of respecting such intervention when it is needed and many people already hate large corporations anyway.
So again, no reason to assume this is something politicians have an excuse to shy away from.

Plus some of them aren't and still popular so...

Some types of cars are already being banned in Paris, and I believe other major European cities are already moving in that direction.

There's grumbling, but pretty much everyone is accepting such measures. Not even the yellow vests opposed it. There's general acceptance that if one's car pollutes too much it should be retired. And general acceptance also that in time all combustion engines will probably have to be retired.

Flying is a different issue. In Europe it's only a minority of people who fly on a regular basis anyway and we already have proof (again, in France) that lowering the price of train tickets leads to people deliberately choosing train over plane. Of course France has bullet trains so they're a good alternative to flying in the first place... But developing transportation systems that can eventually be made green *is* part of the solution.
The US was always behind on that front.

As for energy, that's the crux of the problem and the solution is massive investment on a scale that will dwarf even the New Deal itself. We also have a solution for that though: a "green" central bank, separate from the "standard" central banks. It's crazy, but it's actually easy for world leaders to agree on the creation of a new International Monetary Fund for the development of green energy on a massive scale. Macron himself supported the idea, and he's not that much of an environmentalist to begin with... Such a new central bank/IMF would inject billions if not trillions to develop the infrastructure and technology to meet the challenge in the next two decades.

It can be done. Such things have been done before. But it all starts with public awareness and public pressure on politicians.

The entire point of scolding politicians is to show everyone that they need to use their power to rein in corporations.

But the public needs to stop believing whatever lies said corporations are spewing, stop swallowing neo-liberal propaganda and understand that these corporations are actually the enemy of us all at this point.

I’m in agreement with you regarding energy, it is going to be a monumental task to meet the worlds demands with renewable energy, it required huge investment years ago and requires significantly more now.

On a personal level would I be in favour of some tax rises for example to sustain this, yes most definitely, the banning some older cars from city centres-particularly diesels, I’m also in favour of and I think many are, it will affect lower income households more though, but I think a key thing, particularly in the UK is huge investment in better public transport as it can be quite patchy outside major cities.

2 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Oh fuck off, we're not idiots and can read between the lines of what you're saying. If all you meant was it wasn't a good look you definitely wouldn't have approached the subject by attacking a 16 year old.

And as for a pipe dream, this is shit that wouldn't even require the kind of mobilization we went through in WW2. And nobody then went "it's a pipe dream." Nobody in Canada said "it's a pipe dream" to turn a Navy of a little over 3000 personnel and 13 vessels into something that could meaningfully contribute to the war. No, they got to fucking work and ended the war with a Navy of 95000 personnel and over a thousand vessels.

That's the real key, just get to fucking work, even if it turns out we don't reach the goal, we're still gonna be a lot better of than we would otherwise be. Nobody make real progress by only chasing the easily achieved goals.

As for being the poster child? I happen to think on of the people who will be most impacted by climate change is an excellent poster child.

Saying she had a tantrum and that it put me off listening to her is hardly attacking her, I’m not against her message or her views I just think she’s entirely the wrong person to be addressing the UN on the topic, you honestly can’t see someone else’s viewpoint that her speech could be construed as a tantrum?, one thing in her defence, at least she had said outburst without being rude and swearing at someone who didn’t agree with her, which unfortunately is more than can be said for you.

Are you honestly comparing bolstering military numbers in WW2 to finding a way to support world industry,energy production and transport without emitting carbon in just over 5 years?, it’s an insurmountable task.

[Conflicting Thought]

22 minutes ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

I’m in agreement with you regarding energy, it is going to be a monumental task to meet the worlds demands with renewable energy, it required huge investment years ago and requires significantly more now.

On a personal level would I be in favour of some tax rises for example to sustain this, yes most definitely, the banning some older cars from city centres-particularly diesels, I’m also in favour of and I think many are, it will affect lower income households more though, but I think a key thing, particularly in the UK is huge investment in better public transport as it can be quite patchy outside major cities.

Saying she had a tantrum and that it put me off listening to her is hardly attacking her, I’m not against her message or her views I just think she’s entirely the wrong person to be addressing the UN on the topic, you honestly can’t see someone else’s viewpoint that her speech could be construed as a tantrum?, one thing in her defence, at least she had said outburst without being rude and swearing at someone who didn’t agree with her, which unfortunately is more than can be said for you.

Are you honestly comparing bolstering military numbers in WW2 to finding a way to support world industry,energy production and transport without emitting carbon in just over 5 years?, it’s an insurmountable task.

Why do you even have to focus on her, why did she coused such a reaction from you?. She is fuckin worried and she is a child, she is doing so much more than you or me, an yet, you focus your, rage?, dissapointment? On her?. Why are you not speakin with the same fervor about bolsonaro?. 

The problem is not her, dont you agree with that?. 

[karaddin]

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It can be done. Such things have been done before. But it all starts with public awareness and public pressure on politicians.

I love when the people that think we shouldn't do anything cite specifically the examples where we put in great effort to stop something bad from happening as examples of it being unnecessary because... Nothing bad happened.

Like yeah that's the fucking point of taking action to prevent something, its much better than dealing with the problem you didn't stop. The example I've seen quite a few times is CFCs/the hole in the ozone layer which 1) saw a massive global effort and 2) clearly was not a hoax, we didn't fully prevent it but motherfucker you do not want to live under a sky where we kept that up. It got bad enough as it was.

[TrueMetis]

2 hours ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

Saying she had a tantrum and that it put me off listening to her is hardly attacking her, I’m not against her message or her views I just think she’s entirely the wrong person to be addressing the UN on the topic, you honestly can’t see someone else’s viewpoint that her speech could be construed as a tantrum?, one thing in her defence, at least she had said outburst without being rude and swearing at someone who didn’t agree with her, which unfortunately is more than can be said for you. 

Oh I see, you're one of those "please be civil, the specific words you use matter more than the content of the message" tools.

Quote

Are you honestly comparing bolstering military numbers in WW2 to finding a way to support world industry,energy production and transport without emitting carbon in just over 5 years?, it’s an insurmountable task.

Spoken like someone who knows neither history, nor the sheer industrial capacity of the modern world. The world produced millions of vehicles, hundreds of thousand of planes, and 1000's of ships over the course of the war. They went from basically zero to full production in essentially the blink of an eye. We are not starting from zero, and our industrial capacity is orders of magnitude greater than during ww2. So what do you think would happen if we put a fraction of that kind of effort into say, building wind turbines?

[ThinkerX]

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

As for energy, that's the crux of the problem and the solution is massive investment on a scale that will dwarf even the New Deal itself. We also have a solution for that though: a "green" central bank, separate from the "standard" central banks. It's crazy, but it's actually easy for world leaders to agree on the creation of a new International Monetary Fund for the development of green energy on a massive scale. Macron himself supported the idea, and he's not that much of an environmentalist to begin with... Such a new central bank/IMF would inject billions if not trillions to develop the infrastructure and technology to meet the challenge in the next two decades.

as I pointed out a time or two in the other thread: the fossil fuel *supply* situation hits critical at about the same time as Climate Change really takes off.  At that point, it's either change over to alternative energy or civilization crashes or seriously contracts, 

 

My state's wealth (Alaska) comes mostly from oil.  Over the past few years, the oil majors have been pulling out, selling their holdings to what amounts to scavengers (who frequently end up in a legal or supply bind).  Alaska is far from alone in this.   

[sologdin]

 civilization crashes or seriously contracts, 

the setting of bacigalupi's windup girl or the hunger games, climate change plus peak oil.  though there's always the drowned world or high rise or some other JG ballard apocalypse.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

The problem is not her, dont you agree with that?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/27/the-greta-thunberg-problem-so-many-men-freaking-out-about-the-tiny-swedish-climate-demon

 

[ThinkerX]

45 minutes ago, sologdin said:

 civilization crashes or seriously contracts, 

the setting of bacigalupi's windup girl or the hunger games, climate change plus peak oil.  though there's always the drowned world or high rise or some other JG ballard apocalypse.

and you get to be the author of the impenetrable history text chronicling the collapse of present day civilization unearthed by aforementioned teenage apocalyptic  heroes