It’s April and I am sweating like crazy, it fucking sucks, but it also got me wondering what can I do? There is so much conflicting advice out there, even if I tell others about this, when they ask for a solution what do I tell?
So if all world leaders collectively agreed to put aside their differences, ditch capitalism and mobilise their entire populations to actively work to reduce emissions tomorrow we might stand a slim chance of preventing the worst case scenario…
So existential dread and weed it is.
Is that from that Paul movie?
yep.
As an individual the single most important thing you can do is vote for leaders who will make the necessary policy changes to make a difference, assuming you live in a country where this is possible. You can try to lower your own carbon footprint, and that is laudable, but the only way to change this is with strict regulation of fossil fuels and investment in renewable energy and that requires collective action.
Speaking of policy changes, IMO the best thing you can do as an individual is lobby your local government for zoning reform to increase density and walkablity. Because it’s local your influence can actually be significant, and zoning is by far the most transformative improvement we could make, dwarfing the impact of switching to EVs and whatnot.
LOL so you really think?
You really, really believe that we are going to listen when somebody claims to know “the only way”??
assassinate the top 1%.
If each of us able bodied where to go and collect scalps of the top 1% we’d have a fighting chance.
We wont.
That is reality, it doesn’t matter if the entire world turn off fossil fuel usage permanently this instant, there is allready far too much greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to reverse course, we might get to delay the inevitable a decade or so, but shit is comming.
It’s weird how ‘not giving up’ got us penicillin and earthquake warnings, so I’d hope we do a little more than “we won’t. Oh well.”
We are making progress down paths that could shorten the correction after all the CO² and methane is removed from the atmosphere, and it seems important to explore the potential – as many as we can, actually, as science often fails.
comming
I may need a translation. Related to comms, like in communications?
comming
It’s a typo of coming. As in the word “come” or “to arrive”.
I guess we could build a gigantic airconditioner and solve the problem that way…
CO²
I may need a translation. CO² like in E = mc²? What is the square of oxygen?
It boils down to cash.
Companies can make money off penicillin. Governments can readily allocate funds to visible, common disasters.
Disasters that have been a century in the making and require whole nations to change the way they do things for an observable result decades down the line is almost impossible to get money for. Our shortsightedness is our downfall
Do what you can to stop feeding the petroleum products industry. They use the money you give them to literally fuel this crisis.
- Choose an EV or hybrid for your next car
- Stop buying plastic storage containers and avoid plastics wherever you can
If you own your home, check into federal, state, and local rebates for these things:
- Replace your HVAC when it’s time with a heat pump
- Replace your water heater when it’s time with an electric or heat pump model
- If you live in a cold climate, look into electric-based heated flooring
- Look into solar panels for your roof
Adding to these good suggestions: shop at thrift stores.
And if you have time: volunteer at a thrift store.
The most effective thing you can do is try and influence local, state, and federal policies that will reduce emissions.
I’ve made several changes in my life, but I know in the grand scheme of things it won’t have any effect.
Focus on income inequality and the rest will also get addressed. Cutting out meat is good, but that doesn’t matter when Elon musk decides to jet from SFO to San Jose because he doesn’t like traffic.
He should have his own car on the CalTrain. Would be much cooler and less polluting.
Nothing. There is literally nothing you can do.
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/
"China is the world’s largest annual greenhouse gas emitter.
In 2020, it emitted 12.3bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e), amounting to 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the CAIT database maintained by the World Resources Institute (WRI). This includes emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).
. . .
It is a “non-Annex I” party to the convention, meaning it is not obligated to contribute climate finance and was not required to make binding emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol."
Nothing changes until China changes.
Way to put the blame on China when all of the Occident delocalized production over there. Every rich country needs to change, and they also need to help emerging countries to develop sustainably too. We spent centuries destroying the environment for growth and now we’re on top, we can’t tell these countries not to do everything we did because it’s not sustainable.
Agreed on the “not much you can do on an individual level” though. We need to change the way we consume and live but it’s peanuts compared to what needs to change for mega corpos and countries.
Yeah, I’d like to see emissions attributed to the places where products end up, not where they’re produced.
You can find data on recycling where “being shipped to another country to be recycled” counts as being recycled I believe. Also you can find estimates of historical emissions by country since the industrial revolution. China is the current leader of emissions but I believe the US is top of all time, closely followed by Europe. I’ll try to find some data when I have a moment.
Edit: Historical emissions
TIL the antonym to orient
How about we do that per capita, Cowboy ?
Given that China has ~18% of the world’s population, it’s not super shocking that they produce 27% of emissions (especially given how much manufacturing has been outsourced there).
By comparison, the US has less than 5% of the world population and produces ~11% of emissions, with only Saudi Arabia being higher in per person emissions.
And here come the finger pointing Ameritards trying to deflect their own responsibilities after polluting the planet for the last century and still refusing to drop red meat & cars and moving vast amounts of their production capabilities to China. If you advocate for China not to develop their rural shitheap regions, then you should also advocate for actual de-growth in the US, significantly lowering your own living standards.
Can we, like… Put a lid on China? Like a big dome or something?
US emissions per capita are double that of china . So where do you want your dome ?
We can have more than 1 dome.
Domes for everyone!
Miniature American flags for others.
Very pessimistic view here. I believe we have already passed the point of no return with human emissions. The worst of climate change will now happen faster and sooner than it naturally would. It’s just a matter of mitigating the disaster imo.
I know people here shit on individual action, but avoiding beef and driving are the two big ones
Not having kids is also huge
This is the biggest reduction to your possible carbon footprint. I’m glad I have been successful with this step.
And, please, raise a kid or three to pass that along. Just don’t produce them.
I shit in a bucket and recycle it into my own food, does that count as making a difference?
As individuals, nothing. And if you do whilst countries like China, the US and Russia continue to pollute on a massive scale, you’re being taken for a fool.
Get rid of capitalism. Which, we won’t.
My husband once said “we’re not killing the planet, we’re just rearranging it in a way that is not conducive to human life”. I think about that when I feel hopeless, we’re just a blip on a bigger radar, and we need to drop the main character syndrome that the world dies when we do.
Also though, scalp the 1%.
deleted by creator
Degrowth until we live within planetary bounds accomplished with cultural evolution and ending capitalism is the only thing that could actually work.
All other proposed solutions fail to address the fundamental unsustainability of our way of life and could only hope to slightly slow our demise.
Adapt to it as best we can. Minimize your use of fossil fuels, particularly Natural Gas(Methane). Get some books on farming to understand a worst case need to live off grid.
We’re past the point that we can go back. The glaciers on Antarctica and Greenland are in a self-sustaning melt cycle at this point.
Natural gas ads are popping up again, pretending to be the “clean” fossil fuel. It doesn’t surprise me that they try this shit, but it does infuriate me.
