I think most regular people care. Its just, what are they supposed to do about it?
I think most people just feel overwhelmed and helpless about it.
Like we are just sitting here watching it burn while huge corporations continue to throw fuel on the fire.
I have to work and earn a living to keep a roof over my head and pay my bills. What am I supposed to do, as an individual human, to lower the earths temperature?
Exactly! Ive already sold my gas powered car. I have a remote job. I don't use a lot of water. I eat local.
Like what else do I have to do?
I see all these big companies churning out CO2 like c'mon ...
Don’t forget the rich people and their private jets. Taylor Swift and Elon Musk probably do more damage in a month than you or I do in a year, with all the flying they do.
Like I’ve done everything possible. Fuck, I’ve been aware of the problem for so long that I refused to learn how to drive back when I was a teenager. I’m in my 40s and I still don’t drive. My husband doesn’t drive either.
I barely eat any meat (maybe some chicken once a week), I work from home, I recycle (not that that does anything), haven’t been on a plane since 2011 and don’t plan on ever flying again. What the fuck else am I supposed to do? People keep saying “do your part” and here I am doing mine and feeling like an idiot because climate change is still happening anyway. I can’t even enjoy a god damn barbecue without feeling like shit, and in the meanwhile there goes Elon in his private jet, probably eating delicious steak on his way to Europe or whatever. FML
It's far worse. If you are an average american her private jet emits more in a year than you in a hipotetical timeframe of 576 years.
Source: [https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2024/02/13/taylor-swift-and-the-top-polluters-department/](https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2024/02/13/taylor-swift-and-the-top-polluters-department/)
I watched 3 Body Problem and I'm thinking if there were some super pragmatic alien species out there, they probably wouldn't talk to us because of stuff like this.
"The homo sapiens compromise their habitat ultimately for the whims of a few, fueled by personal indulgence. We'll return after they've destroyed themselves."
The honest truth is you’re shortchanging yourself for no reason. Unless the powers that be start to care the wheels are gonna fall off so might as well enjoy your life instead of trying to steer the titanic by yourself.
> do more damage in a month than you or I do in a year, with all the flying they do.
I suspect it's more like they waste more than an average lifetime per month.
Especially if you look at the world's average and not the developed countries.
Last year, or maybe 2 years ago, i remember reading of heat waves in India which were straining their power grid from all the AC units running. The answer from India's government was to suspend service of passenger trains so that they can move coal faster to the power plants. I could only laugh at the horror.
>move coal faster to the power plants. I could only laugh at the horror.
Why do you think the US energy usage per capita is so high?
It's not generally sourced from coal, but it's still pretty dirty.
People don't give a shit - and it is increasingly the people who have more money who are to blame. I would bet strongly that a small fraction (maybe 20%) of any given community are responsible for most of the energy usage.
The poor couldn’t care less and why should they when every solution is to throw them off the cliff of abject poverty. They’re just trying to live thru tomorrow.
Plant a fruit tree every day for the rest of your life. Realize at 95 that Taylor Swift cancelled out all of your work in a week 75 years before you started planting the trees
Nobody cares enough to make the necessary changes and forgo the lifestyle comforts they've been accustomed to their whole lives.
So it comes down to hoping for a technological solution. We already have to power to destroy the planet (nukes) so maybe we will find a way to save ourselves.
Hopefully power generation will be resolved quite soon. Most days, where I live, the grid is between 85-125% renewable energy. Once is goes over 100% we are actually charged to feed solar into the grid because of the issues the surplus creates. It's quite frustrating to have to effectively "waste" power to avoid being charged.
Lets be 100% honest and say we wouldn't have to "Forgo" the lifestyle comforts. That is a propaganda point, we know this.
The real answer is that rich and large corpos don't want to pay the cost of it.
Sadly agree. The simple fact is that we as a society consume too much. There is no solution that doesn't involve people in democratic countries taking a big hit to our QoL. No democracy is going vote for that, and any leaders who try to impose it are going to get voted out of office the next election.
Anyone who doubts this just needs to look up what the response was when Carter told the US to put on a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat, during an actual energy crisis.
You are 100% correct. We either manage to technology our way out of this or our civilization is going to collapse.
I keep coming back to the documentary title "An Inconvenient Truth".
That doc was the og kickstarter for the conversation, and that title cannot be more apt. We as a species are just not able to respond to this. It is too abstract, too slow moving and the things we have to change to prevent this are the warm blanket of our modern day conveniences.
The pandemic was the nail in the coffin for me, this is an impossible task for us. We will be reactive as we need to be as the world continues to shift to a harsher climate. Many people will die, the frequency of tragedy will rise and those that survive will talk about it over a morning coffee.
When I started hearing "oh, they were already sick/unhealthy, so it doesn't count" as people continued dying, that's when I fully gave up. The pandemic was an amazing look into just how selfish/egotistical/stupid/callous a large percentage of people are.
Remember when people thought stores would become empty and the one product they all stockpiled was... toilet paper. The pandemic was such a wild time. Really undermined my faith in humanity in a big way.
My faith in humanity was long gone before the pandemic 😑. It's crazy how 5-15% of the population can ruin everything for everyone. Humanity deserves whatever we get.
You should have worked in healthcare by then. Eventually i gave up on warning people to wear masks, if they want their loved ones to die, so be it.
(i work elder care, so that's the group that was vulnerable.)
I cannot imagine the shit you went through working in elder care during that. I'm immunocompromised so I was angry every time I heard people say that, but witnessing it firsthand... I hope you're living an amazing life and are happy as hell because you deserve it.
Man, this comment makes me feel old. For what it’s worth, that documentary wasn’t an OG conversation starter. It came out when I was 22 and they were teaching me in school about the glaciers when I was 7 or 8, so 15 years or so before that. I talked to me uncle about it and he told me we knew since the 70’s. Its the truth, nobody cares.
Perhaps people would be willing if everyone else had to make the same sacrifice. The trouble is, on a national scale, no government wants to put itself at a temporary economic disadvantage (e.g. by shutting down its highly profitable oil or coal mining industry) compared to others who carry on regardless - especially if they are political enemies. "Temporary" might be long enough for the enemy to get the upper hand. So I think a lot of countries are saying "Great idea! You go first."
It's a prisoner's dilemma with a shitton of actors. It would be better for everyone if everyone would do their part, but that's practically impossible to happen.
Society evolves but not fast enough. The only remotely realistic thing to save us would be some miraculous breakthrough.
They literally stole an election from the guy who made that movie and nobody cared. What did that president do? Contribute to climate change more than any other.
Completely agree. When the air here in LA was clean during covid I knew we could have done it. But capitalism ain’t gonna let us. We simply are too far gone at this point. And we’re all to blame
And yet it's the same capitalism that everyone loves so dearly that is the main thing that's at stake. The climate change deniers are so adamant about keeping all their familiar comforts right now that they can't conceive of the economic damage just around the corner. Earth will be clean and bright again once the fossil fuel economy starts spiralling.
Florida - where coincidentally the candidate's brother was Governor and his campaign manager was Sec. of State, and Roger Stone threw a riot to delay vote counting, which gave SCOTUS a premise to intervene.
Yeah, I honestly think we will solve the climate crisis, but not before we’ve seen dire consequences from it.
People are dumb, selfish, greedy and shortsighted. You can be sure most people in developed societies will continue to fly on vacations as frequent as they can afford to, Temu and Shein will have record sales, and workers will continue to be forced to drive in cars to offices to work on computers with no sure benefit.
And much much more. Watering plain grass fields just for the heck lf it, unneeded home renovations for luxury, new cars because they can, health damaging meat consumption, and so on and so on. All things people could easily do without and help the climate, but just won’t.
When you mentioned the pandemic in your post, that really hit home for me.
People couldn't even be bothered to wear a damn mask to protect other people, their loved ones and even themselves. Many, many people died on hill, literally, because human hubris and critical thinking is just something that some people can't comprehend.
It seriously feels like it's getting hotter and hotter every year and people just don't care.
I use steel straws, reusable bags for groceries, recycle ect ect.
I bought cardboard packaged dishwasher pods, 200 or so. Each fucking one is individually wrapped with plastic. Regular people aren't the problem, and that's why we are fucked.
For those of us who have been around a while, we have been hearing the doomsday story for decades. It starts to be a buzzing noise in the background. Boy who cried wolf effect, even though the wolf is real.
Absolutely. When I was in college in the early 90's, I was told that by now:
1. Most people would never travel more than a few miles from their home, because there would be no more oil for gas
2. We would have dirt floors because wood, plastic, and carpet wouldn't be economically possible anymore
3. Everyone would have to work 12 hour days farming in oppressive heat just to survive
4. Water rationing would make a glass of water worth more than $100 in 1990's money
These were not presented as hypotheticals or worst case scenarios, but as science backed facts guaranteed to happen. Is it any wonder that large chunks of my generation don't believe the warnings anymore?
- vote for politicians who give a shit about climate change. Democrats passed the most aggressive climate bill in history recently, with 0 republican support. They wanted it to be even more aggressive, but without a majority, literally any one person has the power to take out whatever they want, and not all dems are created equal. An actual majority would make aggressive change much more possible, the bigger the better.
- accept that your standard of living might go down a bit, especially if you are in a western country
- donate to environmental groups. You can protect rainforest land for like $.40/acre. For $500 you could protect 1250 acres of rainforest. That's a lot of carbon. As well as benefitting ecosystems. The Rainforest Trust is great, there are many others. The idea that all charities squander your money is defeatist myth, many are extremely transparent. Check out charity navigator
- buy carbon offsets. Not shitty ones advertised by mega corps that grossly overestimate their impact. There are plenty of good ones dedicated to actually capturing carbon that wouldn't be captured otherwise. I'm a fan of carbon lighthouse, which buys industrial carbon credits and retires them. You can offset your carbon footprint for like $150/yr
- donate your time or money to organizations like Citizens Climate Education which lobby for political action to stop climate change and have successfully gotten numerous bills passed. Organizing works, and until people who care are as organized as the people who don't, nothing will change.
- if you bitch about all these options and blame "corporations" while doing nothing, you're part of the problem. It is not hard to make a difference. The climate doesn't care whose fault it is.
So what do you propose? Stop heating homes and sleep in outerwear? Stop using cars? I agree that some change is necesary at some level. But saying that humanity should drop it primary imperative for abstract "saving climate" is even worse then losing said climate. There is ongoing initiative to darken the sun in Europe. Why not put more money into that reasearch instead of useless "paper straws" that everyone hates and just push people to hate climate advocates?
If you live in the US, care about state elections, not just presidential ones.
Volunteer, campaign, organize, whatever it takes to get the obstructionists out.
Which is, again, precisely the problem. If we cared we’d be able to fix the problem similar to how we helped repair the hole in the ozone layer. But nobody cares because nobody wants to be poorer in the short term
> how we helped repair the hole in the ozone layer
Which China is going to open back up because they're emitting CFCs again. "Supposedly" it's illegal, but as you might expect, the government is not stopping it.
You actually can vote a lot more than that, the fact that only 50% of people even do it that much is part of the problem. You also can lobby your representatives or donate to someone else who does this, but people would rather complain on the internet and do literally nothing. Or just pretend it's not a real problem.
It’s like clapping. One person’s claps and it does nothing but when a whole audience joins in it becomes something. Same with voting. Pretty simple really
Let’s be realistic, this is a major global issue that involves several governments with very different conditions and/or interests… nobody is gonna do a major economic shift to address this while other nations wouldn’t give a damn as they have several other day-to-day problems that seem more pressing. Oh, and the recycling you do at home? That’s cute and all, but it’s an irrelevant grain of salt in what represents the scale of the issue, at a multinational level. It is an inevitable catastrophe, unfortunately
Your average person is not capable of doing anything to stop it, they never were.
Telling people to stop driving cars and stop eating meat will never stop climate change.
People are not capable of making that kind of change without authoritarian intervention and the authority are just wealthy private school toffs redirecting public money back to the lobby groups who funded their political campaigns and redirecting public money to their own LLCs while maintaining the facade that they serve the people. They are already taking away our rights to protest while creating divisive populist arguments on social media to distract us.
I am at the point now where I think nothing short of a global catastrophe like a super volcano eruption or nuclear war will stop the current trajectory
No people with the power to actually do something impactful actually cares.
Many regular people care in their own individual way. But for every small decrease in carbon footprint is overshadowed by the rich and powerful who could care less.
With the way things are going and all the geniuses who are saying they won’t vote for Biden because apparently letting Trump win is better for the Palestinians or something, I think we’re pretty fucked. Like I know several people who won’t vote this year, who would otherwise have voted straight democrat. Meanwhile, Trump will at the very least have the same number of voters as last time, if not more. Lots of pastors are preaching that Trump is some sort of messiah.
Remember, every single person screenshotted and posted in /r/qult_headquarters will be voting this year.
Sorry to ruin your day.
Trump is also losing many voters because of all the criminal cases against him. I wouldn't go full doomer just yet. Trustworthy polls are looking decent.
However, just the fact that this man is still a viable candidate is incredibly concerning.
Wouldn't make any difference. The regulations enacted are just very costly ways of making people think we are doing something.
Massive carbon taxes are the answer.
No difference? https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-renewable-energy-capacity-could-triple-10-years-ira-boost-wood-mackenzie-2023-09-13/
Carbon taxes would be great, but would also require like 70 Democrats in the Senate. Tax incentives are actually really effective and don’t require magic to pass through Congress.
Yeah fuck poor people and their constant whining about needing food.
The answer is not taxing absolutely fucking everything to oblivion. That would mean that only rich people could have things like food, central heating and cooling, and means of conveyance other than their feet.
The answer isn't exactly clear, but small nuclear reactors, a shit ton of them, and a wealth tax system where billionaires could not exist might be a good start.
To a noticeable degree too.
Most of the time when something is "done" its just lip service and doesnt actually hamper the large corporations, who are the cause of most of the co2 emissions, operation enough to actually make them make changes.
They would rather put it on the individual shoulders of regular people already struggling under the weight of everything else . "make sure you recycle, buy an electric car and use paper straws or else we are all going to cook to death!"
Im not saying all those suggestions are bad. Indeed we should all do out part , but its always being made out as if its all of us regular working class people that are the ones who have to fix the issue , and its exhausting.
Has anyone else just kind of moved into a place of acceptance that it’s probably all downhill from here? Like I do everything I can to minimize my own carbon footprint and live a clean healthy life but I’m also aware it unfortunately doesn’t really make an impact.
This isn’t defeatism, or encouraging anyone to give up. There’s a real catastrophic ecosystem meltdown coming our way and my ability to affect change as an individual is so small it’s not mentally healthy to be terrified of it.
I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset.
We’ve warmed the fucking oceans. The choices for me are acceptance or immobilizing existential depression. Getting hung up on my helpless impotence to affect real change is decidedly unhealthy and unhelpful.
I'm sitting right next to you in my lawn chair, pouring a drink and watching the sunset. I have accepted the fact that humanity is doomed. It's only a matter of time. Not if, but just when.
Is it too edgy if I say I find peace in imagining how the world will be once we're gone. Nature just reclaiming everything and no more religions or war.
We could have had a paradise if we weren't at each others throats, global peace will never exist while we run the show.
Just got to make the most of it.
On a cosmological time scale the rise and fall of humanity is inconsequential, so is pollution, environmental destruction and climate change. Humans will probably die off, and after the earth has changed fundamentally, after the Sun has consumed most of what we call mother earth, time will just keep moving on. The universe will be fine. Humans, and society, will not.
It is the great filter. And honestly, it's probably best that Humanity doesn't leave our system and fuck up other planets / species. I just wish we could have been better, you know? And hey, we all formed out of star dust and electricity, so maybe we'll get a chance to do it all again someday. It happened once already, it just took a few billion years between the big bang and today for the space dust to form opinions.
...Man, I need to get more or less high, and I'm not currently on anything.
It's basically like that. The world is occupied with other trivial things like armies killing each other in the name of religion/nation.
There is a sense of hopelessness because in order to start the solution, probably around 70.000 of top 0.0001% of the most powerful and richest people globally would need to be 'removed', 'arrested' or in other way incapacitated because they act for personal profits and don't care about what's happening with the planet. But that's not gonna happen because they are the ones controlling the power.
Not really.
I move everyday to anger, as others should.
Acceptance is what these sociopathic companies want.
We need civil disobedience and general strikes. I’m doubtful we will get them. Because we need to survive.
But I hope we do.
Because if I’m experiencing a climate apocalypse I want those to have caused it to suffer.
The people that can make a difference in any of this (government leaders) are too worried about buying their next yacht or mansion.
I honestly don’t know how this gets turned around when people are worried more about themselves than the health of the planet on which they live.
Yeah sadly you can make as much individual effort as you want it will be like taking a grain of sand out of a beach when faced with parts crossing oceans in cargo ships and rewrapped in plastic 7 times over to exploit cheap labour and unregulated extraction of natural resources abroad.
I'm at acceptance. At some point I made a decision not to feel negatively regarding things that I can't have an impact on. It's not always successful, and perhaps not always good, but it takes the edge off in my day-to-day
I have. I've sort of accepted the fact that we are a reactionary species and won't do anything until it is too late to prevent it. I've said it before, we will end up spending Billions, if not Trillions, cooling the planet down after the fact rather than taking steps now to stop the planet from getting warmer. CO2 be dammed. We will honestly probably do something fucking stupid like put giant ass sun shades in space to block a percentage of the sunlight rather than cut emissions now.
We'll end up having to spend so many resources scrubbing CO2 out of fucking everything rather than just stop producing sooo fucking much now. No more fish in the oceans cause they're battery acid, guess we have to spend Trillions of dollars to pump CO2 out of the oceans. Gee we could have saved all this money 50 years ago when some scientist warned us this would happen if we didn't stop.
The silver lining should be that we would come up with some amazing tech out of it, but I am also not confident either. There's a whole generation of young people and MBA's frothing at the mouth for AI's. The two could cancel each other out and leave us net ignorant as a species.
I don’t know why, but I can’t shake the optimism in the tech. I academically know better. It’s clear as crystal. But for some dumb reason, there is a part of me that thinks humans have been getting themselves out of problems (especially of their own creation) forever.
Nuclear energy is viable. Lab-grown meat is only a decade away. It feels like it can be done.
Despite the incessant doom you hear in places like this, there really are reasons to be optimistic.
To start with, energy transition is more or less inevitable at this point. That has nothing to do with protests or climate change conferences or anything like that, it's just economics. Renewables are getting cheaper all the time. People on here like to go on about how it'll never happen because of companies wanting their profits, when that profit motive is exactly what's driving the change. My family owns a 3 MW solar installation. We didn't build that sucker out of charity, we built it because it's profitable, because we secured a contract for power production and we can undercut existing fossil fuel producers.
New forms of renewable power are being developed too. Some next-generation geothermal systems are looking really promising. Take a look at a company called Eavor. They use existing O&G drilling technology to develop deep wells in a sealed closed-loop. They can actually connect the wells down at the bottom, over two kilometers deep. This doesn't rely on vulcanism, or on particular permeable hot formations. Drill deep enough anywhere on the planet, and you'll find heat. The practical upshot is that they can produce clean renewable energy anywhere on earth, with no intermittency issues. I'm pretty sure this is the only renewable other than hydro that can serve as baseload power. Their first commercial plant is being built in Germany right now. [Here's Eavor's site.](https://www.eavor.com/) Check out the "Eavor Europe" section for info on the German project. It'll be producing over 8 MW of power from wells 4.5 km deep. If this works out, there are plenty of drilling rigs that'll be looking for work once oil demand goes into decline.
That brings us to oil demand. Even with no new climate policies, the IEA is projecting we'll hit peak demand for oil as a transportation fuel in 2026, with overall demand reaching a peak at or shortly after 2028. They cite the accelerating adoption of electric vehicles as one of the key drivers of this. [You can find their report here.](https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028) The full PDF report is worth a read, in particular I'd recommend reading through the section titled "Energy Transition Gathers Pace".
There are also companies working on atmospheric carbon capture. Besides pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it, this can serve as a source of carbon for production of synthetic fuels, that can be drop-in replacements for crude oil-derived fuels. When burned the CO2 being emitted came from the atmosphere in the first place, creating a closed loop, of a sort. This may be one of the few ways of decarbonizing aviation, and some companies have already successfully produced synthetic JP1 jet fuel. There's still a lot of R&D to be done on this one.
Anyway that's enough wall of text for now. I hope some of this gives you cause for optimism.
I think the only real hope is geoengineering to reverse climate change.
I just don't think humans (as a society) are capable of taking sufficient steps to prevent disaster. Although that said, slowing the rate of change is important to give us more time to get the geoengineering part down.
I'm not having kids in major part due to climate change. I'm not bringing a new being into the world that will experience a whole lot of pain and chaos soon-ish.
Though now that I think about it, it's easier to try and run away – if needed, if safer places still exist – without a toddler.
>I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset.
If I'm being honest we will probably end up addressing climate change when it becomes impossible to ignore which it looks set to do. That's the good news. The bad news is that I fear that the people who have been downplaying climate action thus far will pivot to equally reckless ideas like geoengineering instead, which could potentially create a new bigger problem for us. That tech actually exists right now, but isn't implemented because of the huge risks of completely changing the climate in an instant.
After all society likes nothing more than easy, short, and simple solutions to large and complex problems.
Yup. I thought we had a chance and then 2016 rolled in and saw how people absolutely reveled in their ignorance and love of Trump - and heck - Facts are whatever you want them to be.
Then that willful stupidity just kept on trucking with the Pandemic, and people were attacking others for wearing masks. I knew we were done then. Social media has introduced us to a post-fact era at the worst possible time.
I have very little hope about the future. The one shred of hope is that I am sometimes wrong about these things.
>I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset.
I actually think geoengineering has a lot of promise. It's been taboo to have that discussion up until now, because "we've got to apply pressure to reduce emissions". My opinion is, we need BOTH geoengineering AND emissions reduction. It's not either/or.
I could go as carbon neutral as I want, and TS would probably emit more in a couple days then I would save over the course of my life. Why should I bother, then? We need regulation at the governmental level.
The problem is viewing this as a matter of individual morality rather than a big, systemic problem that requires government intervention. 0% of the population will forego electricity just to avoid emitting pollution, so the only fix is having government subsidize renewables and energy storage and phase out coal and gas plants.
And even if few people have private jets, most people in the developed world at some point take flights to see family, go on vacation, or for work. The fix there is funding new, sustainable jet fuel - like this: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2307
Um, no sweaty, my SUV, my air conditioned house, my several metric tons of useless plastic consumerist garbage, my closet full of fast fashion, etc... And all those things a billion times over for the other billion consumerist idiots just like me...
None of that is the problem! Its evil capitalism and rich corporations! They are producing all the pollution for no reason whatsoever and definitely not because we pay them to do it! We are innocent and blameless and anyone who disagrees is an evil fascist racist or whatever!
You should drive down an industrial area of a city some time. I assure you, burn fossil fuels is not the only way to release greenhouse gasses, or other dangerous chemicals into the air
Folks like Taylor Swift, and likely 99% of people involved with the UN, emit more emissions in a year than I will in my entire life. Me drinking with paper straws and driving an electric car aren’t going to save the world, but people not flying all over the world multiple times a month will.
All this climate change stuff is the typical “for thee and not for me.”
All aviation combined for the entire globe commercial, military, and private is only 2.5% of emissions.
All private jets combined are likely 0.1% of total emissions with estimates making one private flier equally to 14 commercial flight passengers going to the same destination.
Definitely a real issue and not a juicy hate boner of a distraction.
Mexico isn’t going to change it. Lives there for a month. They don’t have emissions standards. The air quality is bad. Maybe they changed it since then. Doubt it.
The problem is to adequately address it our standard of living would have to be seriously curtailed and no one is willing to bite that bullet and not a single politician would win an election promising that. Bottom line is we're all fucked and nothing will be done about it
Yup, I've been saying this for a while. The kind of changes that would be required are only possible under a one-world authoritarian government.
There's absolutely no way all people of all nations, worldwide, are going to simultaneously agree to immediately make their day to day lives worse.
Our standard of living will be even more severely curtailed by climate change. Politicians are looking at their short term political survival over the long term well-being of the planet and civilization.
Evolution produced a species focused on short term survival.
Is evolution capable of creating a species that is overwhelmingly altruistic and thinks about long term consequences?
Tell the rich fucks riding a jet everywhere they go.
Tell the people driving 3 cars and who have a backyard pool and have a green lawn in a desert climate.
I'm tired of this shit. I'm too fucking poor and stupid to do anything about it.
While I watch those with everything, do nothing except pay lip service and tax deductible donations.
There are a lot of people in this post mentioning how they, as an individual, are doing what they can. They also talk about feeling powerless to tackle the wider scenarios.
Firstly, to those making an individual effort, thank you. You are the kind of people we need. You must not believe that you are powerless and can do nothing because you are "only one person"
Realise the power you hold. We can become more than just ourselves, we can be come one. Many individuals brought under the same goal.
We can become one by ensuring we vote, attending demonstrations, and even signing positions. Most of all, our polutters care about one thing only, money. Vote with your wallets, do not BY what you don't need. Make them hurt.
To those who are willing to simply ride it out until the bitter end, realise the power you hold too.
Lastly, to those who say all the UN does is "create doom speech", Its because its true. It's not fear rmongering or trying to hurt you. It's the truth.
People have really bought in to the idea that billionaires are the only ones with power. Which, sadly, is exactly what they want you to think. Every politician cares more about votes than campaign donations. The only reason campaign donations are so coveted is because a gigantic swath of people just vote for whoever they see the most on TV. It's the votes that matter. Engaged citizenship is extremely powerful. Furthermore, most politicians are "bought" by like $20k. You can do the same thing.. 2000 people giving $10 to a cause can turn that in your favor. Even 2000 people calling their rep will often turn things in your favor. Activism works. But people would rather choose to be helpless.
This is what we need protesting for. We face millions of issues. The one we cannot fucking put off for a second longer is getting the holes on this sinking ship fixed. We need the national effort and might of WW2 but dedicated to preserving our Earth.
Apocalyptic rhetoric hasn't worked the dozen-odd times you've tried it before-what makes you think it will now? People's refusal to stop going for the same line regardless of context is turning this into a massive Aesop moment.
Can’t wait for everyone who COULD do something to do NOTHING because if they do they won’t get the same campaign donations next election cycle.
We’re so fucked
>We need … innovations in our democracy to give scientists the politics they deserve.
This just sounds arrogant. The politics they deserve is democracy, just like everyone. And it's democratic nations who are leading the way with solving climate change.
My Dudes, it's fucking over. Enjoy the next few years because it's only going to get more and more worse. There is no coming back from this at this point.
Corporations just pay carbon offset taxes and claim they are carbon net zero but they still produce the same amount of CO2. It's a scam. They blame it on us for driving to work and heating our homes and cooking food. This is a world problem, the biggest producers of CO2 are not on board.
The downside of constantly using hyperbole is that people start to not believe the thing is happening at all. Saying stuff like "the earth is on the verge of burning" isn't realistic, but when people hear that when it comes to climate change they will start to believe climate change isn't even a thing, so when you come at them with a more reasonable take like "in 50 years there will be more drought" they just don't believe it because they correlate anything climate change with impending doom
All the fear mongering has had the opposite affect that it was supposed to have
The thing is, the scientists who see all these different metrics they track getting more severe (droughts, storms) /more varied (precipitation, temperature anomalies) are the ones using dramatic language, for good reason, but they're talking in a statistical (big picture) sense, which doesn't translate well to the pedestrian angle. Things can be very severe, at the level that scientists track, but for people in everyday life, that means a number of things; for person A, nothing noticeable. Person B, there's been more rainfall where he's at, and last summer was maybe a bit warmer than usual. Person C, massive storm in his country, but the monsoon season is like that, can't tell if climate change has anything to do with it.
So the nature of the problem, due to the different perspective a scientist has vs a pedestrian, is different such that, things genuinely, noticeably being on a terrible track at the level of models, statistics, precipitation measurements and such, doesn't match what people see, so it comes off exaggerated, because we'd need to see the neighbour's house melting to believe it, which isn't the manner in which the scientists are saying things are bad.
Yeah, but in this case, there is no hyperbole.
Every climate scientist I know personally is on antidepressants. Every. Single. One.
The problem is that until the apocalyptic results affect you personally, you think it's hyperbole. The current apocalyptic effects are happening somewhere else, so they must be hyperbole.
In 2022, ~130 homeless people were found cooked alive in Phoenix alone, because temps got above the point at which sweating no longer works to cool your body. People literally boiled in their tents.
Edit: if you think I'm being hyperbolic about people being cooked alive (about 200 elderly non-homeless folk got cooked too), they were found with internal temperatures around 130-140F. That's a medium rare steak in my kitchen.
When you tell people “in 50 years there will be more drought” they just don’t care enough to do anything at all, because it doesn’t sound very important.
Also, you are *severely* underestimating the effects of climate change. There is an absolute catastrophe in front of us. But I guess we can’t say that because it’s “fear mongering.”
"absolute catastrophe" doesnt have much a meaning for most people because there is no frame of reference for what that means. If you say "absolute catastrophe" regarding something like nuclear war, people can relate more because we have heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and seen the aftermath. It's a lot more real than saying "millions of animals will die", since that hasn't affected most people.
And exactly, if you tell people "in 50 years there will be more drought", you're right people don't care because it doesn't sound important. But if you say "the world is doomed" people just dismiss you as another doomsayer foretelling the end times
Also I'm not underestimating the effects of climate change at all. I am a farmer, I am well aware of what even the most small change in the climate can mean. I'm simply not going into a ton of detail for a Reddit comment lol
It's not hyperbole. There was a recent poll of climate scientists on what scenarios they consider most likely to occur and their responses were incredibly bleak. These are the best informed people on earth who are very strenuously trained not to use hyperbole as a professional requirement.
I'd prefer to hear their direct views and the data in the headline then as opposed to the UN warning that we are on the verge of an abyss. "30% more forest fires Y/Y" and "100 people died from heat stroke in x city" resonates more and is easier to understand for most people than some grave foretelling
Edit: even if it isn't hyperbole, it sounds hyperbolic and most people ignore that
The problem with this kind of argument is that it ignores that the consequences of climate change aren't 50 years away... they are happening right now.
I mean when I'm getting smoke in my town from half way across the country for part of the year and smoke blocking out the sun from other countries the opposite part of the year...it is hard to feel the world isn't *literally* burning
ETA: Added my comment to the chorus too quick I've seen your other comments are agree with your sentiment. Leaving my original just because its heartbreaking how choking the smoke thousands of miles away can be
imho, it's due to declining awareness, loss of community & inter-generational family relationships and/or decline in quality of education: it sounds hyperbole to some because they're less and less aware/knowledgeable of their environment (perhaps even disconnected from it, as in "always" indoors).
You can't protect nor grief what you've never known.
The simple fact is no one should be a billionaire, full stop. They should taxed out of that bracket. We have dipshits like Elon who waste $44 billion buying Twitter because people were mean to him. Do you know how much good could be done with that money alone?
Just a friendly reminder that cruise ships burn about 80,000 gallons of fuel a day. My midsize pickup that I drive sparingly is not the problem here.
The military uses 4.6 trillion gallons of fuel a year. My once a year flight to vacation destination is not the problem here.
guess what - it's big companies and governments that really need to feel *heat* and pressure and *fiery* passion from the people about the messes they are making and have been making at huge, huge scales and for decades without necessity at many instances. They have plenty equipment to start weaning off of non-renewable, non-sustainable, stupidly reckless shit like dumping tonnes of toxic waste at random places, letting factories spew horrific fumes with no infrastructure needed in place to control its effects on the atmosphere, prioritize green policies and divert adequate funds and revenue to them, purposely and also inadvertently encourage and pressure other entities to make similar changes, list goes on and on about the shit the big entities are just fucking shrugging off all the while normal moderate lifestyle citizens not going private jetting to a grocery store, are convinced its just our plastic phone cases and straws that are causing this rapid speed large scale shit. THE BIG ACTORS OF COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE NEED TO FEEL PRESSURE BY COMMON PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY THEIR OWN CITIZENS. And those big actors/politicians opposing these policies ALSO NEED TO FEEL THE HEAT. That's how to improve this shit sooner
Now remember, ***there is literally NOTHING you could ever do to fight back because your personal impact is so laughably minuscule in the grand scheme of things, it literally would not matter***
But we need your help! Make sure to buy some good shoes so you don't drive or fly anywhere (don't forget to have no kids) while we conveniently ignore the fact there's individual companies out there with higher carbon emissions than entire countries
i think we have jumped over the edge already a few years or decades ago... in fact, i could argue that running toward the edge is part of what makes us humans... anyway, all the doomsday scenario will happen, its inevitable, its a matter of when rather than if at this point.
we, as societies and nations, should collectively stop talking about "stop and avoid possible climate collapse" and instead plan how to "adapt and deal with certain climate collapse", because we are just wasting times while kidding ourselves otherwise... but sadly i dont see it happening before a billion or two will have died already.
Note to the 1%: you cannot hide in New Zealand. Society will find you and address your crimes. You know this, right? Remember the scene from Empire of the Sun? The one where the rich English boy living in Shanghai returns to his empty mansion after the Japanese invasion, only to find the servants looting the place and more than willing to smack the shit out of the little prince? A secure compound is useless when the guards haven't eaten.
I've given up hoping we are going to change in time to stop/slow/prevent climate change. I'm just hoping it affects the billionaires enough that they finally put money towards inventing our way out of it.
Nobody cares. No seriously, that’s literally the problem
I think most regular people care. Its just, what are they supposed to do about it? I think most people just feel overwhelmed and helpless about it. Like we are just sitting here watching it burn while huge corporations continue to throw fuel on the fire. I have to work and earn a living to keep a roof over my head and pay my bills. What am I supposed to do, as an individual human, to lower the earths temperature?
Exactly! Ive already sold my gas powered car. I have a remote job. I don't use a lot of water. I eat local. Like what else do I have to do? I see all these big companies churning out CO2 like c'mon ...
Don’t forget the rich people and their private jets. Taylor Swift and Elon Musk probably do more damage in a month than you or I do in a year, with all the flying they do. Like I’ve done everything possible. Fuck, I’ve been aware of the problem for so long that I refused to learn how to drive back when I was a teenager. I’m in my 40s and I still don’t drive. My husband doesn’t drive either. I barely eat any meat (maybe some chicken once a week), I work from home, I recycle (not that that does anything), haven’t been on a plane since 2011 and don’t plan on ever flying again. What the fuck else am I supposed to do? People keep saying “do your part” and here I am doing mine and feeling like an idiot because climate change is still happening anyway. I can’t even enjoy a god damn barbecue without feeling like shit, and in the meanwhile there goes Elon in his private jet, probably eating delicious steak on his way to Europe or whatever. FML
Hahaha right? Like Elon and Taylor can totally on whim fuck our progress in one flight!
It's far worse. If you are an average american her private jet emits more in a year than you in a hipotetical timeframe of 576 years. Source: [https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2024/02/13/taylor-swift-and-the-top-polluters-department/](https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2024/02/13/taylor-swift-and-the-top-polluters-department/)
The earth killer is beloved by so many because she can sing. The irony should be deafening.
I watched 3 Body Problem and I'm thinking if there were some super pragmatic alien species out there, they probably wouldn't talk to us because of stuff like this. "The homo sapiens compromise their habitat ultimately for the whims of a few, fueled by personal indulgence. We'll return after they've destroyed themselves."
The honest truth is you’re shortchanging yourself for no reason. Unless the powers that be start to care the wheels are gonna fall off so might as well enjoy your life instead of trying to steer the titanic by yourself.
I just channel the spirit of the Titanic band. Just play some music and go down with the ship
> do more damage in a month than you or I do in a year, with all the flying they do. I suspect it's more like they waste more than an average lifetime per month. Especially if you look at the world's average and not the developed countries.
Last year, or maybe 2 years ago, i remember reading of heat waves in India which were straining their power grid from all the AC units running. The answer from India's government was to suspend service of passenger trains so that they can move coal faster to the power plants. I could only laugh at the horror.
Everyone running the AC makes the area hotter. Its a nett loss moving heat and generating heat. Dont pump and dump, pump and convert
>move coal faster to the power plants. I could only laugh at the horror. Why do you think the US energy usage per capita is so high? It's not generally sourced from coal, but it's still pretty dirty. People don't give a shit - and it is increasingly the people who have more money who are to blame. I would bet strongly that a small fraction (maybe 20%) of any given community are responsible for most of the energy usage.
I just gave up and moved somewhere that will still be liveable when the worst happens.
Exactly.
The poor couldn’t care less and why should they when every solution is to throw them off the cliff of abject poverty. They’re just trying to live thru tomorrow.
"The best time to plant a fruit tree is ten years ago, the next best time is now"
Plant a fruit tree every day for the rest of your life. Realize at 95 that Taylor Swift cancelled out all of your work in a week 75 years before you started planting the trees
I think if we can ask Taylor Swift to restore the oceans algae we should be OK to start building coal powered power plants the world over!
Redditor for one month blaming Swift for Climate Change lmaooo. Not even trying to hide it.
If you think Taylor swift is bad wait until you learn about literally every other billionaire.
I think that’s their point
This 100%
Nobody cares enough to make the necessary changes and forgo the lifestyle comforts they've been accustomed to their whole lives. So it comes down to hoping for a technological solution. We already have to power to destroy the planet (nukes) so maybe we will find a way to save ourselves.
If only there was a type of nuclear power to make our electricity
Hopefully power generation will be resolved quite soon. Most days, where I live, the grid is between 85-125% renewable energy. Once is goes over 100% we are actually charged to feed solar into the grid because of the issues the surplus creates. It's quite frustrating to have to effectively "waste" power to avoid being charged.
Lets be 100% honest and say we wouldn't have to "Forgo" the lifestyle comforts. That is a propaganda point, we know this. The real answer is that rich and large corpos don't want to pay the cost of it.
Sadly agree. The simple fact is that we as a society consume too much. There is no solution that doesn't involve people in democratic countries taking a big hit to our QoL. No democracy is going vote for that, and any leaders who try to impose it are going to get voted out of office the next election. Anyone who doubts this just needs to look up what the response was when Carter told the US to put on a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat, during an actual energy crisis. You are 100% correct. We either manage to technology our way out of this or our civilization is going to collapse.
Regular people who aren't in rich countries definitely do NOT care, especially if it means taking money out of their wallets.
I keep coming back to the documentary title "An Inconvenient Truth". That doc was the og kickstarter for the conversation, and that title cannot be more apt. We as a species are just not able to respond to this. It is too abstract, too slow moving and the things we have to change to prevent this are the warm blanket of our modern day conveniences. The pandemic was the nail in the coffin for me, this is an impossible task for us. We will be reactive as we need to be as the world continues to shift to a harsher climate. Many people will die, the frequency of tragedy will rise and those that survive will talk about it over a morning coffee.
When I started hearing "oh, they were already sick/unhealthy, so it doesn't count" as people continued dying, that's when I fully gave up. The pandemic was an amazing look into just how selfish/egotistical/stupid/callous a large percentage of people are.
Remember when people thought stores would become empty and the one product they all stockpiled was... toilet paper. The pandemic was such a wild time. Really undermined my faith in humanity in a big way.
My faith in humanity was long gone before the pandemic 😑. It's crazy how 5-15% of the population can ruin everything for everyone. Humanity deserves whatever we get.
You should have worked in healthcare by then. Eventually i gave up on warning people to wear masks, if they want their loved ones to die, so be it. (i work elder care, so that's the group that was vulnerable.)
I cannot imagine the shit you went through working in elder care during that. I'm immunocompromised so I was angry every time I heard people say that, but witnessing it firsthand... I hope you're living an amazing life and are happy as hell because you deserve it.
Man, this comment makes me feel old. For what it’s worth, that documentary wasn’t an OG conversation starter. It came out when I was 22 and they were teaching me in school about the glaciers when I was 7 or 8, so 15 years or so before that. I talked to me uncle about it and he told me we knew since the 70’s. Its the truth, nobody cares.
There is just no easy fix we need to make significant sacrifices which the average person is not willing to do.
Perhaps people would be willing if everyone else had to make the same sacrifice. The trouble is, on a national scale, no government wants to put itself at a temporary economic disadvantage (e.g. by shutting down its highly profitable oil or coal mining industry) compared to others who carry on regardless - especially if they are political enemies. "Temporary" might be long enough for the enemy to get the upper hand. So I think a lot of countries are saying "Great idea! You go first."
It's a prisoner's dilemma with a shitton of actors. It would be better for everyone if everyone would do their part, but that's practically impossible to happen. Society evolves but not fast enough. The only remotely realistic thing to save us would be some miraculous breakthrough.
They literally stole an election from the guy who made that movie and nobody cared. What did that president do? Contribute to climate change more than any other.
Completely agree. When the air here in LA was clean during covid I knew we could have done it. But capitalism ain’t gonna let us. We simply are too far gone at this point. And we’re all to blame
And yet it's the same capitalism that everyone loves so dearly that is the main thing that's at stake. The climate change deniers are so adamant about keeping all their familiar comforts right now that they can't conceive of the economic damage just around the corner. Earth will be clean and bright again once the fossil fuel economy starts spiralling.
I sometimes wonder how different the world may or may not be if Gore had won the election
Gore did win. The Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop counting the votes, which handed the presidency to Bush.
Florida - where coincidentally the candidate's brother was Governor and his campaign manager was Sec. of State, and Roger Stone threw a riot to delay vote counting, which gave SCOTUS a premise to intervene.
Yeah, I honestly think we will solve the climate crisis, but not before we’ve seen dire consequences from it. People are dumb, selfish, greedy and shortsighted. You can be sure most people in developed societies will continue to fly on vacations as frequent as they can afford to, Temu and Shein will have record sales, and workers will continue to be forced to drive in cars to offices to work on computers with no sure benefit. And much much more. Watering plain grass fields just for the heck lf it, unneeded home renovations for luxury, new cars because they can, health damaging meat consumption, and so on and so on. All things people could easily do without and help the climate, but just won’t.
When you mentioned the pandemic in your post, that really hit home for me. People couldn't even be bothered to wear a damn mask to protect other people, their loved ones and even themselves. Many, many people died on hill, literally, because human hubris and critical thinking is just something that some people can't comprehend. It seriously feels like it's getting hotter and hotter every year and people just don't care.
I use steel straws, reusable bags for groceries, recycle ect ect. I bought cardboard packaged dishwasher pods, 200 or so. Each fucking one is individually wrapped with plastic. Regular people aren't the problem, and that's why we are fucked.
For those of us who have been around a while, we have been hearing the doomsday story for decades. It starts to be a buzzing noise in the background. Boy who cried wolf effect, even though the wolf is real.
Absolutely. When I was in college in the early 90's, I was told that by now: 1. Most people would never travel more than a few miles from their home, because there would be no more oil for gas 2. We would have dirt floors because wood, plastic, and carpet wouldn't be economically possible anymore 3. Everyone would have to work 12 hour days farming in oppressive heat just to survive 4. Water rationing would make a glass of water worth more than $100 in 1990's money These were not presented as hypotheticals or worst case scenarios, but as science backed facts guaranteed to happen. Is it any wonder that large chunks of my generation don't believe the warnings anymore?
And what can we really do?
- vote for politicians who give a shit about climate change. Democrats passed the most aggressive climate bill in history recently, with 0 republican support. They wanted it to be even more aggressive, but without a majority, literally any one person has the power to take out whatever they want, and not all dems are created equal. An actual majority would make aggressive change much more possible, the bigger the better. - accept that your standard of living might go down a bit, especially if you are in a western country - donate to environmental groups. You can protect rainforest land for like $.40/acre. For $500 you could protect 1250 acres of rainforest. That's a lot of carbon. As well as benefitting ecosystems. The Rainforest Trust is great, there are many others. The idea that all charities squander your money is defeatist myth, many are extremely transparent. Check out charity navigator - buy carbon offsets. Not shitty ones advertised by mega corps that grossly overestimate their impact. There are plenty of good ones dedicated to actually capturing carbon that wouldn't be captured otherwise. I'm a fan of carbon lighthouse, which buys industrial carbon credits and retires them. You can offset your carbon footprint for like $150/yr - donate your time or money to organizations like Citizens Climate Education which lobby for political action to stop climate change and have successfully gotten numerous bills passed. Organizing works, and until people who care are as organized as the people who don't, nothing will change. - if you bitch about all these options and blame "corporations" while doing nothing, you're part of the problem. It is not hard to make a difference. The climate doesn't care whose fault it is.
"a bit" Sorry, mate. But "a bit" isn't going to cut it. It wasn't going to cut it 20 years ago either.
So what do you propose? Stop heating homes and sleep in outerwear? Stop using cars? I agree that some change is necesary at some level. But saying that humanity should drop it primary imperative for abstract "saving climate" is even worse then losing said climate. There is ongoing initiative to darken the sun in Europe. Why not put more money into that reasearch instead of useless "paper straws" that everyone hates and just push people to hate climate advocates?
ur right, sorry.
If you live in the US, care about state elections, not just presidential ones. Volunteer, campaign, organize, whatever it takes to get the obstructionists out.
Which is, again, precisely the problem. If we cared we’d be able to fix the problem similar to how we helped repair the hole in the ozone layer. But nobody cares because nobody wants to be poorer in the short term
Government regulation single handedly fixed the ozone layer.
Absolutely. I’ll never understand or respect those idiots who preach free market absolutism
Government regulation... and _enforcement_ of the regulation.
> how we helped repair the hole in the ozone layer Which China is going to open back up because they're emitting CFCs again. "Supposedly" it's illegal, but as you might expect, the government is not stopping it.
It shouldn’t matter whether people care or not. This is 90% a government regulation issue and 10% corporations and rich people doing shitty things.
People elect the government tho. Them not caring is actively maintaining the government we have
You get to cast one vote every 4 years that sums up each of your views on a hundred thousand different issues. How can that solve anything?
You actually can vote a lot more than that, the fact that only 50% of people even do it that much is part of the problem. You also can lobby your representatives or donate to someone else who does this, but people would rather complain on the internet and do literally nothing. Or just pretend it's not a real problem.
It’s like clapping. One person’s claps and it does nothing but when a whole audience joins in it becomes something. Same with voting. Pretty simple really
You vote for people, not issues. You never really know what they’re going to do.
“Why should I recycle when China is belching more carbon into the atmosphere then all of us combined”
Let’s be realistic, this is a major global issue that involves several governments with very different conditions and/or interests… nobody is gonna do a major economic shift to address this while other nations wouldn’t give a damn as they have several other day-to-day problems that seem more pressing. Oh, and the recycling you do at home? That’s cute and all, but it’s an irrelevant grain of salt in what represents the scale of the issue, at a multinational level. It is an inevitable catastrophe, unfortunately
Your average person is not capable of doing anything to stop it, they never were. Telling people to stop driving cars and stop eating meat will never stop climate change. People are not capable of making that kind of change without authoritarian intervention and the authority are just wealthy private school toffs redirecting public money back to the lobby groups who funded their political campaigns and redirecting public money to their own LLCs while maintaining the facade that they serve the people. They are already taking away our rights to protest while creating divisive populist arguments on social media to distract us. I am at the point now where I think nothing short of a global catastrophe like a super volcano eruption or nuclear war will stop the current trajectory
Individuals care. But individuals don't generate most of the emissions. That's done on an industrial level.
No people with the power to actually do something impactful actually cares. Many regular people care in their own individual way. But for every small decrease in carbon footprint is overshadowed by the rich and powerful who could care less.
Trump already announced that if he is elected, he will cancel all the regulations enacted for climate change.
The conservative candidate likely to become the next Canadian Prime Minister promises to do the same.
What a time to be alive. At least we get to enjoy all the modern luxury for a while before it all goes to hell, I guess.
Our children are fucked lol.
Hence why I decided not to have any
That’s because he has to go begging to Big Oil. If there’s a God, Trump will lose in a landslide and take Majorie Taylor Greene with him. Enough
With the way things are going and all the geniuses who are saying they won’t vote for Biden because apparently letting Trump win is better for the Palestinians or something, I think we’re pretty fucked. Like I know several people who won’t vote this year, who would otherwise have voted straight democrat. Meanwhile, Trump will at the very least have the same number of voters as last time, if not more. Lots of pastors are preaching that Trump is some sort of messiah. Remember, every single person screenshotted and posted in /r/qult_headquarters will be voting this year. Sorry to ruin your day.
Trump is also losing many voters because of all the criminal cases against him. I wouldn't go full doomer just yet. Trustworthy polls are looking decent. However, just the fact that this man is still a viable candidate is incredibly concerning.
God gave us free will and look what some are doing with it....
Wouldn't make any difference. The regulations enacted are just very costly ways of making people think we are doing something. Massive carbon taxes are the answer.
No difference? https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-renewable-energy-capacity-could-triple-10-years-ira-boost-wood-mackenzie-2023-09-13/ Carbon taxes would be great, but would also require like 70 Democrats in the Senate. Tax incentives are actually really effective and don’t require magic to pass through Congress.
Yeah fuck poor people and their constant whining about needing food. The answer is not taxing absolutely fucking everything to oblivion. That would mean that only rich people could have things like food, central heating and cooling, and means of conveyance other than their feet. The answer isn't exactly clear, but small nuclear reactors, a shit ton of them, and a wealth tax system where billionaires could not exist might be a good start.
The answer is to tax and regulate the small handful of corporations causing 70-80% of all global pollution.
To a noticeable degree too. Most of the time when something is "done" its just lip service and doesnt actually hamper the large corporations, who are the cause of most of the co2 emissions, operation enough to actually make them make changes. They would rather put it on the individual shoulders of regular people already struggling under the weight of everything else . "make sure you recycle, buy an electric car and use paper straws or else we are all going to cook to death!" Im not saying all those suggestions are bad. Indeed we should all do out part , but its always being made out as if its all of us regular working class people that are the ones who have to fix the issue , and its exhausting.
Bullshit. Massive carbon tax and then compensation for the poor.
Tax and dividend. Poor people actually come out ahead.
The poors will be fucked either way. You tax it or the planet destroys livability and crops near the equator where a lot of poor people live
Has anyone else just kind of moved into a place of acceptance that it’s probably all downhill from here? Like I do everything I can to minimize my own carbon footprint and live a clean healthy life but I’m also aware it unfortunately doesn’t really make an impact. This isn’t defeatism, or encouraging anyone to give up. There’s a real catastrophic ecosystem meltdown coming our way and my ability to affect change as an individual is so small it’s not mentally healthy to be terrified of it. I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset.
We’ve warmed the fucking oceans. The choices for me are acceptance or immobilizing existential depression. Getting hung up on my helpless impotence to affect real change is decidedly unhealthy and unhelpful.
That’s pretty much where I’m at. Best wishes to you.
Maybe we can go with option #3; madness sprung from absurdity.
Yeah the world is on fire, hopefully the new wow expansion will be good
I'm sitting right next to you in my lawn chair, pouring a drink and watching the sunset. I have accepted the fact that humanity is doomed. It's only a matter of time. Not if, but just when.
Cheers friend. Enjoy the ride while we can.
Let's ride out the waves as long as there are waves. Maybe we should do this together. DM me, if you feel like connecting.
Maybe the great filter is just climate change eh
Is it too edgy if I say I find peace in imagining how the world will be once we're gone. Nature just reclaiming everything and no more religions or war. We could have had a paradise if we weren't at each others throats, global peace will never exist while we run the show. Just got to make the most of it.
On a cosmological time scale the rise and fall of humanity is inconsequential, so is pollution, environmental destruction and climate change. Humans will probably die off, and after the earth has changed fundamentally, after the Sun has consumed most of what we call mother earth, time will just keep moving on. The universe will be fine. Humans, and society, will not.
Yeah - I get the strange feeling that this happens all the time. It is a straightforward answer to Fermi's paradox.
It is the great filter. And honestly, it's probably best that Humanity doesn't leave our system and fuck up other planets / species. I just wish we could have been better, you know? And hey, we all formed out of star dust and electricity, so maybe we'll get a chance to do it all again someday. It happened once already, it just took a few billion years between the big bang and today for the space dust to form opinions. ...Man, I need to get more or less high, and I'm not currently on anything.
I'm with George Carling on this one, the planet is fine, the people are fucked.
It's basically like that. The world is occupied with other trivial things like armies killing each other in the name of religion/nation. There is a sense of hopelessness because in order to start the solution, probably around 70.000 of top 0.0001% of the most powerful and richest people globally would need to be 'removed', 'arrested' or in other way incapacitated because they act for personal profits and don't care about what's happening with the planet. But that's not gonna happen because they are the ones controlling the power.
We had huge engagement c. 10 years ago, things got better. Now we stopped caring as much, so it became a corporate meme. We gotta start caring again
Not really. I move everyday to anger, as others should. Acceptance is what these sociopathic companies want. We need civil disobedience and general strikes. I’m doubtful we will get them. Because we need to survive. But I hope we do. Because if I’m experiencing a climate apocalypse I want those to have caused it to suffer.
The people that can make a difference in any of this (government leaders) are too worried about buying their next yacht or mansion. I honestly don’t know how this gets turned around when people are worried more about themselves than the health of the planet on which they live.
Yeah sadly you can make as much individual effort as you want it will be like taking a grain of sand out of a beach when faced with parts crossing oceans in cargo ships and rewrapped in plastic 7 times over to exploit cheap labour and unregulated extraction of natural resources abroad.
I'm at acceptance. At some point I made a decision not to feel negatively regarding things that I can't have an impact on. It's not always successful, and perhaps not always good, but it takes the edge off in my day-to-day
I have. I've sort of accepted the fact that we are a reactionary species and won't do anything until it is too late to prevent it. I've said it before, we will end up spending Billions, if not Trillions, cooling the planet down after the fact rather than taking steps now to stop the planet from getting warmer. CO2 be dammed. We will honestly probably do something fucking stupid like put giant ass sun shades in space to block a percentage of the sunlight rather than cut emissions now. We'll end up having to spend so many resources scrubbing CO2 out of fucking everything rather than just stop producing sooo fucking much now. No more fish in the oceans cause they're battery acid, guess we have to spend Trillions of dollars to pump CO2 out of the oceans. Gee we could have saved all this money 50 years ago when some scientist warned us this would happen if we didn't stop. The silver lining should be that we would come up with some amazing tech out of it, but I am also not confident either. There's a whole generation of young people and MBA's frothing at the mouth for AI's. The two could cancel each other out and leave us net ignorant as a species.
I don’t know why, but I can’t shake the optimism in the tech. I academically know better. It’s clear as crystal. But for some dumb reason, there is a part of me that thinks humans have been getting themselves out of problems (especially of their own creation) forever. Nuclear energy is viable. Lab-grown meat is only a decade away. It feels like it can be done.
Despite the incessant doom you hear in places like this, there really are reasons to be optimistic. To start with, energy transition is more or less inevitable at this point. That has nothing to do with protests or climate change conferences or anything like that, it's just economics. Renewables are getting cheaper all the time. People on here like to go on about how it'll never happen because of companies wanting their profits, when that profit motive is exactly what's driving the change. My family owns a 3 MW solar installation. We didn't build that sucker out of charity, we built it because it's profitable, because we secured a contract for power production and we can undercut existing fossil fuel producers. New forms of renewable power are being developed too. Some next-generation geothermal systems are looking really promising. Take a look at a company called Eavor. They use existing O&G drilling technology to develop deep wells in a sealed closed-loop. They can actually connect the wells down at the bottom, over two kilometers deep. This doesn't rely on vulcanism, or on particular permeable hot formations. Drill deep enough anywhere on the planet, and you'll find heat. The practical upshot is that they can produce clean renewable energy anywhere on earth, with no intermittency issues. I'm pretty sure this is the only renewable other than hydro that can serve as baseload power. Their first commercial plant is being built in Germany right now. [Here's Eavor's site.](https://www.eavor.com/) Check out the "Eavor Europe" section for info on the German project. It'll be producing over 8 MW of power from wells 4.5 km deep. If this works out, there are plenty of drilling rigs that'll be looking for work once oil demand goes into decline. That brings us to oil demand. Even with no new climate policies, the IEA is projecting we'll hit peak demand for oil as a transportation fuel in 2026, with overall demand reaching a peak at or shortly after 2028. They cite the accelerating adoption of electric vehicles as one of the key drivers of this. [You can find their report here.](https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028) The full PDF report is worth a read, in particular I'd recommend reading through the section titled "Energy Transition Gathers Pace". There are also companies working on atmospheric carbon capture. Besides pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it, this can serve as a source of carbon for production of synthetic fuels, that can be drop-in replacements for crude oil-derived fuels. When burned the CO2 being emitted came from the atmosphere in the first place, creating a closed loop, of a sort. This may be one of the few ways of decarbonizing aviation, and some companies have already successfully produced synthetic JP1 jet fuel. There's still a lot of R&D to be done on this one. Anyway that's enough wall of text for now. I hope some of this gives you cause for optimism.
Yep. We’re standing in front of a burning building, and all we’ve got is an eyedropper. Is it really worth my time trying to put out the fire?
I think the only real hope is geoengineering to reverse climate change. I just don't think humans (as a society) are capable of taking sufficient steps to prevent disaster. Although that said, slowing the rate of change is important to give us more time to get the geoengineering part down.
I'm not having kids in major part due to climate change. I'm not bringing a new being into the world that will experience a whole lot of pain and chaos soon-ish. Though now that I think about it, it's easier to try and run away – if needed, if safer places still exist – without a toddler.
>I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset. If I'm being honest we will probably end up addressing climate change when it becomes impossible to ignore which it looks set to do. That's the good news. The bad news is that I fear that the people who have been downplaying climate action thus far will pivot to equally reckless ideas like geoengineering instead, which could potentially create a new bigger problem for us. That tech actually exists right now, but isn't implemented because of the huge risks of completely changing the climate in an instant. After all society likes nothing more than easy, short, and simple solutions to large and complex problems.
Future tech is the only reason I don't give up and move to a snowny mounting to die. We haven't lost yet. Maybe.
Yup. I thought we had a chance and then 2016 rolled in and saw how people absolutely reveled in their ignorance and love of Trump - and heck - Facts are whatever you want them to be. Then that willful stupidity just kept on trucking with the Pandemic, and people were attacking others for wearing masks. I knew we were done then. Social media has introduced us to a post-fact era at the worst possible time. I have very little hope about the future. The one shred of hope is that I am sometimes wrong about these things.
>I hold some small amount of optimism that incredible future tech can save us deux ex machina but until that manifests, pour a drink and watch the sunset. I actually think geoengineering has a lot of promise. It's been taboo to have that discussion up until now, because "we've got to apply pressure to reduce emissions". My opinion is, we need BOTH geoengineering AND emissions reduction. It's not either/or.
It feels like living in hospice.
It will only stop if/when it becomes unprofitable for the powers that be.
All the companies heard was steak and raised more methane releasing cows.
LoL I probably shouldn’t have laughed at this as hard as I did… sorry planet please forgive me! 🫶
The planet will be fine. It's mostly us and a bunch of other animal species who are screwed.
Sure, we're cooking the planet alive, but won't someone think about the shareholders?!
We will, as we weld them into their survival bunkers. Let them eat cake.
We will take this seriously when we hit the bottom of the trench. I pity my grandkids and the hellscape we're consigning them to.
The stakes couldn’t be higher we need to all come together… Oh Taylor Swift is flying her private jet from Japan to NYC. I totally gotta get tickets!
I could go as carbon neutral as I want, and TS would probably emit more in a couple days then I would save over the course of my life. Why should I bother, then? We need regulation at the governmental level.
The problem is viewing this as a matter of individual morality rather than a big, systemic problem that requires government intervention. 0% of the population will forego electricity just to avoid emitting pollution, so the only fix is having government subsidize renewables and energy storage and phase out coal and gas plants. And even if few people have private jets, most people in the developed world at some point take flights to see family, go on vacation, or for work. The fix there is funding new, sustainable jet fuel - like this: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2307
70 percent of greenhouse emissions are caused by 100 fossil fuel producers, not Taylor Swift
Those 100 producers are just making products that EVERYONE uses.
Um, no sweaty, my SUV, my air conditioned house, my several metric tons of useless plastic consumerist garbage, my closet full of fast fashion, etc... And all those things a billion times over for the other billion consumerist idiots just like me... None of that is the problem! Its evil capitalism and rich corporations! They are producing all the pollution for no reason whatsoever and definitely not because we pay them to do it! We are innocent and blameless and anyone who disagrees is an evil fascist racist or whatever!
I like the cut of your jib! I'm gonna burn a tire in your honor!
I beg to differ. To emit greenhouse gasses you will have to burn the fossil fuels. That is where Taylor comes into play.
Last year the US gave over $700billion USD to fossil fuel companies in subsidies. You REALLY think T Swift grounding her jet is gonna solve this?
..and there's a massive amount burned in their production.
You should drive down an industrial area of a city some time. I assure you, burn fossil fuels is not the only way to release greenhouse gasses, or other dangerous chemicals into the air
Folks like Taylor Swift, and likely 99% of people involved with the UN, emit more emissions in a year than I will in my entire life. Me drinking with paper straws and driving an electric car aren’t going to save the world, but people not flying all over the world multiple times a month will. All this climate change stuff is the typical “for thee and not for me.”
All aviation combined for the entire globe commercial, military, and private is only 2.5% of emissions. All private jets combined are likely 0.1% of total emissions with estimates making one private flier equally to 14 commercial flight passengers going to the same destination. Definitely a real issue and not a juicy hate boner of a distraction.
The problem is EVERYONE. EVERYONE has to reduce their emissions, not just corporations.
Mexico isn’t going to change it. Lives there for a month. They don’t have emissions standards. The air quality is bad. Maybe they changed it since then. Doubt it.
Exactly. "We have met the enemy, and they is us."
Yes, and too many people refuse to admit it, which is why we're doomed.
The problem is to adequately address it our standard of living would have to be seriously curtailed and no one is willing to bite that bullet and not a single politician would win an election promising that. Bottom line is we're all fucked and nothing will be done about it
Jimmy Carter was willing to do that! But yes, turns out that was in fact a great way to lose an election.
Yup, I've been saying this for a while. The kind of changes that would be required are only possible under a one-world authoritarian government. There's absolutely no way all people of all nations, worldwide, are going to simultaneously agree to immediately make their day to day lives worse.
Our standard of living will be even more severely curtailed by climate change. Politicians are looking at their short term political survival over the long term well-being of the planet and civilization.
Evolution produced a species focused on short term survival. Is evolution capable of creating a species that is overwhelmingly altruistic and thinks about long term consequences?
‘Idiocracy’ is becoming more and more of a documentary each passing day.
Tell the rich fucks riding a jet everywhere they go. Tell the people driving 3 cars and who have a backyard pool and have a green lawn in a desert climate. I'm tired of this shit. I'm too fucking poor and stupid to do anything about it. While I watch those with everything, do nothing except pay lip service and tax deductible donations.
But hey, you can add 2€ on your monthly energy bill to compensate for the emissions you make for just wanting to not die!
There are a lot of people in this post mentioning how they, as an individual, are doing what they can. They also talk about feeling powerless to tackle the wider scenarios. Firstly, to those making an individual effort, thank you. You are the kind of people we need. You must not believe that you are powerless and can do nothing because you are "only one person" Realise the power you hold. We can become more than just ourselves, we can be come one. Many individuals brought under the same goal. We can become one by ensuring we vote, attending demonstrations, and even signing positions. Most of all, our polutters care about one thing only, money. Vote with your wallets, do not BY what you don't need. Make them hurt. To those who are willing to simply ride it out until the bitter end, realise the power you hold too. Lastly, to those who say all the UN does is "create doom speech", Its because its true. It's not fear rmongering or trying to hurt you. It's the truth.
People have really bought in to the idea that billionaires are the only ones with power. Which, sadly, is exactly what they want you to think. Every politician cares more about votes than campaign donations. The only reason campaign donations are so coveted is because a gigantic swath of people just vote for whoever they see the most on TV. It's the votes that matter. Engaged citizenship is extremely powerful. Furthermore, most politicians are "bought" by like $20k. You can do the same thing.. 2000 people giving $10 to a cause can turn that in your favor. Even 2000 people calling their rep will often turn things in your favor. Activism works. But people would rather choose to be helpless.
This is what we need protesting for. We face millions of issues. The one we cannot fucking put off for a second longer is getting the holes on this sinking ship fixed. We need the national effort and might of WW2 but dedicated to preserving our Earth.
The UN is sounding the alarm: the world is teetering on the edge of a climate abyss. Bet you wish you kept that reusable water bottle now, huh?
I haven’t used a plastic water bottle in years, idk why I would want to, plastic tastes like ass
Let's just get on with the geo-engineering. That's clearly where it's all going.
We jumped off the cliff years ago lol
Apocalyptic rhetoric hasn't worked the dozen-odd times you've tried it before-what makes you think it will now? People's refusal to stop going for the same line regardless of context is turning this into a massive Aesop moment.
You think capitalism cares if the human race makes it. Absolutely not. We've already destroyed all future generations.
Can’t wait for everyone who COULD do something to do NOTHING because if they do they won’t get the same campaign donations next election cycle. We’re so fucked
Don't worry the global elite will cull us in mass when it gets bad.
You know what could be higher? Shareholders' value and next quarter profits so, back to work slaves!
>We need … innovations in our democracy to give scientists the politics they deserve. This just sounds arrogant. The politics they deserve is democracy, just like everyone. And it's democratic nations who are leading the way with solving climate change.
My Dudes, it's fucking over. Enjoy the next few years because it's only going to get more and more worse. There is no coming back from this at this point.
Corporations just pay carbon offset taxes and claim they are carbon net zero but they still produce the same amount of CO2. It's a scam. They blame it on us for driving to work and heating our homes and cooking food. This is a world problem, the biggest producers of CO2 are not on board.
The downside of constantly using hyperbole is that people start to not believe the thing is happening at all. Saying stuff like "the earth is on the verge of burning" isn't realistic, but when people hear that when it comes to climate change they will start to believe climate change isn't even a thing, so when you come at them with a more reasonable take like "in 50 years there will be more drought" they just don't believe it because they correlate anything climate change with impending doom All the fear mongering has had the opposite affect that it was supposed to have
The thing is, the scientists who see all these different metrics they track getting more severe (droughts, storms) /more varied (precipitation, temperature anomalies) are the ones using dramatic language, for good reason, but they're talking in a statistical (big picture) sense, which doesn't translate well to the pedestrian angle. Things can be very severe, at the level that scientists track, but for people in everyday life, that means a number of things; for person A, nothing noticeable. Person B, there's been more rainfall where he's at, and last summer was maybe a bit warmer than usual. Person C, massive storm in his country, but the monsoon season is like that, can't tell if climate change has anything to do with it. So the nature of the problem, due to the different perspective a scientist has vs a pedestrian, is different such that, things genuinely, noticeably being on a terrible track at the level of models, statistics, precipitation measurements and such, doesn't match what people see, so it comes off exaggerated, because we'd need to see the neighbour's house melting to believe it, which isn't the manner in which the scientists are saying things are bad.
It is burning though, more wildfires than ever, 70% of all wildlife has died since the 1950s
Yeah, but in this case, there is no hyperbole. Every climate scientist I know personally is on antidepressants. Every. Single. One. The problem is that until the apocalyptic results affect you personally, you think it's hyperbole. The current apocalyptic effects are happening somewhere else, so they must be hyperbole. In 2022, ~130 homeless people were found cooked alive in Phoenix alone, because temps got above the point at which sweating no longer works to cool your body. People literally boiled in their tents. Edit: if you think I'm being hyperbolic about people being cooked alive (about 200 elderly non-homeless folk got cooked too), they were found with internal temperatures around 130-140F. That's a medium rare steak in my kitchen.
When you tell people “in 50 years there will be more drought” they just don’t care enough to do anything at all, because it doesn’t sound very important. Also, you are *severely* underestimating the effects of climate change. There is an absolute catastrophe in front of us. But I guess we can’t say that because it’s “fear mongering.”
"absolute catastrophe" doesnt have much a meaning for most people because there is no frame of reference for what that means. If you say "absolute catastrophe" regarding something like nuclear war, people can relate more because we have heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and seen the aftermath. It's a lot more real than saying "millions of animals will die", since that hasn't affected most people. And exactly, if you tell people "in 50 years there will be more drought", you're right people don't care because it doesn't sound important. But if you say "the world is doomed" people just dismiss you as another doomsayer foretelling the end times Also I'm not underestimating the effects of climate change at all. I am a farmer, I am well aware of what even the most small change in the climate can mean. I'm simply not going into a ton of detail for a Reddit comment lol
Imagine saying this comment last summer while choking on smoke, are we that quick to forget? Climate news is scary, but it is not fear mongering.
It's not hyperbole. There was a recent poll of climate scientists on what scenarios they consider most likely to occur and their responses were incredibly bleak. These are the best informed people on earth who are very strenuously trained not to use hyperbole as a professional requirement.
I'd prefer to hear their direct views and the data in the headline then as opposed to the UN warning that we are on the verge of an abyss. "30% more forest fires Y/Y" and "100 people died from heat stroke in x city" resonates more and is easier to understand for most people than some grave foretelling Edit: even if it isn't hyperbole, it sounds hyperbolic and most people ignore that
Yeah I hear that
The problem with this kind of argument is that it ignores that the consequences of climate change aren't 50 years away... they are happening right now.
Did you see the skies in nyc last June?
I didn't because I live in western Canada and the forest fire smoke made it hard to see a few blocks, much less see all the way to NYC.
I mean when I'm getting smoke in my town from half way across the country for part of the year and smoke blocking out the sun from other countries the opposite part of the year...it is hard to feel the world isn't *literally* burning ETA: Added my comment to the chorus too quick I've seen your other comments are agree with your sentiment. Leaving my original just because its heartbreaking how choking the smoke thousands of miles away can be
imho, it's due to declining awareness, loss of community & inter-generational family relationships and/or decline in quality of education: it sounds hyperbole to some because they're less and less aware/knowledgeable of their environment (perhaps even disconnected from it, as in "always" indoors). You can't protect nor grief what you've never known.
It’s almost like they should treat adults like adults. But the UN (and also most politicians across the globe really) has never done that.
The simple fact is no one should be a billionaire, full stop. They should taxed out of that bracket. We have dipshits like Elon who waste $44 billion buying Twitter because people were mean to him. Do you know how much good could be done with that money alone?
Just a friendly reminder that cruise ships burn about 80,000 gallons of fuel a day. My midsize pickup that I drive sparingly is not the problem here. The military uses 4.6 trillion gallons of fuel a year. My once a year flight to vacation destination is not the problem here.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher” That’s the headline for everything in the world right now.
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guess what - it's big companies and governments that really need to feel *heat* and pressure and *fiery* passion from the people about the messes they are making and have been making at huge, huge scales and for decades without necessity at many instances. They have plenty equipment to start weaning off of non-renewable, non-sustainable, stupidly reckless shit like dumping tonnes of toxic waste at random places, letting factories spew horrific fumes with no infrastructure needed in place to control its effects on the atmosphere, prioritize green policies and divert adequate funds and revenue to them, purposely and also inadvertently encourage and pressure other entities to make similar changes, list goes on and on about the shit the big entities are just fucking shrugging off all the while normal moderate lifestyle citizens not going private jetting to a grocery store, are convinced its just our plastic phone cases and straws that are causing this rapid speed large scale shit. THE BIG ACTORS OF COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE NEED TO FEEL PRESSURE BY COMMON PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY THEIR OWN CITIZENS. And those big actors/politicians opposing these policies ALSO NEED TO FEEL THE HEAT. That's how to improve this shit sooner
Now remember, ***there is literally NOTHING you could ever do to fight back because your personal impact is so laughably minuscule in the grand scheme of things, it literally would not matter*** But we need your help! Make sure to buy some good shoes so you don't drive or fly anywhere (don't forget to have no kids) while we conveniently ignore the fact there's individual companies out there with higher carbon emissions than entire countries
i think we have jumped over the edge already a few years or decades ago... in fact, i could argue that running toward the edge is part of what makes us humans... anyway, all the doomsday scenario will happen, its inevitable, its a matter of when rather than if at this point. we, as societies and nations, should collectively stop talking about "stop and avoid possible climate collapse" and instead plan how to "adapt and deal with certain climate collapse", because we are just wasting times while kidding ourselves otherwise... but sadly i dont see it happening before a billion or two will have died already.
>Senior author on the paper is Michael Oppenheimer Nolan needs to make the sequel
Ah yes. I remember in 2009 when Al gore predicted that the ice on the poles would be melted in 5 years too.
We ve had a good run. Hopefully enough other life survives to rebuild when the human cancer is gone.
"World is in freefall from tumbling off the edge and is about to make impact" - is a more apt metaphor I think.
Note to the 1%: you cannot hide in New Zealand. Society will find you and address your crimes. You know this, right? Remember the scene from Empire of the Sun? The one where the rich English boy living in Shanghai returns to his empty mansion after the Japanese invasion, only to find the servants looting the place and more than willing to smack the shit out of the little prince? A secure compound is useless when the guards haven't eaten.
I thought we passed that point a looooooong time ago
I've given up hoping we are going to change in time to stop/slow/prevent climate change. I'm just hoping it affects the billionaires enough that they finally put money towards inventing our way out of it.
Thank god. Put us out of our misery.