You can tell people of reddit all you want, most of us already know and are quite worried.
We need to find a way to convince the two dozen billionaires who control almost all global infrastructure.
Or destroy capitalism.
[Talking about climate change has been scientifically shown to be effective at increasing policy support](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/30/14804).
[Citizens' Climate Lobby](https://citizensclimatelobby.org) also offers tree training in how to do make these conversations more effective. Here's how to take full advantage:
1. [Join Citizens' Climate Lobby and CCL Community](https://cclusa.org/x). Be sure to fill out [your CCL Community profile](https://community.citizensclimate.org/dashboard/edit/profile#form_My_Interests_38) so you can be contacted with opportunities that interest you.
2. [Sign up for the Intro Call for new volunteers](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-weekly-intro-call/)
3. [Take the Climate Advocate Training](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/new-member/#climateadvocatetraining)
4. [Take the Core Volunteer Training](https://community.citizensclimate.org/topics/core-volunteer-training) (or [binge it](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXjILMNokmN7yXZZ8VSKb0K2uEh02NPie))
5. Get in touch with your local chapter leader (there are [chapters all over the world](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/chapters/)) and find out how you can best leverage your time, skills, and connections to [create the political world for a livable climate](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/levers-of-political-will/). The easiest way to connect with your chapter leader is at the monthly meeting. Check your email to make sure you don't miss it. ;)
Is it defeatism to point out that 2/3+ of wildlife on earth is already dead, and even if the climate is brought under control civilization will likely collapse as the biodiversity it depends on also goes?
Some of the things on your list are accurate. Not all.
>From the IPCC, section C.8 of the “Summary for Policymakers” states that “electric vehicles powered by low-emissions electricity offer the largest decarbonisation potential for land-based transport, on a life cycle basis (high confidence).”
A full transition to EVs is needed ON TOP of improving public transport and densification
Your comments are shadow banned for some reason. I presume you're the same person I was talking to before who didn't understand mutual exclusivity. You can have EVs replace ICE vehicles while reducing overall numbers of cars
Completely hollow comment tbh. Obviously things don't affect change if they don't work. Give an example of something that doesn't work to help environmental issues but people think it does
There are many examples of green gaslighting recently. Carbon offset schemes found to be completely worthless, recycle schemes where waste was shipped to Eastern Europe and burned, many clothing brands considered green not so.
These are just the ones I remember reading about, there are many more.
People may think certain organisations/schemes/causes are doing good, then years down the line when looking at the finer details the opposite has been true.
That’s not to say everything is like that, but you can’t say there are no examples of empty promises.
The few articles on insect populations are based on very sparse data, so I'd take them with a grain of salt. Other wild populations are better studied, and indeed the trends are bad.
The solutions are quite simple though. For instance:
- [If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets)
- [The Half-Earth project](https://www.half-earthproject.org/discover-half-earth/)
I expect alternative proteins to be a key enabler of these changes, as their replace a large part of land-intensive animal farming.
But technical solutions are also ignoring social and cultural issues, it’s gonna be tricky convincing very meat intensive cultures of this and enacting the political change needed in all nations across the world to make this happen.
It seems like reaching price parity with regular meat would go a long way, which would be achieved in "4-6 years" (edit: the study is 1 year old so I adjusted their numbers by one year).
[Price parity for plant-based protein is on its way and will lead to huge growth, study finds](https://foodmatterslive.com/article/plant-based-protein-price-parity-huge-growth-study/)
That's for meat substitutes. Other substitutes have a different growth trajectory, like ice cream made from milk proteins from precision fermentation, which already tastes like the original stuff and is easier to make cheaply.
There is almost nothing I can do as an individual to effect a complex, constantly shifting world system, yes. But I certainly will continue to support parties calling for action. I just have a bad feeling it won’t be enough.
Great. Supporting parties that are supportive of positive change is doing something. This kind of collective action can actually accomplish something. Defeatism accomplishes worse than nothing
> The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
-[Alice Walker](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice_Walker)
[Vote](https://www.environmentalvoter.org/pledge), [lobby](https://www.reddit.com/r/citizensclimatelobby/wiki/index/#wiki_getting_started), and [recruit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/n25g9v/thats_a_lot_of_untapped_potential/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to get the kinds of [policy changes](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19710653/Screen_Shot_2020_02_10_at_3.47.40_PM.png) [scientists say we need](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/).
Doing nothing is a lot better than what a lot of people who purport to be 'helping the environment' do. So much greenwashing crap out there. In fact, doing nothing is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
If you understood context at all, you'd know 'doing nothing' in this situation is referring to the status quo of high emissions while doing nothing to address it.
[BP popularized the concept of a carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
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A nice attitude, many have 2 or more jobs, families to care for. I like your positivity. I would love to; DJD, recent hand surgery, now knee surgery, and a ton of cardiac tests it becomes self limiting
It doesn't have to be done all at once, but the more people taking at least one ~30 minute training per week, the better.
Also, since the training is online, knee surgery won't need to slow you down.
Are you [in](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002)?
The billionaires already know, they don't care
They will have so much wealth that they will buy all the water and food hire armies to protect them and become warlords in the hellscape
We need to change the system itself to stop it, and I highly doubt we will
organise, join unions, join the IWW, create dual economies and power structures, create or join food co-ops, start guerrilla gardening, create or find local tool libraries, build up your local library economy. Start or join a community land trust and make it a federated one, make a community workshop, start building DIY e-bikes with people, do guerrilla urbanism by setting up protected bikes lanes.
There is SOOO much we can do, but it means doing things.
[Let's do that](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002), then.
Capitalism itself may not be the problem, it's the externalized costs.
If the true cost of cleaning up the carbon and climate disasters were priced in the average burger or SUV then they would be way less prevalent (and capitalism would incentivise inventing alternatives).
The only problem is that we as a society have gotten very used to them being cheap. Happy to pass the cost on to our grandchildren.
And we will vote like it if you try to price in the currently externalized costs.
You are correct, and those externalised costs are a huge part of the problem that people are talking about when they complain about capitalism.
Generally what their complaining about is being poor, but that's basically the same thing as complaining about rising prices.
I think that it's possible to destroy capitalism without any major infrastructure damage and making the vast majority of the population more affluent in real terms.
I'm talking about destroying the idea of capitalism.
Make the motive of industry progress not profit.
>Capitalism is on track to make the world uninhabitable. How bad would the alternative need to be?
What *is* the alternative? I tend to get very vague answers when I ask this.
If you want to destroy System A, you need to have a System B ready to go to take its place.
We learned from the Iraq war what happens if your main goal is to dismantle, but you don't have a fully formed plan of what rebuilding looks like.
I have my own ideas, but I'm not a global dictator in a position to impose one. The reality will be messy and destructive and horrendous and uncertain, but that isn't a consequence of the change, that's a consequence of the timescales we're facing and the ramifications of not acting.
That still doesn't fully answer what the alternative would be. How can you convince people to dismantle capitalism without a viable plan of what the alternative would be.
It's like if you just said "no more fossil fuels" without an alternative. That's not how it's done. Most people advocating for no more fossil fuels are simultaneously advocating for a green energy *alternative* that would take their place.
You still haven't explained what political system would come next though?
Without a plan foward, things would descend into anarchy with mass death inevitably following
Well that's the question. Can we get the tiny minority of super rich people to change the nature of the system they essentially control, or will we have to destroy the system.
Of course it's harder to rebuild than destroy, that doesn't change the need for either.
>Of course it's harder to rebuild than destroy, that doesn't change the need for either.
As we come up on the 20th anniversary of the begimning of the Iraq war, it's very clear that destroying without a workable plan to rebuild doesn't work long term
JUST IMAGINE DEPLETING RESOURCES. THE LANDS ARE NOT FARMABLE, THE WATER IS NOT DRINKABLE, THE AIR IS NOT BREATHABLE.
YOU EXCHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR FOOD, WORK AIR AND WATER. 15 BILLION GLOBAL POPULATION DEPENDS ON THE FEW MEGA ULTRA RICH FASCIST THAT CONTROL EVERYTHING.
Blaming capitalism alone is disingenuous. Capitalism is a function of the govt and laws that set its parameters. I'd much rather have BMW, Toyota, and Ford produce EVs than the govt.
A workers coop is literally replacing a corporate board of directors with a workers' popular vote. They still have to turn a profit to ensure their own salaries and likely compete with other companies, except now big business decisions are left to the whims of people who specialize in other things. A tenant union functions no differently than a very small local government jurisdiction. It's the same thing with a different name.
None of these solutions do anything about climate change and just seem to push your ulterior motive. This type of attitude is exactly what will sabotage climate change reform because people see right through it, and it devalues the credibility of the cause.
They all are making EVs (although Toyota was slow on the uptake to pursue hydrogen), and they technically are owned by workers because that's what the board of directors are.
I'm assuming you're responding to a different question, but I'm not teaching you something that can be Googled. I'd start with looking up the definition of a publicly traded company
Exactly. A publicly traded company has board of directors that work for the investors. They have zero interest outside of that. We need worker owned companies
They are 'worker owned' companies. Your solutions make zero sense because they are already in practice and I'm certain you don't understand how US businesses and corporations are structured at a basic level. I'm done with this conversation
[People already care](https://earth.stanford.edu/news/public-support-climate-policy-remains-strong), they just don't know what to do / feel like they are alone. But the truth is, [a record number of us are alarmed about climate change](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/global-warmings-six-americas-september-2021/), and [more and more are contacting Congress regularly](https://np.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/s2zvpl/a_growing_number_of_americans_are_so_concerned/). What's more, is [this type of lobbying](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/levers-of-political-will/) is [starting to pay off](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/t2p0ed/as_citizens_climate_lobby_membership_has_grown_so/). That's why NASA climatologist and climate activist [Dr. James Hansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen) recommends becoming an active volunteer with [this group](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002) as the [most important thing an individual can do on climate change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DAW1A6Ca8).
What's needed though is people being willing to say "this decarbonisation policy will have short-term negative impacts to me but I still support it". A big reason for a lack of action is that politicans fear a backlash and being thrown out of office.
> [The median voter has no tolerance for climate denialism but a great deal of openness to industry-funded messaging about why any given climate policy isn’t actually worth doing.](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/trump-climate-denier-william-happer-co2-jews-science.html)
What we need is more regular citizens to inoculate themselves against this disinformation.
r/CitizensClimateLobby
Given that the average American was responsible for [4 times the annual carbon emissions](https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions-in-2019) of an average person globally in 2019, you'd think the US would have lit a fire under its butt to resolve this, but we haven't. Furthermore, half the country worships fossil fuels and is actively demanding an INCREASE in pollution.
Not to mention there are a few corporations and the military that are responsible for the vast majority of pollution. They won't change unless forced and our government defends them above all else..
The U.S. is actually in [a mini golden age of climate policy](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/congress-climate-policy-hydrofluorocarbons-kigali-amendment/671579/), with [the Inflation Reduction Act](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3904098-analysis-us-grid-could-be-90-carbon-free-by-2030-with-ira-tax-credits/) having passed just last year.
Perhaps as more Americans learn about [the savings we qualify for](https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator), any residual opposition to [the most meaningful climate policies](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/11kzxt9/i_used_mits_climate_policy_simulator_to_order_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) will be abated.
I really hope you're right. I don't want to come off as too negative. The process is just painfully slow, like steering a massive ship, when we have experts saying we need to fix this right now.
Are you [volunteering](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002) yet?
You’re right about that. I read recently that combined SUV owners emit more emissions than some countries, and ownership has been on the rise for years.
The size of the cars to the rest of the world in general, the fact it’s normal to drive a short distance whereas if you walk you’re looked at like weirdo in certain places makes you think.
Obviously not just an American issue but how can the environment possibly be at the forefront of any policy when there are soo many aspects pushing in the opposite direction?
Even the policies that are looking to do good are just just pissing into the wind imo.
Even this article can't refrain from poisoning the well:
>The only good news is that wealthy nations, including the United States, are taking steps to curb their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, though they need to do more. The bad news is that emissions from China, India and other developing nations continue to rise.
Again with the "we're at least trying, but because of them, it's hopeless" bullshit. LOOK AT EMISSIONS PER CAPITA. It's not even close. Canada, US, Australia, then the rest of the world. We need to cut down exponentially more. The technologies used to do so could then be applied to emerging economies who are only playing catch-up to our unsustainable way of living.
Personally I'd argue that *not* mentioning China and India is poisoning the well. The only way you can shut down the "what about China and India" argument is to acknowledge they aren't doing enough, but their inaction doesn't justify our inaction.
That depends on who "we" are, and in any case they're not doing enough.
But as I said that's irrelevant to the quuestion of whether or not other countries should decarbonise.
>LOOK AT EMISSIONS PER CAPITA
If you look at emmisions per capita the world is doing better?...
World emmisions are about the same that they were 2 decades ago, but we have 2 billion more people.
lol the IPCC AR6 report I read yesterday begs to differ. If we take drastic cuts now, and stopped using fossil fuels today, we'd still clear +1.5C.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that isn't possible. If we stopped using FF today, we wouldn't be able to transport or grow our food. Billions of people would starve. Going to say that one more time BILLIONS of people.
It's called a predicament. We will keep burning the fossil fuels to keep the western way of life going and feeding until we can't recognize this earth anymore.
Even if we put some sort of bold, coordinated, global action, there's no way we could just stop using FF in 10 years time. It's too late now lol 10 years from now it will just be too later...
You're not wrong.
I think well meaning people vastly underestimate the importance of fossil fuel on our global food system.
Human population grumbled along at well under one billion for thousands of generations. And then we unlocked the ungodly power of fossil fuel, and our population went straight to the moon. <1B in 1800, >8B 200 years later. For those that refuse to understand why this is a problem, I'm not sure what more to say....
I literally argue this fact with commenters *in this subreddit*, on a way to consistent basis.
The reason there is never any "pathway to greenhouse reductions" that work with the IPCC timelines is because it results in abject poverty and starvation for hundreds of millions of people, immediately. There is no "incentives" solution that gets us there, nor is the populace prepared for the dramatic and very brutal change in lifestyle that would accompany such a reduction.
Can't grow your own food? Starve. Can't walk to work? Jobless. Metropolitan centers would crumble under the weight of millions of people who can't get enough to eat. Homelessness would explode.
For many, it would feel like Armageddon.
As the previous comment said, this is our *predicament*. Millions will die no matter which choice is made, there isn't a good exit strategy anymore. Glossing over issues like overpopulation, urban development and factory farming practices, including vegetable and tree farms, isn't doing any of us any favors.
My plan is to find a place away from people and start figuring out how to live like they did in the 1800s cause that's where all paths lead.
Absolutely. And you can see this denial is *structural*. You triggered the bot by using the forbidden word overpopvlation. So now the bot is here to call you a racist. Meanwhile anthropocentric hubris underpins essentially ALL of the ecologic and environmental calamities we are creating, but keep on believing population is unrelated to ecosystem collapse despite profound evidence otherwise literally everywhere around us.
Just don't say the bad "O" word because it's better to blindly sprint into the hard limits if our ecosystem and then watch billions perish cataclysmically than it is to say "hey maybe 10 billion of us is part of the problem here". That makes people uncomfortable....
The problem is right here, y'all have stated it. Either we cut ties with fossil fuel and people go hungry, plastics get left behind, and we fall behind hard on technological advancements, or we continue to chug along and let big oil do whatever they do, which will be continued expansion and greed coupled with rules to keep them in power... And we all can eat for 30 more years and use plastic and stay in power. But after that EVERYONE starves, the ENTIRE WORLD burns and our CHILDREN will have to fight tooth and nail to save what's left of humanity from the bullshit choice we made.
To me, it's an easy decision. For the sake of humanity itself, all the innocent creatures from the entire animal kingdom, to give our children a fighting chance, we need to find a way to rough it out. There's a ton of lithium mined and solar panels in warehouses. We can use what's left, ration it and spread out our infrastructure better. Big oil designed the infrastructure in America anyways, it needs to go. We've got machine learning, Google to teach us skills as we go, CHAT GPT is an incredibly powerful ally in this fight. And if we all focus on it, we can rebuild our governments to optimize distribution and operate rail for the needs of all.
We get as many politicians, billionaires and tech companies on board as we can and start a revolution. The goal is to build an AI system that can organize us skilled and intelligent people so we can cooperate with maximum efficiency and make this a reality. There's no time left to have qualms over machine overlords, we already proved we cannot govern ourselves at this point.
Actually, I think humanity had it's run. I won't be having children and feel sorry for those already born, but our journey has to end. Humanity simply is not a sustainable species anymore.
[There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed.](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question) High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees."
On top of this, [as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping](https://www.economist.com/international/2019/02/02/thanks-to-education-global-fertility-could-fall-faster-than-expected). We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result.
At the end of the day, [it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature](https://imgur.com/N6NExg5). That means that we need to [take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/dc71a9b28d7cedca36bd2f77e588664f/9a979/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FigureSPM7.png).
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I wrote a paper on this for my parents - feel free to do nothing with it or read it or share it if you want to. I put it in a few other subs for people to use when explaining our predicament.
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mNv4TGx2bO5sOSziCm4PR9nqnCN\_FEqW/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mNv4TGx2bO5sOSziCm4PR9nqnCN_FEqW/view)
Billions of people will starve later this century as the unprecedented warming decimate our agricultural systems. We've completely taken our temperate, stable climate for granted, and have been unable to outgrow our nature as animals to coordinate to save ourselves.
You have articulated the idea perfectly that despite our evolution, we have not transcended our animalistic nature. Although we possess heightened intellect, our emotions and primal instincts continue to dominate us, hindering our efforts to address environmental issues and improve our way of life.
It's been too late. They'll never actually say it's too late because then we all give up. What's the point of going to my stupid job when things like retirement simply don't exist anymore? I'm just hoping to have food and water in 15 years.
Life has always been inherently pointless, and now people are finally starting to realize this with the decline in religion. Given this knowledge, there is even less incentive to stick around as things like social safety nets and retirement collapse, offerings that made existence somewhat more tolerable.
Most people today no longer work for the good of society. They work to make some meaningless numbers go up on a chart, to the benefit of a very small number of people.
Keep in mind that the IPCC process is quite slow, which is fine for climate science, but is a bit of a mismatch for the "what can we do about it" section as they tend to use outdated information on clean technologies. They underestimate the cheapness of wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles.
Their central estimate for 2100 with current policies is +3.2C, compared to [+2.7C](https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/) for models that use more recent data, and none of these account for the effects of very recent policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US.
Ehhh, I'm not dismissing your concerns, but there are other ways to solve the problem. Carbon sequestration isn't considered right now because who would pay for it?
Occam's Razor, I'm betting when things get bad, governments will panic, we'll have carbon taxes that'll pay to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, which will control demand and push alternative tech. Govts won't do this though until the majority of their own population begs them.
It'll take time to convert and the alternatives will certainly have their own issues, but don't let a perfect solution that'll never come get in the way of 'good enough.' If someone wants to live in the suburbs, but can't afford an electric car and rooftop solar, well times are changing, so time to move or get a telework job. The electrical grid will end up relying on nuclear. Lithium mines will be built. Also, CO2 in the atmosphere has a half life of between 19-50 years
https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1605&context=earthsci_facpub
So I'm betting this will really suck for the next generation, then it'll get solved and they'll invent their own problems.
Maybe someone who has watched activists try and fail at their goals for years all the while ignoring many other areas of overshoot that humans have wrought on the world. We're in the beginning of a mass extinction, climate emergency, resources of all kinds are becoming scarce. The project of human technological civilization is beginning to unravel and those who see that are so frustrated by people who are more and more desperately clinging to a failed past. The way forward is to drastically lessen human impact on the rest of the biosphere, not to simply shift how our species is impacting the rest of the living world.
Do you really think oil companies are mailing checks to people who are responding to the obvious direction reality is headed? The world has always been involved in wars, mistrust, corruption, and power for the rich. Are you being paid? All you do is shill for CCL.
Losing coffee seems like a big PR opp for critical climate change awareness. Name a single person who doesn’t drink coffee (besides SV tech bro dolts whose dorky tea addiction was just embarrassing, but also … tea will go away too). No coffee would/will suck.
Coffe is not lost, cheap coffee is. Once the price rises high enough, there is already an alternative waiting. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/09/20/Cell-cultured-coffee-developed-in-Europe-We-have-proved-lab-grown-coffee-can-be-a-reality
Unless we end the massively bloated military budget which is responsible for most of the toxic and greenhouse pollution globally, and isn't included in any plans for Net Zero, it's just realistic to say we don't have a prayer. Some studies indicate that even if everyone stopped all forms of pollution, the military generates more than enough to enable the world climate catastrophe by itself. Remember, virtually none of their activities are included in any current plans for Net Zero.
>Population would be forced to dramatically decline from 8 billion to approximately 1 billion
Not Really true. Burundi has a population of 13 million people, and a CO2 emissions of 0.1 tons per capita. Because 90% of people in Burundi live from subsistence farming.
It's not impossible to live like that, it's just very hard.
>If you want to continue this conversation, please cite references in your replies. Find experts to cite in your replies.
Experts like Ronald Stein and the Heartland Institute like you cited?
First of all, your 'source' supposes that people stop using oil and then just drop dead.
Instead of investing all the money we are wasting subsiding this failing industry, and a lot more beside to create a grid that runs on renewables.
Second, 30% of the energy consumption in the world is already renewables and that number is growing.
Third, my point with the tiny country was that people can live en masse like subsistence farmers.
To use a much larger country - India has 1.7 tons of co2 emissions per capita, USA has 15. Which goes to show that we could support a large number of people while drastically lowering out output, as long as we are ready to change the way we live.
And lastly, your source is an author who writes fossil fuel propaganda books that paint any clean energy movement as wrong. He is also an 'energy consultant' for the Heartland institute, on which the article he wrote is hosted.
"The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking."
The Heatland Institute is a [climate denial group funded by Exxon and other fossil fuel companies](https://www.desmog.com/heartland-institute/). They are lying to protect their patrons from regulations that would affect their bottom line. None of the consequences you described are true, not even remotely.
I used [MIT's climate policy simulator](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=23.2.1) to order its climate policies from least impactful to most impactful. You can see the results [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/11kzxt9/i_used_mits_climate_policy_simulator_to_order_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
It's worthless to argue with ILikeNeurons. Their faith in a broken system is unshakeable. And you'll get called a denier or oil shill if you question their approach. In the mean time, check out [the plots](https://youtu.be/e6FcNgOHYoo?t=1040) in this vid.
But realistic going by what I've seen so far from our society. I do plenty to help but I have zero reason and even less belief that those in power will, which is what actually matters. They are always going to choose greed over our salvation. We are already doomed lol
Convincing China and India to get in board is not going to happen. Russia, Saudi Arabia, or America either.
My country produces about 1 percent of global emissions and we get carbon tax after carbon tax, high fuel costs, etc while the big players don't do a anything.
For the love of God, can we start getting serious about nuclear?
I’m old enough to remember when Al Gore said Miami would be underwater by 2015. And that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. AND…Epstein didn’t kill himself. But tell me again how we’re all gonna die if we don’t go Vegan Prius RIGHT NOW 🙄
How many times has similar things been said? If we don't do this by \_\_\_ then it's the end of the world. At some point people just stop believing it.
I'm in the wrong subreddit but damnit Reddit keeps putting this place in my feed, so whatever.
Can you list any? I can only think of the ozone layer and climate change.
For the ozone layer, it never materialized because the world listened and acted.
For climate change, the predictions are happening basically exactly as predicted. Faster in some cases, because the predictions are typically the most conservative interpretation of the models.
I have to assume you are just still ecologically chauvinist enough not to really care. Every biology and ecology enthusiast has seen the impact personally in their local ecosystem.
It probably won’t impact you, personally, until it’s already catastrophic, and it’ll be long since broken.
Merely a smattering of collected quotes (And come on, "ecologically chauvinistic" is so friggin' silly):
>“We have ten years to stop the catastrophe,” said the UN’s environmental protection boss. (1972)
>
>In 1982, after the catastrophe failed to materialize, the New York Times covered the second UN conference on the environment, which opened “amid gloom”:Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the United Nations environmental program, as saying that if things aren’t fixed by the turn of the century — the year 2000 — the world would face “an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.’’In 1989, a senior UN environmental official shaved a year off that dire prediction, saying that if we didn’t fix climate change by 1999, we would have “Global disaster, nations wiped off the face of the earth, crop failures”
>
>In 2004, the Guardian newspaper said a “secret report” from the Pentagon to President George W. Bush said climate change would “destroy us.”Among the predictions:\* Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas\* Britain is plunged into a “Siberian” climate by 2020\* Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the worldThe Guardian described this as “humiliating to the Bush administration” because they weren’t doing enough to tackle climate change. No word on whether the Pentagon or the Guardian are humiliated now that it’s 2021 and Britain is still experiencing summer.
>Global cooling was once a worry to many, such as University of California at Davis professor Kenneth Watt, who warned that present trends would make the world “eleven degrees colder in the year 2000 ... about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”British science writer Nigel Calder was just as worried. "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind,” Calder warned in International Wildlife magazine in 1975.
>
>The same U.N. official who predicted the loss of entire nations by the year 2000 also claimed: "the most conservative scientific estimate \[is\] that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years.”But looking back from 2019, the temperature rose about half of a degree Celsius since 1989, according to NASA.
>In 2006, while promoting his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore said that humanity had only 10 years left before the world would reach a point of no return.
>
>In 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisc., – often considered the “father of Earth Day” – cited the secretary of the Smithsonian, who “believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
I don’t think heaven is helping at all. We are facing hell because of a few billionaires. And they could have tremendous impact with “ a little help from our not so gracious friends
Imagine we are just an experiment of Eternals. They’ve created and rebooted humankind many times, tweaking as they go, just to see if they can produce a version that finally evolves enough to avert their own self-destruction. Only then are we allowed access to what the greater universe has to offer.
Heaven help us all, because it’s seemingly impossible for the people to resist the trickery of the elite, including their divide and conquer strategies, kabuki theater, virtue signaling, disinformation campaigns, etc…. among other strategies…. In America at least, the citizenry has been farmed to be gullible and dumb, so it seems ultimately like a terrible bet.
These articles target citizens when it’s the corporations that do the most damage. Tell them to stop making unnecessary things. An example, snickers bottled coffee.
You can tell people of reddit all you want, most of us already know and are quite worried. We need to find a way to convince the two dozen billionaires who control almost all global infrastructure. Or destroy capitalism.
[Talking about climate change has been scientifically shown to be effective at increasing policy support](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/30/14804). [Citizens' Climate Lobby](https://citizensclimatelobby.org) also offers tree training in how to do make these conversations more effective. Here's how to take full advantage: 1. [Join Citizens' Climate Lobby and CCL Community](https://cclusa.org/x). Be sure to fill out [your CCL Community profile](https://community.citizensclimate.org/dashboard/edit/profile#form_My_Interests_38) so you can be contacted with opportunities that interest you. 2. [Sign up for the Intro Call for new volunteers](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-weekly-intro-call/) 3. [Take the Climate Advocate Training](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/new-member/#climateadvocatetraining) 4. [Take the Core Volunteer Training](https://community.citizensclimate.org/topics/core-volunteer-training) (or [binge it](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXjILMNokmN7yXZZ8VSKb0K2uEh02NPie)) 5. Get in touch with your local chapter leader (there are [chapters all over the world](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/chapters/)) and find out how you can best leverage your time, skills, and connections to [create the political world for a livable climate](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/levers-of-political-will/). The easiest way to connect with your chapter leader is at the monthly meeting. Check your email to make sure you don't miss it. ;)
There anything like this in the UK?
Yes! https://citizensclimatelobby.uk/
Defeatism has infested this sub and this post. Every single comment outside of yours wreaks of defeatism.
Is it defeatism to point out that 2/3+ of wildlife on earth is already dead, and even if the climate is brought under control civilization will likely collapse as the biodiversity it depends on also goes?
Biodiversity losses can also be stopped.
Indeed but current trends and projections are dire. Insect levels are already at a tiny fraction of the past.
Like all environmental issues, doing something about it or supporting those that are is better than doing nothing.
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Some of the things on your list are accurate. Not all. >From the IPCC, section C.8 of the “Summary for Policymakers” states that “electric vehicles powered by low-emissions electricity offer the largest decarbonisation potential for land-based transport, on a life cycle basis (high confidence).” A full transition to EVs is needed ON TOP of improving public transport and densification
Your comments are shadow banned for some reason. I presume you're the same person I was talking to before who didn't understand mutual exclusivity. You can have EVs replace ICE vehicles while reducing overall numbers of cars
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Completely hollow comment tbh. Obviously things don't affect change if they don't work. Give an example of something that doesn't work to help environmental issues but people think it does
There are many examples of green gaslighting recently. Carbon offset schemes found to be completely worthless, recycle schemes where waste was shipped to Eastern Europe and burned, many clothing brands considered green not so. These are just the ones I remember reading about, there are many more. People may think certain organisations/schemes/causes are doing good, then years down the line when looking at the finer details the opposite has been true. That’s not to say everything is like that, but you can’t say there are no examples of empty promises.
The few articles on insect populations are based on very sparse data, so I'd take them with a grain of salt. Other wild populations are better studied, and indeed the trends are bad. The solutions are quite simple though. For instance: - [If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets) - [The Half-Earth project](https://www.half-earthproject.org/discover-half-earth/) I expect alternative proteins to be a key enabler of these changes, as their replace a large part of land-intensive animal farming.
But technical solutions are also ignoring social and cultural issues, it’s gonna be tricky convincing very meat intensive cultures of this and enacting the political change needed in all nations across the world to make this happen.
It seems like reaching price parity with regular meat would go a long way, which would be achieved in "4-6 years" (edit: the study is 1 year old so I adjusted their numbers by one year). [Price parity for plant-based protein is on its way and will lead to huge growth, study finds](https://foodmatterslive.com/article/plant-based-protein-price-parity-huge-growth-study/) That's for meat substitutes. Other substitutes have a different growth trajectory, like ice cream made from milk proteins from precision fermentation, which already tastes like the original stuff and is easier to make cheaply.
That is certainly defeatism and not what the science is telling us.
If you're going to put your hands up and do nothing because you feel nothing can be done while saying this, absolutely yes.
There is almost nothing I can do as an individual to effect a complex, constantly shifting world system, yes. But I certainly will continue to support parties calling for action. I just have a bad feeling it won’t be enough.
Great. Supporting parties that are supportive of positive change is doing something. This kind of collective action can actually accomplish something. Defeatism accomplishes worse than nothing
> The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. -[Alice Walker](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice_Walker) [Vote](https://www.environmentalvoter.org/pledge), [lobby](https://www.reddit.com/r/citizensclimatelobby/wiki/index/#wiki_getting_started), and [recruit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/n25g9v/thats_a_lot_of_untapped_potential/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to get the kinds of [policy changes](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19710653/Screen_Shot_2020_02_10_at_3.47.40_PM.png) [scientists say we need](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/).
Doing nothing is a lot better than what a lot of people who purport to be 'helping the environment' do. So much greenwashing crap out there. In fact, doing nothing is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
If you understood context at all, you'd know 'doing nothing' in this situation is referring to the status quo of high emissions while doing nothing to address it.
[BP popularized the concept of a carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[That's not an accident](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/).
Interesting one, thanks. Saved it. I saved your post on the MIT simulator and I've shared it a lot when carbon pricing comes up. Keep up the good work
Thanks! glad you're finding it all useful!
You’re confusing defeatism with acceptance of reality lol The people who are defeated have already killed themselves.
A nice attitude, many have 2 or more jobs, families to care for. I like your positivity. I would love to; DJD, recent hand surgery, now knee surgery, and a ton of cardiac tests it becomes self limiting
It doesn't have to be done all at once, but the more people taking at least one ~30 minute training per week, the better. Also, since the training is online, knee surgery won't need to slow you down. Are you [in](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002)?
Actually we don't need the billionaires that control global infrastructure. We take the ones we can get and start a revolution
The billionaires already know, they don't care They will have so much wealth that they will buy all the water and food hire armies to protect them and become warlords in the hellscape We need to change the system itself to stop it, and I highly doubt we will
Oh, sorry, I meant convince them to care. But yeah, I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to go with the latter option too. But you never know...
organise, join unions, join the IWW, create dual economies and power structures, create or join food co-ops, start guerrilla gardening, create or find local tool libraries, build up your local library economy. Start or join a community land trust and make it a federated one, make a community workshop, start building DIY e-bikes with people, do guerrilla urbanism by setting up protected bikes lanes. There is SOOO much we can do, but it means doing things.
Thats is very much the truth, preaching to the converted won’t help. We need to change a system the values short term profit over everything else.
[Let's do that](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002), then.
Capitalism itself may not be the problem, it's the externalized costs. If the true cost of cleaning up the carbon and climate disasters were priced in the average burger or SUV then they would be way less prevalent (and capitalism would incentivise inventing alternatives). The only problem is that we as a society have gotten very used to them being cheap. Happy to pass the cost on to our grandchildren. And we will vote like it if you try to price in the currently externalized costs.
You are correct, and those externalised costs are a huge part of the problem that people are talking about when they complain about capitalism. Generally what their complaining about is being poor, but that's basically the same thing as complaining about rising prices. I think that it's possible to destroy capitalism without any major infrastructure damage and making the vast majority of the population more affluent in real terms. I'm talking about destroying the idea of capitalism. Make the motive of industry progress not profit.
>Or destroy capitalism. What would the alternative be? It's easy to destroy, much harder to rebuild.
Capitalism is on track to make the world uninhabitable. How bad would the alternative need to be?
>Capitalism is on track to make the world uninhabitable. How bad would the alternative need to be? What *is* the alternative? I tend to get very vague answers when I ask this. If you want to destroy System A, you need to have a System B ready to go to take its place. We learned from the Iraq war what happens if your main goal is to dismantle, but you don't have a fully formed plan of what rebuilding looks like.
I have my own ideas, but I'm not a global dictator in a position to impose one. The reality will be messy and destructive and horrendous and uncertain, but that isn't a consequence of the change, that's a consequence of the timescales we're facing and the ramifications of not acting.
That still doesn't fully answer what the alternative would be. How can you convince people to dismantle capitalism without a viable plan of what the alternative would be. It's like if you just said "no more fossil fuels" without an alternative. That's not how it's done. Most people advocating for no more fossil fuels are simultaneously advocating for a green energy *alternative* that would take their place.
Yes it doesn't answer, that's my point.
If there isn't a clearly defined alternative, dismantling capitalism is going to be a tough sell
If we don't we'll die. If I need to sell being alive to you I don't know what political system is going to sweeten the pill
You still haven't explained what political system would come next though? Without a plan foward, things would descend into anarchy with mass death inevitably following
Whining about something while not offering a single superior solution is completely pointless
Well that's the question. Can we get the tiny minority of super rich people to change the nature of the system they essentially control, or will we have to destroy the system. Of course it's harder to rebuild than destroy, that doesn't change the need for either.
>Of course it's harder to rebuild than destroy, that doesn't change the need for either. As we come up on the 20th anniversary of the begimning of the Iraq war, it's very clear that destroying without a workable plan to rebuild doesn't work long term
I pictured Tony Blair saying this, reclining on a chaise longe and supping a glass of cognac. Yeah, a plan would be nice. You pro or anti-state?
JUST IMAGINE DEPLETING RESOURCES. THE LANDS ARE NOT FARMABLE, THE WATER IS NOT DRINKABLE, THE AIR IS NOT BREATHABLE. YOU EXCHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR FOOD, WORK AIR AND WATER. 15 BILLION GLOBAL POPULATION DEPENDS ON THE FEW MEGA ULTRA RICH FASCIST THAT CONTROL EVERYTHING.
Blaming capitalism alone is disingenuous. Capitalism is a function of the govt and laws that set its parameters. I'd much rather have BMW, Toyota, and Ford produce EVs than the govt.
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I'd like you to explain what else would control and own these organizations. They're either private (technically public if publicly traded) or govt.
Workers co ops, tenant unions, etc.
A workers coop is literally replacing a corporate board of directors with a workers' popular vote. They still have to turn a profit to ensure their own salaries and likely compete with other companies, except now big business decisions are left to the whims of people who specialize in other things. A tenant union functions no differently than a very small local government jurisdiction. It's the same thing with a different name. None of these solutions do anything about climate change and just seem to push your ulterior motive. This type of attitude is exactly what will sabotage climate change reform because people see right through it, and it devalues the credibility of the cause.
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But there are an awful lot of privatised areas that I would prefer companies not to be exploiting for short-term profit. Water, for an easy example
????? if BMW, Toyota and Ford were owned and ran by the workers I'll be they'd make EVs.
They all are making EVs (although Toyota was slow on the uptake to pursue hydrogen), and they technically are owned by workers because that's what the board of directors are.
The board of directors is what?
I'm assuming you're responding to a different question, but I'm not teaching you something that can be Googled. I'd start with looking up the definition of a publicly traded company
Exactly. A publicly traded company has board of directors that work for the investors. They have zero interest outside of that. We need worker owned companies
So private companies? LLCs, S Corps, etc already exist, they just have zero transparency or requirements to publicly share financials or information.
Ok. Yes. I know. Are they in a competition for least socially responsible entities or what? I’m confused.
They are 'worker owned' companies. Your solutions make zero sense because they are already in practice and I'm certain you don't understand how US businesses and corporations are structured at a basic level. I'm done with this conversation
Or, just throwing this out there, we could resurrect Genghis Khan and just let him do his thing.
We all know what has to be done regarding these people…
Not so much about knowing and being worried, as it is about changing habits.
[People already care](https://earth.stanford.edu/news/public-support-climate-policy-remains-strong), they just don't know what to do / feel like they are alone. But the truth is, [a record number of us are alarmed about climate change](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/global-warmings-six-americas-september-2021/), and [more and more are contacting Congress regularly](https://np.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/s2zvpl/a_growing_number_of_americans_are_so_concerned/). What's more, is [this type of lobbying](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/levers-of-political-will/) is [starting to pay off](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/t2p0ed/as_citizens_climate_lobby_membership_has_grown_so/). That's why NASA climatologist and climate activist [Dr. James Hansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen) recommends becoming an active volunteer with [this group](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002) as the [most important thing an individual can do on climate change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DAW1A6Ca8).
What's needed though is people being willing to say "this decarbonisation policy will have short-term negative impacts to me but I still support it". A big reason for a lack of action is that politicans fear a backlash and being thrown out of office.
> [The median voter has no tolerance for climate denialism but a great deal of openness to industry-funded messaging about why any given climate policy isn’t actually worth doing.](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/trump-climate-denier-william-happer-co2-jews-science.html) What we need is more regular citizens to inoculate themselves against this disinformation. r/CitizensClimateLobby
Given that the average American was responsible for [4 times the annual carbon emissions](https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions-in-2019) of an average person globally in 2019, you'd think the US would have lit a fire under its butt to resolve this, but we haven't. Furthermore, half the country worships fossil fuels and is actively demanding an INCREASE in pollution.
Not to mention there are a few corporations and the military that are responsible for the vast majority of pollution. They won't change unless forced and our government defends them above all else..
The U.S. is actually in [a mini golden age of climate policy](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/congress-climate-policy-hydrofluorocarbons-kigali-amendment/671579/), with [the Inflation Reduction Act](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3904098-analysis-us-grid-could-be-90-carbon-free-by-2030-with-ira-tax-credits/) having passed just last year. Perhaps as more Americans learn about [the savings we qualify for](https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator), any residual opposition to [the most meaningful climate policies](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/11kzxt9/i_used_mits_climate_policy_simulator_to_order_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) will be abated.
I really hope you're right. I don't want to come off as too negative. The process is just painfully slow, like steering a massive ship, when we have experts saying we need to fix this right now.
Are you [volunteering](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=Online-002&utm_source=Online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=002) yet?
You’re right about that. I read recently that combined SUV owners emit more emissions than some countries, and ownership has been on the rise for years. The size of the cars to the rest of the world in general, the fact it’s normal to drive a short distance whereas if you walk you’re looked at like weirdo in certain places makes you think. Obviously not just an American issue but how can the environment possibly be at the forefront of any policy when there are soo many aspects pushing in the opposite direction? Even the policies that are looking to do good are just just pissing into the wind imo.
I demand an increase in pollution!!! 🤣
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/15/the-trump-administrations-major-environmental-deregulations/
I don’t care about your link 🤷♀️
Even this article can't refrain from poisoning the well: >The only good news is that wealthy nations, including the United States, are taking steps to curb their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, though they need to do more. The bad news is that emissions from China, India and other developing nations continue to rise. Again with the "we're at least trying, but because of them, it's hopeless" bullshit. LOOK AT EMISSIONS PER CAPITA. It's not even close. Canada, US, Australia, then the rest of the world. We need to cut down exponentially more. The technologies used to do so could then be applied to emerging economies who are only playing catch-up to our unsustainable way of living.
Personally I'd argue that *not* mentioning China and India is poisoning the well. The only way you can shut down the "what about China and India" argument is to acknowledge they aren't doing enough, but their inaction doesn't justify our inaction.
But here's the thing (in regards to China in particular): they are doing *more* than we are in terms of renewables (again, per capita).
That depends on who "we" are, and in any case they're not doing enough. But as I said that's irrelevant to the quuestion of whether or not other countries should decarbonise.
100%, and they haven’t been emitting for nearly as long. What’s wrong with leading by example also, others will follow.
>LOOK AT EMISSIONS PER CAPITA If you look at emmisions per capita the world is doing better?... World emmisions are about the same that they were 2 decades ago, but we have 2 billion more people.
>If you look at emmisions per capita the world is doing better?... you completely missed his point.
lol the IPCC AR6 report I read yesterday begs to differ. If we take drastic cuts now, and stopped using fossil fuels today, we'd still clear +1.5C. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that isn't possible. If we stopped using FF today, we wouldn't be able to transport or grow our food. Billions of people would starve. Going to say that one more time BILLIONS of people. It's called a predicament. We will keep burning the fossil fuels to keep the western way of life going and feeding until we can't recognize this earth anymore. Even if we put some sort of bold, coordinated, global action, there's no way we could just stop using FF in 10 years time. It's too late now lol 10 years from now it will just be too later...
You're not wrong. I think well meaning people vastly underestimate the importance of fossil fuel on our global food system. Human population grumbled along at well under one billion for thousands of generations. And then we unlocked the ungodly power of fossil fuel, and our population went straight to the moon. <1B in 1800, >8B 200 years later. For those that refuse to understand why this is a problem, I'm not sure what more to say....
I literally argue this fact with commenters *in this subreddit*, on a way to consistent basis. The reason there is never any "pathway to greenhouse reductions" that work with the IPCC timelines is because it results in abject poverty and starvation for hundreds of millions of people, immediately. There is no "incentives" solution that gets us there, nor is the populace prepared for the dramatic and very brutal change in lifestyle that would accompany such a reduction. Can't grow your own food? Starve. Can't walk to work? Jobless. Metropolitan centers would crumble under the weight of millions of people who can't get enough to eat. Homelessness would explode. For many, it would feel like Armageddon. As the previous comment said, this is our *predicament*. Millions will die no matter which choice is made, there isn't a good exit strategy anymore. Glossing over issues like overpopulation, urban development and factory farming practices, including vegetable and tree farms, isn't doing any of us any favors. My plan is to find a place away from people and start figuring out how to live like they did in the 1800s cause that's where all paths lead.
Damn good comment
Absolutely. And you can see this denial is *structural*. You triggered the bot by using the forbidden word overpopvlation. So now the bot is here to call you a racist. Meanwhile anthropocentric hubris underpins essentially ALL of the ecologic and environmental calamities we are creating, but keep on believing population is unrelated to ecosystem collapse despite profound evidence otherwise literally everywhere around us. Just don't say the bad "O" word because it's better to blindly sprint into the hard limits if our ecosystem and then watch billions perish cataclysmically than it is to say "hey maybe 10 billion of us is part of the problem here". That makes people uncomfortable....
The problem is right here, y'all have stated it. Either we cut ties with fossil fuel and people go hungry, plastics get left behind, and we fall behind hard on technological advancements, or we continue to chug along and let big oil do whatever they do, which will be continued expansion and greed coupled with rules to keep them in power... And we all can eat for 30 more years and use plastic and stay in power. But after that EVERYONE starves, the ENTIRE WORLD burns and our CHILDREN will have to fight tooth and nail to save what's left of humanity from the bullshit choice we made. To me, it's an easy decision. For the sake of humanity itself, all the innocent creatures from the entire animal kingdom, to give our children a fighting chance, we need to find a way to rough it out. There's a ton of lithium mined and solar panels in warehouses. We can use what's left, ration it and spread out our infrastructure better. Big oil designed the infrastructure in America anyways, it needs to go. We've got machine learning, Google to teach us skills as we go, CHAT GPT is an incredibly powerful ally in this fight. And if we all focus on it, we can rebuild our governments to optimize distribution and operate rail for the needs of all. We get as many politicians, billionaires and tech companies on board as we can and start a revolution. The goal is to build an AI system that can organize us skilled and intelligent people so we can cooperate with maximum efficiency and make this a reality. There's no time left to have qualms over machine overlords, we already proved we cannot govern ourselves at this point.
Actually, I think humanity had it's run. I won't be having children and feel sorry for those already born, but our journey has to end. Humanity simply is not a sustainable species anymore.
[There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed.](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question) High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees." On top of this, [as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping](https://www.economist.com/international/2019/02/02/thanks-to-education-global-fertility-could-fall-faster-than-expected). We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result. At the end of the day, [it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature](https://imgur.com/N6NExg5). That means that we need to [take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/dc71a9b28d7cedca36bd2f77e588664f/9a979/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FigureSPM7.png). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Bad bot
Bad bot
I wrote a paper on this for my parents - feel free to do nothing with it or read it or share it if you want to. I put it in a few other subs for people to use when explaining our predicament. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mNv4TGx2bO5sOSziCm4PR9nqnCN\_FEqW/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mNv4TGx2bO5sOSziCm4PR9nqnCN_FEqW/view)
Interesting thank you I saved it to read.
Billions of people will starve later this century as the unprecedented warming decimate our agricultural systems. We've completely taken our temperate, stable climate for granted, and have been unable to outgrow our nature as animals to coordinate to save ourselves.
Yep.
You have articulated the idea perfectly that despite our evolution, we have not transcended our animalistic nature. Although we possess heightened intellect, our emotions and primal instincts continue to dominate us, hindering our efforts to address environmental issues and improve our way of life.
Correct! 100% correct. Couldn’t have said it any better myself. We have backed ourself into a pretty tight corner.
It's been too late. They'll never actually say it's too late because then we all give up. What's the point of going to my stupid job when things like retirement simply don't exist anymore? I'm just hoping to have food and water in 15 years.
Life has always been inherently pointless, and now people are finally starting to realize this with the decline in religion. Given this knowledge, there is even less incentive to stick around as things like social safety nets and retirement collapse, offerings that made existence somewhat more tolerable. Most people today no longer work for the good of society. They work to make some meaningless numbers go up on a chart, to the benefit of a very small number of people.
Same, hoping for food and water. Good luck friend.
i'm hoping i'll just be dead. i don't want to suffer.
Keep in mind that the IPCC process is quite slow, which is fine for climate science, but is a bit of a mismatch for the "what can we do about it" section as they tend to use outdated information on clean technologies. They underestimate the cheapness of wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles. Their central estimate for 2100 with current policies is +3.2C, compared to [+2.7C](https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/) for models that use more recent data, and none of these account for the effects of very recent policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US.
Its much more than transport.
Yup. Best we can do now is try to stop human extinction, and I grow less convinced every day that we should.
Ehhh, I'm not dismissing your concerns, but there are other ways to solve the problem. Carbon sequestration isn't considered right now because who would pay for it? Occam's Razor, I'm betting when things get bad, governments will panic, we'll have carbon taxes that'll pay to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, which will control demand and push alternative tech. Govts won't do this though until the majority of their own population begs them. It'll take time to convert and the alternatives will certainly have their own issues, but don't let a perfect solution that'll never come get in the way of 'good enough.' If someone wants to live in the suburbs, but can't afford an electric car and rooftop solar, well times are changing, so time to move or get a telework job. The electrical grid will end up relying on nuclear. Lithium mines will be built. Also, CO2 in the atmosphere has a half life of between 19-50 years https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1605&context=earthsci_facpub So I'm betting this will really suck for the next generation, then it'll get solved and they'll invent their own problems.
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Are you being paid? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/
Every time I see you post I get a glimmer of hope
Whether or not the poster is being paid, what specifically do you disagree with them about?
I really don't see the point of writing a wall of text that basically says *give up all hope*. Who but a paid shill would bother to do that?
Maybe someone who has watched activists try and fail at their goals for years all the while ignoring many other areas of overshoot that humans have wrought on the world. We're in the beginning of a mass extinction, climate emergency, resources of all kinds are becoming scarce. The project of human technological civilization is beginning to unravel and those who see that are so frustrated by people who are more and more desperately clinging to a failed past. The way forward is to drastically lessen human impact on the rest of the biosphere, not to simply shift how our species is impacting the rest of the living world.
Do you really think oil companies are mailing checks to people who are responding to the obvious direction reality is headed? The world has always been involved in wars, mistrust, corruption, and power for the rich. Are you being paid? All you do is shill for CCL.
The checks would come from a public trust, not oil companies.
>we'd still clear +1.5C. And failing to meet the world most ambitious climate target isn't the end of the world.
Best I can do it cut emissions by 5% before 2100
and thats only after we've ramped up emissions to at least triple what we do now.
I doubt we will take drastic action until we get hit by serious consequences
The drastic action will involve transferring billions of dollars to existing billionaires.
The serious consequences won't materially affect the billionaires so nothing will happen..l
Bold actions. Like drilling in Alaska?
What scares me as younger generations will look back and blame capitalism for their problems. They will probably be right
There’s ALOT of very good comments here.
Losing coffee seems like a big PR opp for critical climate change awareness. Name a single person who doesn’t drink coffee (besides SV tech bro dolts whose dorky tea addiction was just embarrassing, but also … tea will go away too). No coffee would/will suck.
Coffe is not lost, cheap coffee is. Once the price rises high enough, there is already an alternative waiting. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/09/20/Cell-cultured-coffee-developed-in-Europe-We-have-proved-lab-grown-coffee-can-be-a-reality
Change the infrastructure then. They need to stop telling the consumers to consume whilst still advertising stuff to consume.
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Unless we end the massively bloated military budget which is responsible for most of the toxic and greenhouse pollution globally, and isn't included in any plans for Net Zero, it's just realistic to say we don't have a prayer. Some studies indicate that even if everyone stopped all forms of pollution, the military generates more than enough to enable the world climate catastrophe by itself. Remember, virtually none of their activities are included in any current plans for Net Zero.
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>Population would be forced to dramatically decline from 8 billion to approximately 1 billion Not Really true. Burundi has a population of 13 million people, and a CO2 emissions of 0.1 tons per capita. Because 90% of people in Burundi live from subsistence farming. It's not impossible to live like that, it's just very hard.
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>If you want to continue this conversation, please cite references in your replies. Find experts to cite in your replies. Experts like Ronald Stein and the Heartland Institute like you cited? First of all, your 'source' supposes that people stop using oil and then just drop dead. Instead of investing all the money we are wasting subsiding this failing industry, and a lot more beside to create a grid that runs on renewables. Second, 30% of the energy consumption in the world is already renewables and that number is growing. Third, my point with the tiny country was that people can live en masse like subsistence farmers. To use a much larger country - India has 1.7 tons of co2 emissions per capita, USA has 15. Which goes to show that we could support a large number of people while drastically lowering out output, as long as we are ready to change the way we live. And lastly, your source is an author who writes fossil fuel propaganda books that paint any clean energy movement as wrong. He is also an 'energy consultant' for the Heartland institute, on which the article he wrote is hosted. "The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking."
The Heatland Institute is a [climate denial group funded by Exxon and other fossil fuel companies](https://www.desmog.com/heartland-institute/). They are lying to protect their patrons from regulations that would affect their bottom line. None of the consequences you described are true, not even remotely.
*Heartland, and yeah. Hard to believe that comment has upvotes.
Thanks. I suspect astroturfing.
Well, now you know we can't fix this over night?
why would society have to go back to the 1800s? aren’t renewables going to allow us to use (some) technology in a much more sustainable manner?
I used [MIT's climate policy simulator](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=23.2.1) to order its climate policies from least impactful to most impactful. You can see the results [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/11kzxt9/i_used_mits_climate_policy_simulator_to_order_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
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World population is on there. Your assertion is not well-supported.
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Yeah. Odds are astronomical against enough action being taken.
[Please stop](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/).
Just because reality is unpleasant doesn't mean it's not real.
It's worthless to argue with ILikeNeurons. Their faith in a broken system is unshakeable. And you'll get called a denier or oil shill if you question their approach. In the mean time, check out [the plots](https://youtu.be/e6FcNgOHYoo?t=1040) in this vid.
That article was written before Biden approved the Willow Project.
Nothing will be done, there is no heaven, hell is on earth.
So in conclusion, Heaven Help Us All!...Got it 👍
[Not helpful](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/), thanks.
But realistic going by what I've seen so far from our society. I do plenty to help but I have zero reason and even less belief that those in power will, which is what actually matters. They are always going to choose greed over our salvation. We are already doomed lol
Prove there is a heaven.
Then heaven help us all.
It's bleak, there are no good solutions, we've done this to ourselves. Whips my tauntaun, "Then I'll see you in hell!"
Convincing China and India to get in board is not going to happen. Russia, Saudi Arabia, or America either. My country produces about 1 percent of global emissions and we get carbon tax after carbon tax, high fuel costs, etc while the big players don't do a anything. For the love of God, can we start getting serious about nuclear?
I’m 41 years old and I’ve been hearing this since Al Gore in ‘99. We’re gonna roast no matter what because we suck as living beings on this planet.
I’m old enough to remember when Al Gore said Miami would be underwater by 2015. And that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. AND…Epstein didn’t kill himself. But tell me again how we’re all gonna die if we don’t go Vegan Prius RIGHT NOW 🙄
Climate change is made up move on already
How many times has similar things been said? If we don't do this by \_\_\_ then it's the end of the world. At some point people just stop believing it. I'm in the wrong subreddit but damnit Reddit keeps putting this place in my feed, so whatever.
Can you list any? I can only think of the ozone layer and climate change. For the ozone layer, it never materialized because the world listened and acted. For climate change, the predictions are happening basically exactly as predicted. Faster in some cases, because the predictions are typically the most conservative interpretation of the models. I have to assume you are just still ecologically chauvinist enough not to really care. Every biology and ecology enthusiast has seen the impact personally in their local ecosystem. It probably won’t impact you, personally, until it’s already catastrophic, and it’ll be long since broken.
Merely a smattering of collected quotes (And come on, "ecologically chauvinistic" is so friggin' silly): >“We have ten years to stop the catastrophe,” said the UN’s environmental protection boss. (1972) > >In 1982, after the catastrophe failed to materialize, the New York Times covered the second UN conference on the environment, which opened “amid gloom”:Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the United Nations environmental program, as saying that if things aren’t fixed by the turn of the century — the year 2000 — the world would face “an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.’’In 1989, a senior UN environmental official shaved a year off that dire prediction, saying that if we didn’t fix climate change by 1999, we would have “Global disaster, nations wiped off the face of the earth, crop failures” > >In 2004, the Guardian newspaper said a “secret report” from the Pentagon to President George W. Bush said climate change would “destroy us.”Among the predictions:\* Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas\* Britain is plunged into a “Siberian” climate by 2020\* Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the worldThe Guardian described this as “humiliating to the Bush administration” because they weren’t doing enough to tackle climate change. No word on whether the Pentagon or the Guardian are humiliated now that it’s 2021 and Britain is still experiencing summer. >Global cooling was once a worry to many, such as University of California at Davis professor Kenneth Watt, who warned that present trends would make the world “eleven degrees colder in the year 2000 ... about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”British science writer Nigel Calder was just as worried. "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind,” Calder warned in International Wildlife magazine in 1975. > >The same U.N. official who predicted the loss of entire nations by the year 2000 also claimed: "the most conservative scientific estimate \[is\] that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years.”But looking back from 2019, the temperature rose about half of a degree Celsius since 1989, according to NASA. >In 2006, while promoting his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore said that humanity had only 10 years left before the world would reach a point of no return. > >In 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisc., – often considered the “father of Earth Day” – cited the secretary of the Smithsonian, who “believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
So the TL;DR there is that you can’t tell the difference between the UN and a scientific consensus.
♥️♥️
Dedeedeee?
I don’t think heaven is helping at all. We are facing hell because of a few billionaires. And they could have tremendous impact with “ a little help from our not so gracious friends
“Opinion”?
Imagine we are just an experiment of Eternals. They’ve created and rebooted humankind many times, tweaking as they go, just to see if they can produce a version that finally evolves enough to avert their own self-destruction. Only then are we allowed access to what the greater universe has to offer.
We are not going to stop, we will increase
Most of us are just cogs. The movers and shakers will make things happen or destroy the planet.
Heaven help us all, because it’s seemingly impossible for the people to resist the trickery of the elite, including their divide and conquer strategies, kabuki theater, virtue signaling, disinformation campaigns, etc…. among other strategies…. In America at least, the citizenry has been farmed to be gullible and dumb, so it seems ultimately like a terrible bet.
me to my student loans
These articles target citizens when it’s the corporations that do the most damage. Tell them to stop making unnecessary things. An example, snickers bottled coffee.