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Frogs, meet boil.
this-is-fine.jpg
Jokes aside… I’m starting to get a bit desperate and despair with this shit. The world is literally on fire (with all the forest fires etc), oceans are boiling, ice caps and glaciers are melting and causing deadly waves and mudslides and everyone is just going about their business, shrugging things off and buying another iphone.
I’ve sold my car, I use bicycle or public trans, I spend quite a lot of time figuring out which products to buy to be sustainable, my electricity contract has 100% renewables, mostly hydro, I havent bought new clothes in like a decade (and I don’t want to), etc etc… But when I talk to anyone I know about this shit, they just go “oh yeah its horrible, someone should do something about this. Anyway, I just booked a holiday, its 8000km away and we’ll be using a cool jumbo jet to get there!”
Raaaahhh.
Sorry, rant over.
Are you vegetarian/vegan?
If you aren’t the US or china you can’t do anything that will actually move the needle. Here in nz we’re trying to reduce emissions as if our 0.00001% global reduction is going to make up for the fact that the increased cost caused manufacturing to go to china and get produced and shipped back at 100x the emissions.
There needs to be a global catastrophe to sharply halt emissions. Even china reducing by 10% wouldnt be enough since the damage compounds year on year.
That being said I do try to keep my emissions down and buy low emission goods in hopes enough other humans think the same.
Yeah I just try to keep the local area clean, traffic free and stuff like that. My motivations are not saving the world, its to make my city a bit better.
The jets are bad but miniscule compared to cruise ships that wander in a week long circle and go nowhere.
Jets could also be done in a renewable way (like using hydrogen), whereas some things, like driving a gas car, will always be a net negative.
This is not a problem individuals can solve at home
excuse me but, while the US torpedoed an Iranian oil tanker in the strait of Hormuz I was able to recycle 17 aluminum cans.
Yeah thats sort of what I was complaining about. We, as a group, don’t care enough to take collective action. I’m doing my thing, I’m not doing it because I think I’m going to save the world, I’m doing it because I think its the right thing. I’m not under the illusion that me or my friends can change the world. The point I was making (very badly), was that they are not interested in doing even the minimum, so theres absolutely no hope for getting any bigger changes done.
I’m kinda similar. I think it helps because you need to show people what a greener world would actually look like. The train is less intimidating if a coworker can answer all your questions.
We can get rid of all the data centers and everyday life would be pretty much the same. With cars it’s another story, and the average person has less imagination than you’re imagining.
Heating, cooling, and manufacturing represent a much bigger piece of the pie. I bike instead of drive when I can, but figuring out how to boost efficiency with heating and cooling will be a much bigger change if you are a home owner. Solar, geothermal, heat exchanger, improved insulation, etc. Its also something any homeowner can do with out relying on society to improve its own infrastructure.
I improve manufacturing efficiency for a living, but sometimes worry that we’re running into the Jevons paradox. The average person seems to unconsciously but correctly assume that the manufacturing sector can just deal with any environmental regulations.
Jevons paradox
I knew the concept but didn’t realize that’s what it is called. Similar to induced demand. It does highlight the need for cultural change, and policy change. But efficiency isn’t the only route, creating manufacturing processes that are renewable, and use renewable energy, is another route.
Hmm, yes, good point, about showing and answering questions.
When I was 15 to 28ish, I was the guy who was into cars, went everywhere with a car, heck, I had like 7 cars at one point. Now that I’m not that guy anymore, I find myself answering questions about getting rid of all the cars and stopping driving. A few people have gone “huh, I guess its not that bad” when I tell them how easy it is to go from spot A to B with a bus. I guess its a sort of “lead by example” kind of thing.
Yeah might as well tell you the truth. A drop in the ocean isn’t going to do shit. A.I. is going to make all your choices worthless. Look at the gas turbines right now. Look at the projection preventing climate change is over the moment A.I. was invented. Now its just hope it doesn’t kill everyone.
It is very hard to live with.
Not all problems are solvable (this one is technically solvable but politically, it isn’t) and we need to accept whatever outcomes there are, despite our best efforts.
Yeah I think thats the most infuriating thing about all this, it could be solved but because cunts are in charge, it won’t be.
Yeah. And the reason they’re in charge is because we don’t have the requisite social consciousness / organisation / structure to put better people there. Changing culture and political systems takes a long time, which we don’t have.
I think humanity was really just not set out for the discovery of oil. Too much energy, too quickly, and at a macro level we just consumed as much as possible, spread as much as possible, and integrated it as a new dependency rather than a long term resource with consequences. We didn’t even realize there would be consequences until roughly the 1960s, and by then the nations funding the research were so dependent on it, they kind of ignored it or worse, lied and said it was wrong.
And for every problem we face, we use energy to solve it, and most our energy is the fossil fuel variety… So when we try to solve issues, we fuel cars and industrial equipment and use oil to go clean up oil spills.
It’s kind of a trap, and we weren’t in a good position to survive it.
Yeah…
Oh well, I’ve resorted to do things out of spite. I’ll keep living frugally, economically, ecologically because fuck everyone else.
Many people will just throw up their hands and walk away but for me the only way I can accept what will happen is if I did my best (minus my handicaps, like living under capitalism, personal issues, etc etc) to stop it.
