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Rime posted:The past few pages have been a fantastic revelation of who actually cares about the significant decline in Irving standards which is inherent in combating climate change, and who just wants to keep climbing the western consumer ladder at the expense of every living thing on earth. Here are the GHG emissions from the average Australian household.  As you can see, it's mostly heating, air conditioning, and water heating. It's not "climbing the consumerist ladder". I don't know why people insist on laboring under that delusion.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:37
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enraged_camel posted:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-cuba/2016/03/25/44f0b3e2-f21e-11e5-89c3-a647fcce95e0_story.html What report? The links in article are to a cuban blogger, and an al-jazeera editorial whose criticism is "it's pretty good, but there's corruption and sometimes medicine shortages".
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Aug 27, 2017 16:39
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Minge Binge posted:*ahem* Actually, I've been to Cuba. I was there for two weeks on a trip with my family. And we thought it would be cool to have a bbq on the beach so my brother went to the market to get some burgers but the market didn't have burgers so we couldn't have a bbq and had to have dinner in the resort. disgusting. no way can fight climate change like this. I'll wait till invent fusion thank you very much I dont want to be a complete git but....... this is the most '1st world' problem I've ever seen - boo hoo!! I cant have a bbq coz I cant get burgers.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:43
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Trainee PornStar posted:I dont want to be a complete git but....... this is the most '1st world' problem I've ever seen - boo hoo!! I cant have a bbq coz I cant get burgers. 
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Aug 27, 2017 16:45
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Trainee PornStar posted:I dont want to be a complete git but....... this is the most '1st world' problem I've ever seen - boo hoo!! I cant have a bbq coz I cant get burgers. 
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Aug 27, 2017 16:51
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Thug Lessons posted:Here are the GHG emissions from the average Australian household. And household consumption is what percentage of the first world's energy consumption, especially once you factor in industrial energy expenditure offloaded overseas? Hint: this is far from the first time quality of life has come up, and you'll be far from the first to make the mistake of moving from small picture to small picture.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:04
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Thug Lessons posted:This a huge derail so this will be my last post on the subject but no, I don't believe that's true at all. OK, my last post too: An authoritarian government's unverifiable statistics are literally no different than an anecdote.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:22
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enraged_camel posted:OK, my last post too: An authoritarian government's unverifiable statistics are literally no different than an anecdote. You're once again completely underestimating the UN here. There are many reasons to doubt and scrutinize country data (and this goes for both first and third world) but in doing so you have to you know, have actual criticisms to point to. 'lol not even a democracy' isn't one.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:25
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MiddleOne posted:You're once again completely underestimating the UN here. There are many reasons to doubt and scrutinize country data (and this goes for both first and third world) but in doing so you have to you know, have actual criticisms to point to. 'lol not even a democracy' isn't one. Again, would you believe any of China's claims if they released stats showing a stellar human rights record? I've worked with the UN, and so have my parents (both doctors). The UN does good work, but it isn't magic. At the end of the day they rely on similar/same primary sources when they release their reports. It's not like they infiltrate the Cuban healthcare system and secretly collect their own data over many decades. Anyway, I apologize for the huge derail. We should probably discuss Harvey.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:33
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enraged_camel posted:Again, would you believe any of China's claims if they released stats showing a stellar human rights record? I wouldn't have to because I could cross-check their claims with the OHCHR, Amnesty or the dozens of other NGO's and international institutions who are also paying attention. Again, if you're going to distrust data from open countries, authoritarian or liberal democratic, you have to have real reasons for doing so besides 'I have a hunch'.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:47
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Rime posted:The past few pages have been a fantastic revelation of who actually cares about the significant decline in Irving standards which is inherent in combating climate change, and who just wants to keep climbing the western consumer ladder at the expense of every living thing on earth. Seriously, holy poo poo. The planet is choking to death on the emissions and environmental impact of just a couple billion people living it up as first worlders, but oh sure there's totally a way to maintain 10 or so billion people at that standard forever and be fine 
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Aug 27, 2017 18:01
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Does first world living cause climate change? Yes, but how will the economy grow if we reduce the population of first worlders?
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Aug 27, 2017 18:52
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Maybe, just maybe, there's a fundamental contradiction between basing society around GDP-growth and trying to fight a crisis that is brought on by consumption.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:56
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Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature imho.
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Aug 27, 2017 19:44
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9 figures is my guess too, but we don't even have to agree on that, just that a global replacement rate of 1.99 is the right next-step (because that alone requires breaking the ideological chains of cancer-capitalism)
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Aug 27, 2017 19:49
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Crazycryodude posted:Seriously, holy poo poo. The planet is choking to death on the emissions and environmental impact of just a couple billion people living it up as first worlders, but oh sure there's totally a way to maintain 10 or so billion people at that standard forever and be fine In terms of decreasing consumption or sticking it to "international capitalism" some people growing vegetables is like farting in the wind.
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Aug 27, 2017 19:49
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Bates posted:In terms of decreasing consumption or sticking it to "international capitalism" some people growing vegetables is like farting in the wind. Cow farts are a significant contributor to carbon emissions.
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Aug 27, 2017 19:50
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SavageGentleman posted:What's meltdowny about that? Come on, engange its arguments and stop your useless platitudes and polemics. The problem with you and Digiwizzard etc. is that you see climate change and environmental sustainability primarily as a social problem and put "step 1: down with capitalism" in your proposed solution like it's the key issue. It is instead a technical problem - given the same number of people on the planet with a given level of technology, you will have broadly similar levels of environmental damage regardless of how bad everyone feels about it and the question of whether people are capitalist consumers or hippies living in ecocommunes or whatever will only remove or add a small level of environmental damage and shift it around a bit. Turning everyone into subsistence farmers and permaculturists who swear off global capitalism won't solve this problem either - sure, there'll be a bit less consumption of "useless" widgets, but even low-intensity use of land for farming is environmental hell to most species (you don't grok this because you have most likely never spent time in a fully functioning ecosystem, much less in a pristine one) and human subsistence farmers have a long and proud history of running environments into the ground for several thousand of years before capitalism and industrialisation even existed (guess how an area mostly consisting of empty desert got the name "fertile crescent"). This would be a solution if we were like below a billion people, but at that point we wouldn't have as much of a problem in the first place. We need to decouple human activity from environmental impacts completely by concentrating pollution to easily-managed point sources and substituting however much energy it takes to get land use under control. That's what makes nuclear power and GMOs and all sorts of other technologies that allow us to increase intensity without increasing environmental damage so awesome. Of course, it would be better if these things were socialised and we strictly used them to reduce land use while maintaining or improving standards of living for the broader population, but even in a lightly regulated capitalist system like we have now they're an improvement. Alternatively, we could just kill all humans, but somehow I think that's the less realistic option. Also it's very much possible to contribute to wider application of GMOs and nuclear energy. There's a range of charitable foundations that are friendly to both (I suggest the Weinberg foundation because  modern Thorium reactors would be nice). You can also write to your Congresscritter/MP/other representative to let them know you don't like anti-nuclear anti-GMO retard policy. You could even get politically involved, like in every other large-scale societal shift  .It's also completely wrong that GMOs require monopolistic corporations. The reason that GMOs are now mainly made by monopolistic corporations is that idiots shouted at the top at their lungs about how GMOs are evil and contributed to a regulatory environment that's unfit for purpose and can only be successfully navigated by multibillion dollar corporations (I suspect that monopolistic corporations like it when they're the only people able to do a thing btw  ), and seeing that mess, idiots then want to make things worse and throw out the baby with the bathwater by banning GMO crops. The technology is piss-easy and a modest-sized family-run business with a couple dozen employees should be able to make GMOs, and they should have reasonable success in picking what to GM when working together with minor industries like crop breeding or with public sector researchers (currently-existing crop breeding companies operate on a shoestring budget compared to the seed producer companies).In nuclear power, it's also quite possible we're going to see a shift towards smaller more affordable reactors that can in principle be purchased by any mid-size utility operator precisely because  has made large public infrastructure projects hard and expensive to build.
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Aug 27, 2017 20:12
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Conspiratiorist posted:Cow farts are a significant contributor to carbon emissions. 
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Aug 27, 2017 20:40
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This but unironically (or we could just not produce more calves than we need). Beef is the worst food in terms of climate and other environmental impact, even pork is much less bad for the planet.
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Aug 27, 2017 20:43
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syscall girl posted:Have you seen the state of their car culture though? Strong, if Furious 8 is an indicator Varam posted:Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature imho.  On cuba: maybe if the imperialists didnt gently caress over cuba constantly with economic warfare, they might be able to trade fairly for some things they lack
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Aug 27, 2017 20:46
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blowfish posted:The problem with you and Digiwizzard etc. is that you see climate change and environmental sustainability primarily as a social problem and put "step 1: down with capitalism" in your proposed solution like it's the key issue. It is instead a technical problem - given the same number of people on the planet with a given level of technology, you will have broadly similar levels of environmental damage regardless of how bad everyone feels about it and the question of whether people are capitalist consumers or hippies living in ecocommunes or whatever will only remove or add a small level of environmental damage and shift it around a bit. I really haven't wanted to wade into this argument, but this is strictly wrong. Climate change is a political and economic problem first. The scientific and engineering parts of the problem have long since been solved. We know how we can reduce emissions, make more sustainable communities, or approach the problem from almost any other direction that you'd like. This doesn't necessarily mean "down with capitalism," but it does mean that there's no benefit to viewing climate change as a technical hurdle to overcome. For example: quote:We need to decouple human activity from environmental impacts completely by concentrating pollution to easily-managed point sources and substituting however much energy it takes to get land use under control. That's what makes nuclear power and GMOs and all sorts of other technologies that allow us to increase intensity without increasing environmental damage so awesome. Making these things happen is not a technical problem at all. We know how to build nuclear power plants. We can build as many of them as you want, but we aren't doing it at the scale that we need to because the political and economic will isn't there. Every single failure to address climate change comes back to political and economic pressure simply being too great in the wrong direction.
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Aug 27, 2017 21:16
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Paradoxish posted:I really haven't wanted to wade into this argument, but this is strictly wrong. Climate change is a political and economic problem first. The scientific and engineering parts of the problem have long since been solved. We know how we can reduce emissions, make more sustainable communities, or approach the problem from almost any other direction that you'd like. This doesn't necessarily mean "down with capitalism," but it does mean that there's no benefit to viewing climate change as a technical hurdle to overcome. But all the things you mention are technical solutions, even if prototypes or small production runs already exist. We need to get "climate change is a real problem, which should be a high priority, and you should build more nuclear powerplants and roll out more renewables and stop land clearing to fix it" into policymaker heads (i.e. make them approach as a problem that can be tackled with engineering solutions), and human society can remodel itself however it wants under the constraint of "don't totally destroy the planet". We don't need to reach some ideal level of enlightenment or achieve full communism before it becomes possible to do something about climate change like for some purely social issues. e: like if you implemented EO Wilson's "Half Earth" proposal and added a couple thousand reactors, enough environment would be fine regardless of whether people would be living in equal societies with human rights and basic income or in an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia under corporate overlords suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 21:23
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blowfish posted:But all the things you mention are technical solutions, even if prototypes or small production runs already exist. We need to get "climate change is a real problem, which should be a high priority, and you should build more nuclear powerplants and roll out more renewables and stop land clearing to fix it" into policymaker heads (i.e. make them approach as a problem that can be tackled with engineering solutions), and human society can remodel itself however it wants under the constraint of "don't totally destroy the planet". We don't need to reach some ideal level of enlightenment or achieve full communism before it becomes possible to do something about climate change like for some purely social issues. You're completely missing the point here. Nuclear power plants aren't "prototypes or small production" runs. There are entire countries powered by nuclear plants. This is an approach that we could implement tomorrow, so why aren't we? The issue isn't that we have to reach an ideal level of enlightenment, it's that our political and economic systems are literally working against even the simplest solutions. No politician is going to say "yes, I'm going to destroy the fossil fuel industry and also use government funds for a massive decarbonization program." This is maybe just a problem of terminology here, but it's an important one: a massive program to build nuclear reactors would not be an engineering solution, it would be a political one. Politics and economics are the only things stopping it from happening.
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Aug 27, 2017 21:35
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At the crux of the discussion of climate change really is trade, and how to support rapid industrialization and the cheap prices it supports in the first world without carbon emissions. Even if you support sustainable practices at home, it really doesn't matter if you essentially offshore those omissions. Cuba was always between a rock and a hard place, it's only real choice was tourism/sugar/tobacco between the embargo and the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were forced to adopt a much simpler and austere form of living because of it but it always shows that life still goes on. They didn't necessarily intend to live that way, but forced into a corner they made the best they could do out of the circumstance.
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Aug 27, 2017 21:40
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While you guys were having another slapfight: https://mobile.twitter.com/TTrogdon/status/901824532440342534 
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Aug 27, 2017 22:06
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Arglebargle III posted:While you guys were having another slapfight: Can those of us who are filthy Europeans get some context?
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Aug 27, 2017 22:40
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Lots and lots of Texans are seriously hosed. And there's still another like 4 feet of rain coming at them.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:46
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The US is having its third 100 year storm in a ten year period. People are going to start noticing.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:47
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Arglebargle III posted:The US is having its third 100 year storm in a ten year period. People are going to start noticing. This is a 500 year storm.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:50
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Local news just picked it up over here. That's certainly something you have going on there Texas. 
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Aug 27, 2017 22:54
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Arglebargle III posted:The US is having its third 100 year storm in a ten year period. People are going to start noticing. Noticing isn't the problem, people have been noticing for years. The question is, what can actually be done to prepare for events like this in the future, and do any of them have a chance under total GOP rule for however many more years?
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Aug 27, 2017 22:56
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The GOP is in a shaky spot; they are only ruling through undemocratic slants like gerrymandering and the electoral college. In the state legislatures where they've put themselves in power through gerrymandering they're having to pass more and more laws restricting local governments from enacting progressive policies. This probably seems like a masterstroke to them now but it shows all their power is built on a hill of sand. They squeezed out a really unlikely victory in 2016 and are doubling down on all the policies that lost them the vote by 2 points. They can't hold onto power with 30% of the public supporting them forever. We're already seeing the GOP come apart at the seams, with people like the Speaker of the House looking impotent to do anything because the base hates him, the opposition hates him, and independents hate Congress. If the GOP manages to hold on to power in this way through 2030 they will have gone a long way to destroying our political system though.
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Aug 27, 2017 23:05
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If you're not from the US and are just hearing about the flooding in Houston:
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Aug 27, 2017 23:12
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The ocean decided it wanted its city back.
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Aug 27, 2017 23:23
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Call me pessimistic but I expect most of the potential wake-up call here is going to be squandered by rolling it in the issue of Trump and his response to the crisis
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Aug 27, 2017 23:37
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Arglebargle III posted:If you're not from the US and are just hearing about the flooding in Houston: How high up is that? Also what is the topography of Houston like? Is there a lot of variability in height above sea level within the city?
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Aug 27, 2017 23:37
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A different pic for reference: And a bonus: 
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Aug 28, 2017 00:03
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blowfish posted:But all the things you mention are technical solutions, even if prototypes or small production runs already exist. We need to get "climate change is a real problem, which should be a high priority, and you should build more nuclear powerplants and roll out more renewables and stop land clearing to fix it" into policymaker heads (i.e. make them approach as a problem that can be tackled with engineering solutions), and human society can remodel itself however it wants under the constraint of "don't totally destroy the planet". We don't need to reach some ideal level of enlightenment or achieve full communism before it becomes possible to do something about climate change like for some purely social issues. You're casting this as a stupid false dichotomy between small scale hippies and large scale technological solutions and acting like we're opposed to large scale solutions out of principle. It's not that I'm opposed to them, it's that they're a fantasy . There's nothing I would love more than for governments to pull their heads out of their asses and institute a giant mobilization of the economy towards renewables and nuclear energy. Look around you, right now it's very late in the piece and it still isn't happening. At some point you have to consider the possibility that it's not going to happen. You can write as many letters as you like to Congress, participate in an activist group if it'll make you feel better. They're still not going to lift a finger until it's too late. Even worse is that when you look at the state of the nuclear industry realistically, you understand that there are very serious and grave problems standing in the way of a massive nuclear rollout. Westinghouse went bankrupt and NPPs are shutting down left and right. A thorium rollout, even if it's better then we ever imagined, would still take at least 30 years to be implemented at scale, and that's time we don't have. Even France, the number 1 nuclear power on the planet with boatloads of expertise and economies of scale, are refusing to build new nuclear reactors on the basis of it being too expensive. That's not good. Permaculture isn't meant to be a large scale solution because there aren't truly any realistic "solutions" to overshoot. It's just a mitigation strategy that's supposed to create a baseline for when larger systems fail. The key difference is that it's something that's small and simple enough that anyone can do it, even poors like you and me. We can keep praying that governments and corporations of the world will act, but you know, it could be useful to develop a plan b. Digiwizzard fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 01:24
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The problem is that your plan B will never amount to one millionth of one percent as much as dragging the CEO of Exxon into the street and shooting them would. Small-scale actions can't do poo poo on their own. A community garden, recycling your plastics, walking to work, all that poo poo is great when you put it on top of governments taking major action. Without it you're just making your own life harder for no gain. Unless your Plan B is to go find and murder all the energy CEO's you can, in which case go right ahead.
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Aug 28, 2017 01:38
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