Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
We live in a world where money is Supreme. And we live such that if we tried to go strike or protest in some form, we would be out of a job and living on the streets pretty quick. It's all by design.
Or you can be shot in the face by a cop with a teargas canister.
But, dont forget, we live in the most prosperous times... I guess.
Guy in my city is now a single eyed man after peacefully protesting at a BLM gathering and being shot in the face with a tear gas canister. What a world.
Yes. My guess is that, soon enough, just wearing a police uniform will be enough to end up on kill lists.
Kind of like Colombia during narco wars, except it's going to be everywhere, no matter what kind of cop.
Cops will need to watch their backs even more when people have less and less to lose, and believe less and less in the 'rule of law' that constantly fucks them over.
Because denial isn't over because corporations who make their money off things that make climate change worse spend tons of money to manufacture disinformation and continue to mislead people just like they've been doing for over 50 years.
Yeah. I'm in Appalachia where most everyone I went to school with believes whatever latest variation of climate-denial messaging their ridiculous right-wing media ecosystem spits out this week. Obviously a lot of money still funneled into promotion of these ideas. Watched a bunch die unnecessarily of COVID when that same messaging was telling them vaccines were more dangerous than the virus.
Just offset it, bro. Just one more capitalism, bro.
Because corporations have managed to convince people that it’s an individuals responsibility to recycle to save the planet. Big corporations get fined pennies for destroying it.
Because..... Corporate profit...
Hey, I wrote my representatives. I vote. I do what I can to limit my fossil fuel usage.
What do you mean it wasn't enough? Must be some one else not doing their part.
You know, every time I see the phrase "No drop of rain feels responsible for the flood" I get upset. You know why? It's not the raindrops that cause the flood. It's the clouds. The environment that fosters the rain.
Like, does anyone actually want to get up at 6 AM every morning and run out the door to drive an hour one-way in a machine that kills children quickly and the environment slowly, just to give up half of their waking life to a soulless entity that turns spirit and creativity into stolen labor value and burnout, all for the pleasure of continuing to do that every day for the next several decades until the stress inevitably kills you? I don't know one fucking person who wants to be doing this shit, but as the rain is forced out of the cloud by the dropping pressure, so are we coerced into this life by the threat of starvation and exposure to the elements. Would that I could break the chain, but I am as helpless against it as the raindrop is against the pull of gravity. It's so easy to toss pithy quotes at people while sipping from a bamboo straw, but it doesn't stop Starbucks from selling a billion lattes a minute to people who are too tired and rushed to give two shits about the planet we're killing in order to create that convenience we rely on so we can be forced to dedicate every last spare second of our time to the altar of capitalism. How the fuck do you fight that in any meaningful way?
Capitalism is the real problem, climate change is a symptom. We are living in an anti 99% world. Eat the fattened piggies.
I honestly feel helpless.
I like to come back to this video of Anark - Hope.
It is not coincidence that doing whatever one can do makes one feel powerless. While I do understand little efforts are like a drop in the sea, that just means we should begin to organize with others to work on creating our own cloud. It is worthy.
To stop change, the first step the adversary will take is to discourage you to do it. Is like trash-talk in boxing. Just keep on fighting.
The issue is the extreme power imbalance. My 'cloud' will be a small space, surrounded by capitalism on all fronts. Like an oil field that's not drilled, but all fields around it are drilled. It's emptied anyway.
You cannot be 'apart' from capitalism as even if you are, or try to be, outside - your position is still going to be defined as an outsider to capitalism and all the hardships that entails.
And if you get a 'cloud' big or powerful enough - let's look at history, what would happen?
Genocide. That's what happens. Every time.
I believe in personal relationships. Trying to be in good relationships makes this mess endurable and, I believe, safest.
Yeah. But I mean, I don't really care about more oppression. It has always been there. And if something is for certain I see it as having two options:
To say the truth, I'm motivated both by my desire to live a happy and fulfilling life and see my nieces grow. And everytime I think if this is worth it, even if it is really small, I think it is. Because I see it as not abandoning myself, nor abandoning my loved ones.
Change is possible, and if history taught us something: you can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution.
There are still many popular movements currently working in that future you and I are looking forward. So alone, you are not. Just be open to the possibility to give a good fight. For yourself and those you hold dear. And I remember the first thing I was taught in direct action: once you learn you can do something, it becomes hella easy doing it more times.
I send you my best wishes friend, I want you to know I feel ya.
gestures generally at all the money making opportunities
What a weird title for an article
People still act like it's not because they're in denial
The title already contains the answer indeed.
Still waiting for the moment the world wakes up like the dustbowl in the 30s or the pollution in the 70s. We're past the point where it can be denied, aren't we? I want everyone to come together and fix it. We've done it before.
mass death from heat events are going to be the wakeup call most of the public will perceive. Perhaps this summer.
Last week, Rio hit 137f w/ the heat index (humidity + temp).
Today it's 107f (temp not heat index) in Mozambique. And it's still 'spring' in the southern hemisphere; summer is going to be unsafe.
I really hate that "we" in the title and article. Solidarity! "We're all in this together!" Except we're not.
Study after study had proven that giant corporations and the richest-of-the-rich 1% account for the vast *majority of global emissions and negative environmental impact. Yet they're not changing, certainly not enough. So I will use paper straws, be conscious of waste, reduce/reuse/recycle etc, but comparatively it will mean almost nothing...
I agree with the principle of what you're saying, but you do have to consider what it is that makes them produce all the emissions and detriments to our environment. The products we're buying. They aren't just generating waste for the pride of it, it's shipping and creating the products we're buying every day. Your straws might not directly be causing a major problem, but the creation and shipment of millions of straws does.
Or instead of waiting for a bunch of singular entities to correctly want the correct straws we could just stop the straws, but somehow the simpler solution is infinitely harder than the former.
I believe it is essential to distinguish between "When are we gonna learn?" when talking about these points. It is not that "we didn't learn"; we who understand or are very attentive to the ecological issues are a group of people doing something. Hence, the greens, in general, need to understand politics.
The job of ecologism is only effective if you address root causes (there is a joke about trees over here). Exploiting non-renewable resources is not a choice made by individuals but rather a result of the societal structures that dictate our actions. Currently, those structures are hierarchical.
So I'd like to use this occasion to invite my fellow ecologists and solarpunks to be interested in that spiky thing called "Politics." We must address issues to push our creative minds to build the future.
Degrowth is coming, whether we want it or not.
Because anything that happens outside the current election cycle is the next guy's problem.
The majority of people do understand. Of thouse that don’t, at least in the English speaking world much of it comes down to Rupert Murdoch. He went from running a small newspaper to the 71 richest person in the entire world by taking money from fossil interests to delay and normalize denying climate change. When the people who own most of the conversation are very well paid to make sure that any threatening proposals are treated as fringe ideas, well things mpve slowly.
As the effects have gotten and harder to deny, the more he's tried to slowly drag as much of the electorate as he can into a shared delusion so that any news source outside the bobble is so far from what they think is reality that when they actualy encounter realiry its easier for them to think it a vast consperacy than what it actually is.
Comfort in old traditional gas powered pollution.
I don't think I've ever met a single person IRL who acts like it's not. It's part of everyday conversation, it's on YouTube constantly, it's been legislated on in one of the largest bills in American history, automobilr companies are going all electric by 2040. American dairy is carbon neutral by 2050. The first active carbon sequestering plant went online.
Just because you feel like being a doomer and not helping through apathy based propaganda doesn't mean other people all over aren't doing their part.
And thats where we can observe that pushing the responsibility towards the smallest customer was just greenwashing and was for nothing.
I dont have the source at hand.
But we have like 20-30 corperations which take most of the emissions (and other environmental damages as well).
But since we dont have a global allieance on the political side, we dont have a chance against global coroerations.
Sadly its an uphill battle. Or chicken egg problem, or whatever.
lay down
try not to cry
cry alot
Those things you mentioned are either way too late and worthless or even harmful to the environment.
We cant have this many cars and be environmentally friendly, even if they are all electric. The change we need is not the change they are selling us.
American dairy is a tiny drop in the ocean of emitted carbon and they'll stop… in 25 years
Carbon capture is bullshit technology like solar roadways and there is no way in hell it will catch up to what we emit daily in the next century. Go to a coal powered plant and look at the mountain of coal that lasts them maybe a month. Now imagine sucking all this coal back out of the air in the same amount of time… congrats, you’ve just offset one rural power plant.
There is already no way for us to save the climate we know and keep something that even remotely resembles our current way of life. We are long way away from the point where we should’ve started braking and we keep pretending that opening the windows will slow us down enough to not hit the wall.
Because conservatives are much much louder and they don't feel the need to have facts back up anything they say.
The tragedy of the commons. When a resource that's owned by everyone and no-one is disappearing due to overuse, refraining from using it just leaves more to those who don't refrain. The incentive is to intensify its use to get the most out of it while there's still anything left to get. In other words there's no hope, so we might as well enjoy what time we have left.
In other words there’s no hope
Privatize everything.
Greed.
Until we start executing & incarcerating politicians & CEOs for ecocide, this will not stop.
I read incarcerating as incinerating. Wishful thinking I suppose