We're all fucked. (Not covid related)

[pixy0stix]

Climate crisis ‘unequivocally’ caused by human activities, says IPCC report - www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/09/climate-crisis-unequivocally-caused-by-human-activities-says-ipcc-report

How this differs from other reports - the IPCC has always been hesitant to say, flat out, that climate change has been caused by humans. Now they have lost all their give a damns. We're at the end time to stop the apocalypse. 

[macmars45]

We are so fucked. Our politicians (by and large) don't give a damn about climate change OR don't believe it exists. 

[Velar Fricative]

This is scary as fuck but I refuse to just sit by while the assholes we elect do nothing. We need to take this opportunity to be loud about this and make it one of the biggest issues. Because it is.

[wildrice]

I feel pretty defeated about this news. It sounds like no matter what we do things are going to be bad. Like so many other things (COVID especially), we had our chance and we blew it. I don't know what is wrong with humans but I don't have a lot of faith that people are ever going to care about each other enough to do a thing to prevent bad things from happening.

[cville]

We all knew and yet still this is a kick to the gut. Ugh.

[AJL]

What can we do? Are we too late? I mean this in all seriousness.

[pixy0stix]

Aug 9, 2021 11:24:06 GMT -5 AJL said:

What can we do? Are we too late? I mean this in all seriousness.

In all seriousness, there's always something that can be done. However, the climate we grew up with is gone and will never return. It will always be like this and worse. The problem is we (humanity) have to move NOW if we want to make any meaningful impact. Otherwise, we're going to have to get good at mitigating climate change and accept we're creating a natural environment where life cannot live, ie develop systems to keep humanity alive such as air conditioning (which is probably where humanity's strength lies anyway, at least in ways to save the upper class).

[Patsy Baloney]

Yeah, I feel at this point we're just going to have to rely on invention to save us.

This is when I feel my most "eat the rich".

[pixy0stix]

Aug 9, 2021 11:44:59 GMT -5 Patsy Baloney said:

Yeah, I feel at this point we're just going to have to rely on invention to save us.

This is when I feel my most "eat the rich".

The Catch 22 is that because of invention we doomed ourselves.

[cville]

Aug 9, 2021 11:44:59 GMT -5 Patsy Baloney said:

Yeah, I feel at this point we're just going to have to rely on invention to save us.

This is when I feel my most "eat the rich".

Honorary fuck Bezos and Branson and Musk for their bullshit space nonsense.

[wawa]

It's maybe not enough - like 1.5 degrees has sailed based on my understanding of that report (not actually, but functionally), but if we could just get our transportation and energy consumption under control it would absofuckinglutely make a huge difference between sci fi movie apocolypse bullshit and still bad, but more survivable.

And there are SO MANY things that could be happening policy wise on every single level of government plus personal action we can all take to make a difference in those realms. Like, it feels really stupid overwhelming and impossible, and honestly....maybe it is. Not enough people give a shit. But the people who DO give a shit do have actions they can take.

Pick a regular trip you usually take with your car, and find a different way to get there or a way to not go at all. Start walking places, or biking places and figure out your local bus schedule. Take it. Then when it SUCKS TO TAKE because nobody is FUCKING FUNDING FIXING THESE THINGS raise holy hell with your local electeds who control those budgets allocations, and the state electeds who control those overall budget amounts, and the federal electeds who control the big money.
if you're car shopping, buy AT LEAST a smaller vehicle if not an EV. we don't all need three rows everywhere we go.
Take the plunge on the residential solar you've been contemplating.
Tweak your thermostat settings. Do the paying more for wind farm energy thing (or whatever your local options are)
Plant a garden or find a local farmshare.
Stop eating produce imported from other hemispheres and eat less meat. you don't actually need strawberries in December if you live in cold places.
Buy used. Buy less.
Show up to public meetings and support transit projects, dense mixed use development in transit accessible areas, active transport projects, sustainable energy producing projects (people show up and oppose wind and solar farms all the time!) and oppose highway widening. Support TDM measures and ordinances where you live. Elect people who agree on all levels. (local is a huge deal in this stuff...the feds can make sweeping changes, but local measures are key to actually shifting behavior)
Don't buy a 5 BR house on half an acre that used to be a cornfield 20 miles from the nearest employment center and then tell me you can't help driving everywhere.
etc.

[pixy0stix]

wawa, I like your enthusiasm, but we can't get people to turn their cooling system to 72 degrees, let alone the 78 that is recommended.

[pixy0stix]

Since I brought the doom and gloom, here's an opinion piece on why we shouldn't give into despair - www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/08/09/change-ipcc-report/

Main takeaway for me: "Instead of panicking at uncertainty, we should let it motivate us, said University of Oxford researcher Fredi Otto, another lead author of the report."

[wawa]

Aug 9, 2021 12:11:22 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

wawa , I like your enthusiasm, but we can't get people to turn their cooling system to 72 degrees, let alone the 78 that is recommended.

I mean.  I know.  

i have brief moments of shining optimism.  
Like...there are SO MANY CITIES who are doing the work on active transportation, and then I take a step back and look at the big picture where $1M for a bike network construction implementation contract is a crazy huge win, and at the same time the state DOT is spending literal billions on a brand new highway so people can live further from their office in said city in a bigger house and get there faster and I just....try to focus on the wins where I can get them.  Because accepting that it's all pointless makes me want to get in bed and not get out.  

I do think very hard sometimes about at what point it's all going to go to hell and how best to shelter me and mine when that comes.  
In the meantime I try to convince people to ride their bike to the library or something like it's gonna help.

[wawa]

But really thought, much more importantly than riding your own bike to the library (though seriously, do that too) PLEASE SUPPORT THIS STUFF OUT LOUD WITH YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS.

land use policy is climate policy.
Transportation policy is climate policy.
These are set at the local level. Be vocal and you WILL be heard. Your county or city level elected official should know your name. Make it happen people. I believe in you.

[waverly]

wawa, I agree, and we do a lot of that.

But a lot is caused by corporations and not individual people. How we address that would be the much larger change. i.e. electric cars by 2035 is one method (albeit with additional electricity implications but maybe those can be solar.) That isn't on individuals to buy electric because the won't, but on government to force industry change. And on the people to force the government.

[pixy0stix]

Aug 9, 2021 15:52:32 GMT -5 waverly said:

wawa , I agree, and we do a lot of that.

But a lot is caused by corporations and not individual people. How we address that would be the much larger change. i.e. electric cars by 2035 is one method (albeit with additional electricity implications but maybe those can be solar.) That isn't on individuals to buy electric because the won't, but on government to force industry change. And on the people to force the government.

All the articles that say we can do this say that we need to do this with both personal changes and bigger governmental changes. It's not either or, nor is one more important than the other.

Since I mentioned it, the TX power grid debacle is both government and individually driven. When asked to reduce, people didn't do it, and the whole grid collapsed and then almost collapsed again. That is a failure of 1) the government to regulate, 2) the power companies, and 3) on the individual consumers.

I could go on and on and on with examples where corporate greed is being bolstered by individual consumerism.

In summary, I want to end the blame game and just have everything and everyone step up and just do shit.

[wawa]

Aug 9, 2021 15:52:32 GMT -5 waverly said:

wawa , I agree, and we do a lot of that.

But a lot is caused by corporations and not individual people. How we address that would be the much larger change. i.e. electric cars by 2035 is one method (albeit with additional electricity implications but maybe those can be solar.) That isn't on individuals to buy electric because the won't, but on government to force industry change. And on the people to force the government.

I'll be honest that I didnt mention a lot of the more sweepign action that needs to happen at the federal level because I REALLY don't think it's going to happen. I have seen a lot of municipalities actually make good progress on land use and transpo policy though so I'll beat that drum all day.


But yeah, agreed - there needs to be some really hard mandates on emissions/EV push if we really watned to move the needle on that. I also think we need to revamp our federal funding (the original infrastructure bill, and the reconciliation bill went some way toward this, but not far enough IMO) and utterly decimate our highway funding in favor of transit and active transport. Just driving EV's isn't enough - we need to rethink how we travel and live. We need to be tearing out highways through cities, not rebuilding them. (exceptions for bridges....we should be fixing those! But with bike lanes and sidewalks, not on ramps) My stance on federal infrastructure funding and how we ought to be changing car behavior is edging toward radical, and it's not something I see happening in the real world. (I want to have like 34593873684 times the transit funding, run all buses in cities in dedicated lanes on 10 minute headways during busy hours, min 15 min 24/7, free passenger rail from the tyranny of commercial freight schedules so they can run more intercity trains with fewer delays, and ban personal vehicles through city centers preferably, or at the very least have heavy congestion pricing)

[minzy]

Maybe this report is a “good” thing, in that it will get more people to wake the fuck up and stop using so much carbon based energy. I can hope. I felt like the only yahoo talking about this stuff among my friends a few years ago. The more people pay attention, the better chance we have.

[pixy0stix]

Lest we forget, we have entire states that have banned climate change from being considered in their policies and laws - www.livescience.com/50085-states-outlaw-climate-change.html

(article is from 2015 so some things might have changed, but I doubt it)

[aurora]

Apparently your thread title was more compelling than mine.

[BlondeSpiders]

@@@@@@@@@


Does anyone have any thoughts about this chart I see frequently?

www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about

I understand that this publication is relatively well-respected. I did check them out.

[erbear]

@@@

BlondeSpiders,I have to assume that so much of this is caused by overpopulation. The planet cannot support our current population. So yeah, fewer children is something to consider but not really an option for those of us who have already crossed that bridge.

[aurora]

@@@

Aug 9, 2021 17:38:33 GMT -5 BlondeSpiders said:

@@@@@@@@@


Does anyone have any thoughts about this chart I see frequently?

www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about

I understand that this publication is relatively well-respected. I did check them out.

I'm pretty sure we've talked about that here before. As you might imagine, it's a very personal and emotionally-laden conversation.

It is, however, hard to imagine any reduction that could have more impact than one less person (in a given country).

[letsgetweird]

Aug 9, 2021 12:05:35 GMT -5 wawa said:

It's maybe not enough - like 1.5 degrees has sailed based on my understanding of that report (not actually, but functionally), but if we could just get our transportation and energy consumption under control it would absofuckinglutely make a huge difference between sci fi movie apocolypse bullshit and still bad, but more survivable.

And there are SO MANY things that could be happening policy wise on every single level of government plus personal action we can all take to make a difference in those realms. Like, it feels really stupid overwhelming and impossible, and honestly....maybe it is. Not enough people give a shit. But the people who DO give a shit do have actions they can take.

Pick a regular trip you usually take with your car, and find a different way to get there or a way to not go at all. Start walking places, or biking places and figure out your local bus schedule. Take it. Then when it SUCKS TO TAKE because nobody is FUCKING FUNDING FIXING THESE THINGS raise holy hell with your local electeds who control those budgets allocations, and the state electeds who control those overall budget amounts, and the federal electeds who control the big money.
if you're car shopping, buy AT LEAST a smaller vehicle if not an EV. we don't all need three rows everywhere we go.
Take the plunge on the residential solar you've been contemplating.
Tweak your thermostat settings. Do the paying more for wind farm energy thing (or whatever your local options are)
Plant a garden or find a local farmshare.
Stop eating produce imported from other hemispheres and eat less meat. you don't actually need strawberries in December if you live in cold places.
Buy used. Buy less.
Show up to public meetings and support transit projects, dense mixed use development in transit accessible areas, active transport projects, sustainable energy producing projects (people show up and oppose wind and solar farms all the time!) and oppose highway widening. Support TDM measures and ordinances where you live. Elect people who agree on all levels. (local is a huge deal in this stuff...the feds can make sweeping changes, but local measures are key to actually shifting behavior)
Don't buy a 5 BR house on half an acre that used to be a cornfield 20 miles from the nearest employment center and then tell me you can't help driving everywhere.
etc.

@@@@@@
I'm by no means as educated as you are on this topic but I've heard the best thing you can do for climate change is to have less children? Just wondering because I didn't see it on your list. Obviously if people have already had children and don't plan on having more nothing can be done about that.

[wawa]

Aug 9, 2021 18:12:48 GMT -5 letsgetweird said:

Aug 9, 2021 12:05:35 GMT -5 wawa said:

It's maybe not enough - like 1.5 degrees has sailed based on my understanding of that report (not actually, but functionally), but if we could just get our transportation and energy consumption under control it would absofuckinglutely make a huge difference between sci fi movie apocolypse bullshit and still bad, but more survivable.

And there are SO MANY things that could be happening policy wise on every single level of government plus personal action we can all take to make a difference in those realms. Like, it feels really stupid overwhelming and impossible, and honestly....maybe it is. Not enough people give a shit. But the people who DO give a shit do have actions they can take.

Pick a regular trip you usually take with your car, and find a different way to get there or a way to not go at all. Start walking places, or biking places and figure out your local bus schedule. Take it. Then when it SUCKS TO TAKE because nobody is FUCKING FUNDING FIXING THESE THINGS raise holy hell with your local electeds who control those budgets allocations, and the state electeds who control those overall budget amounts, and the federal electeds who control the big money.
if you're car shopping, buy AT LEAST a smaller vehicle if not an EV. we don't all need three rows everywhere we go.
Take the plunge on the residential solar you've been contemplating.
Tweak your thermostat settings. Do the paying more for wind farm energy thing (or whatever your local options are)
Plant a garden or find a local farmshare.
Stop eating produce imported from other hemispheres and eat less meat. you don't actually need strawberries in December if you live in cold places.
Buy used. Buy less.
Show up to public meetings and support transit projects, dense mixed use development in transit accessible areas, active transport projects, sustainable energy producing projects (people show up and oppose wind and solar farms all the time!) and oppose highway widening. Support TDM measures and ordinances where you live. Elect people who agree on all levels. (local is a huge deal in this stuff...the feds can make sweeping changes, but local measures are key to actually shifting behavior)
Don't buy a 5 BR house on half an acre that used to be a cornfield 20 miles from the nearest employment center and then tell me you can't help driving everywhere.
etc.

I'm by no means as educated as you are on this topic but I've heard the best thing you can do for climate change is to have less children? Just wondering because I didn't see it on your list. Obviously if people have already had children and don't plan on having more nothing can be done about that.

Yeah, first of all we tag @ kid content here so I don't mention the topic in non tagged threads unless I forget.
Second the demographics of our board are largely women who already have made their childbearing decisions since most of us got married over a decade ago. Third, I'm not into eugenics.

So no. I did not mention it as an actionable item.

[mouse]

I found this pretty persuasive. Yes, if we had a very small population that per capita pollution generated/energy used wouldn’t have a huge global impact. But the wealthiest countries have leveling off or shrinking populations, but consume more overall. Meanwhile the countries with the fastest growing populations tend to have pretty level consumption. Plus, wealth disparity means the pollution goes to the places least able to deal with it, and manufacturing in the least efficient places and the wealthy are sheltered from the affects. Addressing the pollution and consumption is a lot more effective than addressing population growth in that case. (Plus eugenics is never that far behind these arguments.) (Plus also as people move to urban areas the birth rate naturally declines, as education increases and the need for a large family of workers decreases).

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/05/25/slowing-population-growth-environment/

[pixy0stix]

Aug 9, 2021 17:33:00 GMT -5 aurora said:

Apparently your thread title was more compelling than mine.

Ha! I just know how to sell the doom and gloom. (Really though, I skimmed before posting and I missed your post.)

[letsgetweird]

Aug 9, 2021 18:39:32 GMT -5 wawa said:

Aug 9, 2021 18:12:48 GMT -5 letsgetweird said:

I'm by no means as educated as you are on this topic but I've heard the best thing you can do for climate change is to have less children? Just wondering because I didn't see it on your list. Obviously if people have already had children and don't plan on having more nothing can be done about that.

Yeah, first of all we tag @ kid content here so I don't mention the topic in non tagged threads unless I forget.
Second the demographics of our board are largely women who already have made their childbearing decisions since most of us got married over a decade ago. Third, I'm not into eugenics.

So no. I did not mention it as an actionable item.

I forgot about that rule here on CEP. My apologies. I can delete my comment if you also want to delete where you quoted me.

[ellipses84]

I fear we are all truly fucked. I have faith in human ingenuity to solve this if it gets so bad it can’t be ignored, but I worry that by that point we’ll all be in survival mode and things will get worse. Constant wild fires causing poor air quality means it will be hard to be outside and we’ll use more energy for a/c, gas for driving, etc. Floods leave massive water pollution, trash and mold in their wake.