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Pander posted:well okay I guess that settles that then More like do what you do until either there are enough people to force political action or governments decide it's time to change.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:31
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Shifty Nipples posted:More like do what you do until either there are enough people to force political action or governments decide it's time to change. Or instead of just doing nothing you could become one of those people pushing for change, or become a member of the government. State house races are basically always competitive because no one pays attention to them.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:39
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Pander posted:well okay I guess that settles that then I got pretty depressed about it too... once you realise this guys right, it gets a lot better. Shifty Nipples posted:More like do what you do until either there are enough people to force political action or governments decide it's time to change. Just do what you can, don't be an arsehole to others & enjoy your life.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:41
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Yeah it's not like there is a wrong answer to what you should do. It's all a matter of how you can fit it into your life as it exists right now. I mean, I've been aware of the grim predictions of climate change ever since I was a teenager and basically channeled my passions and energy into a career that is focused on reducing carbon emissions and building sustainable places to live. That effort, my career, all the differences I make, all of it doesn't change anything about what will happen. Nothing that I do on an individual level -- including suicide -- is going to save the reefs, prevent the heatwaves, or keep Bangladesh from going underwater. But I figure that it's probably better to try and work to affect change and enjoy the wonderful experience of living rather than kill myself or storm my local legislative body with a gun screaming incoherently about how we are doomed and ending up in prison for the rest of my life. I'm a human being like everyone else. We are all gonna die eventually. But it's up to you to give purpose and meaning to your life. There is no other way to function, otherwise you'll just go crazy. sitchensis fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 20:47
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Shifty Nipples posted:Hope is naive but you go ahead and do whatever it takes to be able to sleep at night. I honestly can't fathom how you can possibly be happy with this outlook. It is such a copout and lazy. If that is how you really feel then why are you even alive? I mean if nihilism is all you feel, what is keeping you here? I just don't understand people like you.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:56
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People have a hard time accepting that climate policy is decided undemocratically by a small group of elected officials, NGOs and businesspeople. Unless you're directly involved with those organizations you're essentially banking on a tectonic political shift if you want a significant influence.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:57
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friendbot2000 posted:I honestly can't fathom how you can possibly be happy with this outlook. It is such a copout and lazy. If that is how you really feel then why are you even alive? I mean if nihilism is all you feel, what is keeping you here? I just don't understand people like you. well i can't speak for him but i personally hate everyone and mark the days by voyeuristically binging on their misery
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Jul 24, 2018 21:00
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One could get ahead of things. It'll be worse if we simply wait to become whatever failure makes of us. I think it's too late for any significant mitigation/adaptation. The timescales involved don't work out. The developed world's boundaries will recede. Quality of life will decrease everywhere. Authoritarianism will increase everywhere. Culture will change. People will eat less meat, own less stuff, use less energy, etc. Politics will change. Scarcity brings out the worst in people and they love scapegoats. Economies will change. Everyone will be poorer. I think action along those lines is appropriate now. Individual action helps you figure things out and helps you sell others, get people organized. Prepare for tomorrow's fights and grease the skids of accepting what comes next. Figure out how people can be happy and healthy ahead of time. Accretionist fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 21:09
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We're honing in on an important distinction here, seems to me. On the one hand, the magnitude and the inevitability of climate change does make small personal changes to consuming habits seem laughably too-little-too-late. On the other hand grass-roots political action, responsible business practices and thoughtful outreach can be surprisingly effective. Both sides have good points to make (and so does the faction that argues against false equivalency centrism, to further complicate poo poo). There's a common ground to these views, and it's this: no individual is going to save the world. I feel like the hero complex is what the people wailing that everything's useless are really pissed at and they are not wrong to be pissed. Conservation at it's worst is star-eyed naifs living out their ego trips in the form of groceries/roofing/whatever shaming and that's stupid and ugly, no doubt. The same is true of people wrapping their self-worth up in political camps, technological revolutions, business loyalties and on and on. Get over yourself, I think is the message all sides want to be heard. But on one side that message takes the form of "look how big the problem is, you can't tackle it alone" and on the other side it's "look how big the solution is, you can't tackle it alone". Both boil down to the same realization: this thing is going to take cooperation, austerity and humility on a species-wide scale and hoo boy is that a tall order. Is this possible at all is a decent question, but thinking you know the answer already, well that's where the humility comes in. Heroism won't help us. TLDR everyone in the thread should read Don Quixote it makes this point waaaay better than I ever could.
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Jul 24, 2018 21:12
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Edit-doubleposts are also not useful
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Jul 24, 2018 21:15
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Weird how everyone had plenty of advice on the need to live sad and alone eating gruel in a dark room with no family and how vitally important it was everyone did that until someone actually asks what they can do then it turns out there was nothing they could do.
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Jul 24, 2018 21:17
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seriously though, the thing you can do is run for a state house seat. no joke. the government actually does make laws and being in power means that you make rules that require guys with guns to forcibly stop people from polluting.
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Jul 24, 2018 21:52
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What you do individually probably won't help sufficiently at this juncture to make a difference, so don't feel sad or afraid about the apparent impending death of human civilization. We had a good run, and we brought it on ourselves. Depression and hopelessness will actively hurt things. Be at peace with the future that we've baked in; change is human - my late grandmother's parents were born before cars existed, and she lived long enough to see cell phones. You might think anger would be an outlet, and in some circumstances it can be a motivator... but don't remain angry. Anger clouds judgment, significantly diminishing your ability to really do things effectively. However, that doesn't mean do nothing. Being involved with the science, thinking through what you do that might cause impacts - get interested in things. Think about what you can change. Consider ways that you might shape the future yourself. Ponder how global warming works: energy from the sun radiates from the surface upwards at a less energetic frequency, greenhouse gases reemit certain frequencies of that energy back towards the surface, and we are increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, . What can be done to impact that? Reduce the amount of energy coming in from the sun to the surface, reduce the energy radiating away from the surface at frequencies that greenhouse gases are sensitive to, or reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. How could you cause such impacts? Government, technology, or education are certainly options. Evil_Greven fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Jul 25, 2018 |
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Jul 25, 2018 00:14
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lol how high on your own farts are you?
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Jul 25, 2018 01:50
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Perhaps too much... maybe we all have, and that's the issue behind these emotional posts, where people turn up and folks go offering pessimism or optimism or pragmatism. The people coming into this don't understand the problem, and so are lost at where to begin when they see all these horrible things in the news or in person. The science behind climate change can be boiled down to those three things: 1) Radiation from the Sun is reradiated by the Earth at less energetic wavelengths: infrared, visible light, etc. 2) Greenhouse gases intercept and reemit certain frequencies (bands of infrared, etc) partly back towards the surface. 3) Humans are increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which increases the effect. That's it. Forget everything else - feedbacks, feelings, gently caress all the rest - they're irrelevant to people coming into this, and irrelevant to combating the problem (even though they are relevant to how bad the problem will end up being). If you can change any of those, you'll have an impact relative to how much you've changed. By way of example, an American halving their per capita emissions is roughly 0.00000004% of one year's emissions - they have individual control over far less than that amount.
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Jul 25, 2018 03:33
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Personally I am hoping the climate apocalypse is really cool
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Jul 25, 2018 03:38
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Evil_Greven posted:Perhaps too much... maybe we all have, and that's the issue behind these emotional posts, where people turn up and folks go offering pessimism or optimism or pragmatism. Your model is way too simplistic, it ignores the interconnected nature of social impacts. That individual American's decisions can and will inspire others to act differently, it's not just simple arithmetic. It's as if you were saying Elvis was just one person so he could only ever sing loud enough for a small room of people to hear.
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Jul 25, 2018 03:43
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I like human civilization and I am sad that the quality of life for so many people will take a turn for the worse over the next hundred years, but the biggest bummer of them all is the rapid extinction of so many different species. I realize that extinction events happen with or without humans, but it just sucks that humans are the cause/greatest contributor to the sixth major extinction event of our planet. I mean life has been around for billions of years and I gotta be on this planet in the midst of an extinction event? It’s bullshit man.
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Jul 25, 2018 03:58
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Your model is way too simplistic, it ignores the interconnected nature of social impacts. That individual American's decisions can and will inspire others to act differently, it's not just simple arithmetic. Recall, I said that if you can change any of those, you'll have an impact relative to how much you've changed. If you managed to get the entire population of the U.S. to halve their per capita emissions for a year (again kinda not under their control; a reduction of 8-10 tons of CO2 per person), it would reduce that year's emissions by approximately 12%. Meanwhile, a planted tree might sequester one ton of CO2 over several decades - it depends on how long it lives, what type of tree, etc. Education might reduce birth rates, which reduces CO2 consumption as fewer humans are created, etc.
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Jul 25, 2018 04:32
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I'm not talking about your three things so much as your calculation of one person's effect. Trying to isolate a single human's influence is oversimplified because society is hypercomplex and interconnected, that's my only point.
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Jul 25, 2018 04:56
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If you convince one person a week to reduce emissions and they go on to convince one person a week as well etc... then you've helped change 2^n people after n weeks. Humans aren't linear organisms. Exploit the nonlinearity. Notorious R.I.M. fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Jul 25, 2018 |
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Jul 25, 2018 05:05
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I have an east facing bedroom with large windows so it gets very hot in the summer. Rather than trying to get portable AC units I think what I'm going to do is see if there's any good plants I can grow in large pots that I can place in front of it to provide some shade. I keep the curtains closed almost all the time anyway because of my sensitivity issues so it's not like I'm worried about the view.
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Jul 25, 2018 09:03
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I grow grapes they are fully covering my south side of the house, also covering up the windows of the bedrooms. When it gets colder I just prune it the so the windows are uncovered again. Also the big leaves take away the heat so the heat won't stay inside the bricks (more or less). Also nice that the kids can eat grapes just opening there bedroom windows. I planted about fruit 20 trees just to get shades and fruit.
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Jul 25, 2018 10:29
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Orions Lord posted:I grow grapes they are fully covering my south side of the house, also covering up the windows of the bedrooms. Owns, thanks for sharing. I built a 35 square meter sun room so my kid can enjoy being outside and playing in the dirt even though we live in Iceland where the cold and increasing wet (worst summer in 100 years). We planted a grape vine and it has some grapes forming but they might not finish before summer is over. 😒 Same story with my fig tree
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Jul 25, 2018 10:38
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Building up self reliance could surely never be a bad idea considering it potentially reduces both consumption and leaves you better prepared when poo poo is starting to go down. Unless you want to die and suffer then I guess it's bad.
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Jul 25, 2018 11:38
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The VA State Government is doing a ton to go green with Solar and Enviro Regulations. Get involved with your state gov if you are in the United States. There is a lot that can still be done and the state houses are where the most pronounced effects are happening. Stop being sadbrains and do something.
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Jul 25, 2018 12:06
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Has anyone said vegetarianism as a simple, individual (and passive!) action you can take?BoldFrankensteinMir posted:That individual American's decisions can and will inspire others to act differently, it's not just simple arithmetic. This reminded me of it cause I was inspired by and have inspired people to be vegetarian or at least not eat meat at every meal. Go vegetarian. Or vegan!
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Jul 25, 2018 13:02
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Fox Cunning posted:Building up self reliance could surely never be a bad idea considering it potentially reduces both consumption and leaves you better prepared when poo poo is starting to go down. Prepper stuff doesn’t seem like it makes sense for climate change. In nuclear war you can pretend you’d go in your shelter and come out when everyone is dead then live a weird fallout fantasy where you suddenly need to farm. Climate change seems like if anything it would be especially dangerous to hyper local farming or something.
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Jul 25, 2018 13:28
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The thing about climate change is there's not a single place you can hide from it. On the other hand, as the slow-moving collapse progresses it's unlikely you'll want to be in cities. In terms of disaster prone areas I think maybe parts of South America will be best for a time. That said any prepper type thing you do should be nomadic, yeah.
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Jul 25, 2018 13:32
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I don't know, it always seems like people try to force climate change into cold war post apocalypse fantasy. For the most part for most people it seems like climate change will be largely a combination of a large increase in actual poverty mixed with an increase in issues that were only for poorer people previous leaking upwards so X money no longer protects you as well. Like if some guy was in poverty now a suggestion like becoming a self reliant farmer or becoming a nomad in south america like kinda sorta would work for an individual maybe, but is a pretty silly solution. It doesn't seem like you get mad max out of climate change in any sort of near term, like even if everything got bad very fast it doesn't seem like that sort of disaster before many generations had passed.
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Jul 25, 2018 14:24
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since we're back on 'individual action' and its been 20+ pages i'll post the list again things you can do, IN ORDER, that have a meaningful impact (roughly assumes north-american/eu/oecd dweller) on your footprint - have one fewer child than you otherwise would have* - do not own or use a car on a daily basis - live in a 5+ unit building - fly less than once a year - avoid meat, especially red/ruminant/beef meat (you don't actually have to go vegetarian/vegan, just try to cut beef 50%) If you check off that list you can have an 80-90% lower carbon footprint than the average american, and still live a high quality-of-life lifestyle. You will effectively have "solved" the problem for yourself. That last 10 - 20% will take another generation and be handled by infrastructure/supply-chain poo poo you can't impact alone. Most importantly, by adopting that lifestyle you are both a.) creating market demand for the things that cater to that lifestyle and b.) setting an example to all the braying crybaby entitled garbage monsters that will cry and cry and cry and cry about how one of the items is impossible/worse-than-nazis/etc. At this point its safe to say the Boomers are hopeless and can be written off wholesale, and GenX's brains have all been broken by growing up with capitalism and consumerism as their defacto religion. Millenials are *starting* to turn the corner, so its our job to both a.) set an example for Gen Y to build off of, and b.) raise Gen Z(?) to think of this all as "normal" and "good". Keep in mind that human generations are only ~25 years so we really can be 50ish years away from a major sea change in attitudes and behaviors, which means we really can make a massive dent in emissions before 2100, not even counting the ongoing parallel decarbonization of the grid (it will take both). * white genocide StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Jul 25, 2018 |
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Jul 25, 2018 14:31
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StabbinHobo posted:since we're back on 'individual action' and its been 20+ pages i'll post the list again This is all good advice and exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you!
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Jul 25, 2018 14:46
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StabbinHobo posted:since we're back on 'individual action' and its been 20+ pages i'll post the list again I'm already doing 4 out 5 of these! Hooray!
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Jul 25, 2018 15:54
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Sadly I have to use a car for work because public transport doesnt reach my work. Next year I am moving to be within walking distance. In the meantime I use my hybrid vehicle and walk to get groceries, errands, etc But yeah! 4 out of 5 aint too shabby!
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Jul 25, 2018 16:01
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flying is insanely bad I can't quickly source it but I remember it being like, a single trans-atlantic flight is 5% of an average American's YEARLY footprint. Probably 20-30% of a global average person's.
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Jul 25, 2018 16:07
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friendbot2000 posted:But yeah! 4 out of 5 aint too shabby! Being a disabled, gay man who's now watching his weight really seriously turns out to be surprisingly efficient at reducing greenhouse emissions.
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Jul 25, 2018 16:08
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Gunshow Poophole posted:flying is insanely bad Is there another form of long distance travel that is better? Like, I only fly to go on a long distance vacation overseas. If its domestic travel I take the train.
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Jul 25, 2018 16:13
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friendbot2000 posted:Is there another form of long distance travel that is better? Like, I only fly to go on a long distance vacation overseas. If its domestic travel I take the train. I don’t think there is a form of cross ocean travel that doesn’t have a large carbon footprint. I think boats are as bad as planes even. Maybe if you were a stowaway on a boat. Then I guess technically you aren’t increasing demand for polluting boats while you still get to travel across the ocean.
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Jul 25, 2018 16:19
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How does a train compare in terms of emissions anyway?
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Jul 25, 2018 16:25
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I'm not comfortable with all this agreement/positive-feedback, so let me add some spice. If you take the inverse of that list, you get: - 2 or 3 children - "two car family" - single family detached housing - yearly family vacation + quarterly business travel - really into barbecue Those are the people that future generations will look back at like we do the germans who pretended not to notice the camps.
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Jul 25, 2018 16:28
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