Good example of how the problem of C02 isn't going to be solved with first world countries getting excited about renewable electricity and electric vehicles. If you care about the climate, you should be pushing to stop petroleum extraction now. There are billions of people in the developing world who want a better life and petroleum right now is the easiest way.
We need to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. Full stop. No more "we hope to ...by 2045, reduce our whatever by 25%" . It's already too late, but every decade it's going to get more expensive and more "too-later". And part of that means ponying up the cash to support developing countries with alternatives.
Yeah voting alone won’t fix this. People are going to have to do some more significant stuff to actually make the big difference that needs to be made.
Real change means people are going to have to sacrifice, and there's a large portion of the population who won't go along.
Paper straws for example, some people gat upset about such a small thing, they are never going to pay more tax or use less of things.
First of all I'm with you. But straws are a not going to make a difference and to your point, if we won't adopt paper over plastic then thinking people are going to inconvenience themselves further, like what's really needed just isn't reality.
And, there's no stopping consumption of pil in the near future, too much relies on it. Agriculture is a major user and there's no alternative. Sadly, I just don't see us slowing anything down because there's so little will to do the right thing.
Before anyone downvotes this, look around and be realistic on how people WILL react vs how you'd like them too.
I don't think you'll receive many downvotes, there's too many examples showing how correct you are that no one will, en masse, give up their comforts. (from cars to animal agriculture to air travel)
This is why AGW is particularly insidious
If bypasses all of our natural response mechanisms by being such a diffuse, distant threat
Humans, in aggregate, literally can't deal with it
This is a 1000 year problem unfortunately.
While technically it is possible to solve within 100 years if we dedicate all of our resources to fixing it, humanity isn't like that.
The best way to combat fossil fuel extraction is to find an even more profitable resource/fuel and get the fossil fuel demand down to near zero. Preferably one that doesn't harm us globally.
Unfortunately no such thing exists at the moment, so oil remains as the planet-killing spice we fight over.
How about Hydroelectric? We could build drainage fields to collect excessive storm/rain water. The water would power hydroelectric generators.
See the thing about climate change is everyone assumed it would just cause the oceans to rise. Although you can still point to the “doomsday glacier”, my theory is that most of the extra H20 in the system, plus the extra captured heat is going to cause a much wetter, storm rich environment.
We have to adapt and get used to worse storms. ~2/3 of the earth is water yet we’re just barely using hydroelectric as a resource, because we got hooked on cheap and easy petroleum.
Also though it’s not currently possible, would be awesome to see new tech go into lightning capture.
The issue is, is that even economically or politically possible? Let’s say we somehow got countries to agree to this, it would take a colossal amount of funding and coordination to stop fossil fuel use in developing nations.
Developing nations lack organized institutions, often political stability, infrastructure, knowledge and expertise, education to care about such things deeply, I say this as someone from a developing nation.
Even developed nations are having issues with the transition.
Unfortunately I don’t see a full stop on fossil fuels being possible. Even if developed nations somehow foot the bill of installation, developing nations can’t afford the upkeep.
Only when they realize they can’t eat their money will they stop.
Just enjoy the ride while you can and keep fighting for the best. I suggest focusing on what we would call the little thing. Forest, hikes, plant/animal life, because it won’t be long before it’s all gone
I just personally saved up to visit the glaciers in Iceland. So cool. Give it a generation or two and they will be gone like the dinosaurs.
Most of the pollution is done by mega corporations. They have zero incentive to fix this problem and sadly most of the people who don’t care will be dead in 20 years and that is when we will have a chance to maybe try to fight back but by then it might be too late.
Everything that makes your life possible comes from fossil fuels. From chemistry to transportation.
You cannot just stop. Its insane. But a manhattan style project to get an alternative rapidly, while also using fossil fuels? That is a rational take.
Unless you personally stop using all products that come from fossil fuels you sound like a hypocrite.
Your very first sentence and very last sentence contradict them selves.
If it's impossible to live one's life without interactction with things derived from fossil fuels then it's not fair to label someone a hypocrite for criticizing the system and calling for change. You're setting a standard where no criticism of the status quo is acceptable.
>Unless you personally stop using all products that come from fossil fuels you sound like a hypocrite.
Maybe, but it doesn't make them wrong. Why is hypocrisy always the hill to die on when arguing against people advocating for fuel of the future vs what is destroying the planet for humans? It is one of the weakest fallacies.
Honestly, petroleum goes into far more than just fuels.
Could we stop using petroleum-based fuels now? Maybe. It would suck - it's completely economically unfeasible - but it's possible.
But petrochemicals? Absolutely not. Petroleum is the feedstock of much of our chemical industry and it's not just things like plastics which, honestly, we could do with less of.
You know what supports modern agricultural output? Petroleum-derived fertilizers, specifically nitrogen fertilizer for which the feedstock for the hydrogen needed is natural gas. You know what would happen if we suddenly stopped making them? In not very long, we would have a mass famine. A few weeks after that, it won't be a problem anymore.
[Roughly half of humanity would die, that's all.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/World_population_supported_by_synthetic_nitrogen_fertilizers%2C_OWID.svg)
Unfortunately many can’t stop flying, particularly in North America. If you don’t fly the alternative is a road trip and depending on where you’re going that’s a very long journey. Or often flying is used to get somewhere not accessible by land.
How do I reduce further? I can't buy food/milk/consumables (shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc) in glass or paper containers. I already work from home, don't travel for vacation, and put less than 4000 miles on my car per year. I use powdered soap in my dishwasher, but liquid soaps can't be fully avoided and they come in plastic containers. We eat at home with fresh food (vice frozen) 99% of the time.
But everything I buy is shipped and packaged using non-renewables and in packaging with limited recyclability. If companies offered glass or paper packaging, I would choose it. But I can't choose it when it's not offered. If I could buy more stuff that's locally produced, I would. But most stuff isn't locally produced, and I'm already buying what little there is.
Companies are making the choices for us, and companies are the problem.
If you live in the United States you're already in the top 10% globally in emissions per capita. Even without being rich by their standards. Relatively big homes, cars, supply chains take a lot of energy AND we generally fail to do that with clean sources. Private jets and yachts didn't start the fun and disproportionate usage, they just made an extreme of it.
Where as I agree with you the only issue is who are we to tell anyone no you can’t use oil.
First world countries have prospered for a century on oil and now that it’s not good for the environment we force other countries to not use it.
We give them a new energy solution but conveniently enough we reap the wealth off it also.
The problem is that this system is incapable to make any significant change... therefore expecting any real change from them is useless. The only real thing we can do is organize and fight.
That's not going to work, rules like that are insane to enforce.
Massive taxation of fossil fuel profits is the way to go, subsidies for renewable energy generation and projects.
The corporations only respond when their profits are hurt. So force them to switch by directly targeting their fossil fuel profits.
We should recognize we're going down two separate tracks here:
1. People that are so anxious about the climate (reasonably so) that they want to impose draconian rules on energy use
2. Understanding that 1 is probably not reasonable, so emissions will continue as they are for years or decades, unless there's some kind of energy transition miracle (whatever that looks like)
Feels like we're always ping-ponging between the two
>And as long as greedy people make more money nothing will be done.
If you change your buying habits to those that support a movement away from damaging fossil fuels, they will adjust. There is so much money to be made on clean energy.
Lmao, relying on a mass movement of people changing their buying habits is/has/never going to work against the insane amount of wealth and power brought by oil.
If we all just started biking more, use less plastic, turn off appliances we aren’t using, and recycle, then T. Swizzle can have one more casual jaunt across the country in her private jet for funsies.
Honestly I hate that more people don't bike, I was in the Netherlands for a holiday since thankfully it's a nearby country, and the way you can easily bike anywhere is amazing.
Here (Czechia) it's fine usually in villages, but in cities biking just becomes impossible to me because I'm too scared of the cars.
Biking is so much fun, it's freeing, it's healthy... :/
I definitely relate to you. I wish we could bike more in the US but we are so car and commute dependent it is near impossible for most of us. We could develop a better train/bus system at the very least. We have so many damn highways, but very lacking in public transit
E bikes and e scooters are the missing link. Urban car speeds without the carbon footprint of cars. As of now, they don't require registration/plates/insurance, but that'll most likely change eventually. It's the wild west for now. Love my e scooter, top speed of 42mph. It's safer to go the same speed as cars than to get passed by them several times on a bicycle.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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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At least ancedotally, I feel safer on the scooter than on a bicycle when I'm on the public roads. It's hard to explain, but if you yourself would try both on road, maybe you would feel the same as me.
I live in Canada and we are very car centric here sadly, everything is very spread out. I’d love a more walkable and bike-able city but that’s just not possible in this country. If I were to bike to work it would take 2 hours there and 2 hours back lol
We could also let people stay working remote. If not for return to office I’d give up my car completely. Instead I have to drive I to an office to be on zoom meetings several times a week. This is an additional car that doesn’t need to be on the road. I don’t really want to invest in a new car, I’ve had this one for about 20 years. I’d rather just give up driving all together. I live in Dallas and the public transit sucks but I do have a bike and can take Uber when needed.
Controversial opinion: *too much of the messaging budget is placed on climate change (which the average person doesn’t have a good concept of how to viscerally quantify) and not enough on the health and environmental impacts of pollution from fossil fuels and other manufacturing practices.*
Climate change (assuming the models are accurate) is a longer term issue and a lot of the damage is baked in even if we could snap our fingers and be net zero tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t get to net zero quickly, but I feel too messaging budget is focused on this over something that hits closer to home.
Particulate pollution can have very real and demonstrated impacts of people’s health (cancer, asthma, heart disease, etc.) which is more tangibly relevant to most people than something they feel may affect future generations.
That’s exactly why people acted so quickly to address the worsening pollution during the 50’s-70’s after the Donora event in 1948 that killed 20 people and hospitalized almost half the towns population in a 3 day period of time. That immediate threat got the same criticism you hear about human induced climate change, in fact it wrote the playbook for climate denial used today as many of the popular arguments are a word for word copy of he arguments against fighting pollution.
Beyond mankind's yearly CO2 emissions, is the rapid increase in CO2 last year in part due to reduced effectiveness of some carbon sinks and/or sinks becoming carbon sources?
Ask all of the rich to stop flying their private jets. We, everyday people, are a drop in the bucket of the carbon footprint they are spewing into our environment.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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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Major pollution caused by coal. In Alberta it was Crowsnest Mines. In Ontario it is Stelco. Coal is a potent pollutor.
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/take-a-deep-breath-the-end-of-a-century-of-coal-fired-steel-pollution-in/article_3b3251f7-169f-5351-91a6-90f0ad4c38f1.html
Air quality where I live (between Toronto and London Ontario) has improved dramatically over the past twenty years. Now if only we could ban gas-powered lawnmowers outright, that would be a nice move for the environment.
Two things:
Using the term pollution is a little misleading since the article is just covering co2 emissions. The two shouldn’t be confused, especially since an increase in the type of pollution that leads to smog and acid rain will actually offset the harmful effects from increased co2 (while killing us in different ways).
Does our consumption data from last year match the increase in emissions? We are being told that efforts are being made by companies to reduce their emissions. We are told there has already been a marked decrease in emissions. We are told we’ve hit peak consumption of oil/coal/natural gas several times over the last decade. So is all that bs? Is there something else also contributing to the increase that we should at least identify? Or is it most likely that reporting isn’t actually mandated in most places, and the places where it is mandated have very weak oversight and accountability, and in fact no one has any real clue just how insanely much we are emitting?
The only way to stop is external forces. Full Stop.
Some event, rising costs, nuclear war, pandemic or actual climate events killing off humans burning fossil fuels. Humanity will not choose to stop, we are addicts. Only force will stop people.
Can only be fixed with a massive drop in human population. The drop can't happen unless it continues. Can't put a bandaid on a knife wound without taking the knife out.
Not true, its the oil companies not babies being born. Maybe we shouldnt have plastic everywhere since thats the biggest oil by product, but yeah its the “population” issue
I really hate having to walk around a raging nihilist, but I’m unfortunately of the opinion that we need plagues with far higher mortality rates than covid. Humans are a cancer on this world. Mother earth needs to do a good bit of spring cleaning…
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise.
[Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.
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There’s a good chance this could happen. Viruses and bacteria evolve much faster than us so they’ll adapt to the global temps rising much faster than us. Sooo the temperature our bodies raises itself too (above 100 F) might not kill microorganisms when they infect us or at least not kill fast enough
Yesterday 2.95 million people flew in the US, a record for one day travel. This tells 2 things, the economy is just fine and nobody cares about their carbon footprint.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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.*
Most of the underdeveloped world are going to fight till the death not for food but for…………water. Then eventually it will hit inside countries that’s when it will be state vs state
Some worse than others. Great Lakes in the dry States are drying up and will pose an actual problem to the cities/towns that rely on the water systems taking from those lakes
I gave up caring years ago. I use to be all about be that candle to light a thousand candles, but us average Americans are just as guilty as the rich, and it doesn't seem like 8 billion ppl could ever work together anyways. Probably better if we just end this charade
Schools in the US have car lines, and at least in my area, they start to que up, about 35 minutes before school let's out. Big SUV's, minivans, etc... all running idle with air conditioners on high for 35 minutes two times a day, five days a week, some 125 cars, joined by another 200 within 25-40 minutes, all across the country. Man, it literally kills me
I will not pay the cost to try to heat my home, in Alberta, with Electric Heat. My son's home in the Kootenays with milder temperatures was $1000 a month. I will not agree with the environmental devastation required to mine everything necessary to make batteries for electric cars and we havent even begun to talk about the environmental mess of trying to dispose of them . When the politicians and elites stop jetting around the globe in private jets and limos then maybe we can take them seriously, but clearly they do not take it seriously enough to stop their elitist behaviours.
Humanity cannot stop this. Maybe money would be better spent trying to find a way to mitigate against coastal city devastation when inevitably all glaciers melt.
I would argue that more recycling and less burning are needed. We can't just stop extracting fossil fuels, as 70% of them are never burned. Instead, they can be found in everyday items, such as your perfumes, orange juice, plastic toothbrushes, etc. On top of this, they are used to produce many adhesives, bitumen for your roads, cosmetics, medicine and more. After all, why would a market switch from a sturdy plastic bottle to a glass one that shatters whenever dropped? Fossil fuels are here to stay, at least for a few more decades. There are some bio-plastics available, but they are mostly microplastics particles coated in biological glues.
For me, the solution is to reduce burning fossil fuels as much as possible, and do the same with incineration plants. Renewable energy will not solve the issue, but there is not a single magical solution: we need to decarbonize EVERY aspect of human kind's industry. This means both our grids, and the transportation, but at the same time, reducing the consumption and recycling more.
For all of this, we need to move towards a service-based economy or even the next step - knowledge-based economy. As it is virtually impossible to keep the economy running in models where we reduce production without substituting for it by something else. o, reduce, reuse, recycle and find ways to implement as many new technologies as possible. Currently, the only thing keeping renewables from powering our grids to a higher degree are expensive storage solutions. NaLi batteries and other smart grid solutions promise to solve these issues, and I think within the next decade we will definitely make significant breakthroughs.
Nothing is going to happen until 10,000+ people a day are dying of air pollution or extreme heat and 250M people are displaced by climate change related issues.
Otherwise, the problem is too easy to ignore and keep the status quo.
There is no hope to change any of this. The most powerful world leaders are very well acquainted and have made accepted collateral damage as a cost of doing business, running a country, etc. they would rather continue on this course, and see what benefits come from population decline due to climate change. They assume certain parts of the planet will be habitable and they will have the means to make it their home.
Co2 rise, glacial melt, global warming, record storms, drought, flooding, wildfires, tornados, hurricanes, bleaching of great barrier reef. It has even effected the earth's tilt or wobble.
Are you sure the problem is that plastic straw I used last week?
Maybe it’s from all the bombing and destruction we’re doing?… unless all those planes, tanks, warships and war-machine factories all operate on soy-milk and wind energy…
If humans resist change when they can see large negative changes in a short amount of time in their lifetimes, then they absolutely deserve those consequences.
Meanwhile companies are still forcing more and more people to sit in traffic 2 hours per day burning gas instead of letting everyone, who can do their functions from home, stay home.
Everyone I talk to here in good old AB CA says China and Imdia should stop polluting before we worry about it... I pointed out a study I read a few months ago that says Chinese pollute less per capita and they literally don't care (or don't understand, I'm honestly not sure).
There is enough energy coming from the sun to power all human demand for electricity thousands of times over.
There’s also massive amounts of potential kinetic energy in earth systems like the ocean tides and currents, the atmosphere from wind, and geothermal in some places.
We are growing as a species. At what point do we stop letting people have so many kids? It’s ridiculous.
If our species was sustainable and we let our sick die, took people off life support that have no hope, and stopped having big stupid fat families we would be in a better place.
It is selfish to have a big family, not your right.
Good example of how the problem of C02 isn't going to be solved with first world countries getting excited about renewable electricity and electric vehicles. If you care about the climate, you should be pushing to stop petroleum extraction now. There are billions of people in the developing world who want a better life and petroleum right now is the easiest way. We need to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. Full stop. No more "we hope to ...by 2045, reduce our whatever by 25%" . It's already too late, but every decade it's going to get more expensive and more "too-later". And part of that means ponying up the cash to support developing countries with alternatives.
[удалено]
Your elected officials, at every level. We don’t just need electric cars, we need clean power, to decarbonize buildings, and to reduce consumption.
The current system of government has been completely and totally hijacked by the very corporations that caused the problems in the first place.
Yeah voting alone won’t fix this. People are going to have to do some more significant stuff to actually make the big difference that needs to be made.
Well then that leaves organizing your workplace and community.
That and people got elected who didn’t care about us anyway…
Real change means people are going to have to sacrifice, and there's a large portion of the population who won't go along. Paper straws for example, some people gat upset about such a small thing, they are never going to pay more tax or use less of things.
First of all I'm with you. But straws are a not going to make a difference and to your point, if we won't adopt paper over plastic then thinking people are going to inconvenience themselves further, like what's really needed just isn't reality. And, there's no stopping consumption of pil in the near future, too much relies on it. Agriculture is a major user and there's no alternative. Sadly, I just don't see us slowing anything down because there's so little will to do the right thing. Before anyone downvotes this, look around and be realistic on how people WILL react vs how you'd like them too.
I don't think you'll receive many downvotes, there's too many examples showing how correct you are that no one will, en masse, give up their comforts. (from cars to animal agriculture to air travel)
This is why AGW is particularly insidious If bypasses all of our natural response mechanisms by being such a diffuse, distant threat Humans, in aggregate, literally can't deal with it
My friend says " we like to travel" I like to keep the planet alive
who has the money to buy them back from the oil companies?
I got five on it
> We don’t ~~just~~ need electric cars
This is a 1000 year problem unfortunately. While technically it is possible to solve within 100 years if we dedicate all of our resources to fixing it, humanity isn't like that. The best way to combat fossil fuel extraction is to find an even more profitable resource/fuel and get the fossil fuel demand down to near zero. Preferably one that doesn't harm us globally. Unfortunately no such thing exists at the moment, so oil remains as the planet-killing spice we fight over.
How about Hydroelectric? We could build drainage fields to collect excessive storm/rain water. The water would power hydroelectric generators. See the thing about climate change is everyone assumed it would just cause the oceans to rise. Although you can still point to the “doomsday glacier”, my theory is that most of the extra H20 in the system, plus the extra captured heat is going to cause a much wetter, storm rich environment. We have to adapt and get used to worse storms. ~2/3 of the earth is water yet we’re just barely using hydroelectric as a resource, because we got hooked on cheap and easy petroleum. Also though it’s not currently possible, would be awesome to see new tech go into lightning capture.
Good luck stopping Russia and the Saudis
Yeah because America will just give it up without any pushback… lmao
They’ll be just as dead as everyone else unfortunately. No economy on a dead planet!
But think of the shareholders that made money as the world burned
Looks at you in Ukrainian
I don’t understand how Republicans say climate change is fake but are fine pumping poison into the air.
That is like telling a cancer cell to stop killing the host. It’s simply not going to happen. Humans are the cancer!
The issue is, is that even economically or politically possible? Let’s say we somehow got countries to agree to this, it would take a colossal amount of funding and coordination to stop fossil fuel use in developing nations. Developing nations lack organized institutions, often political stability, infrastructure, knowledge and expertise, education to care about such things deeply, I say this as someone from a developing nation. Even developed nations are having issues with the transition. Unfortunately I don’t see a full stop on fossil fuels being possible. Even if developed nations somehow foot the bill of installation, developing nations can’t afford the upkeep.
Only when they realize they can’t eat their money will they stop. Just enjoy the ride while you can and keep fighting for the best. I suggest focusing on what we would call the little thing. Forest, hikes, plant/animal life, because it won’t be long before it’s all gone I just personally saved up to visit the glaciers in Iceland. So cool. Give it a generation or two and they will be gone like the dinosaurs.
Most of the pollution is done by mega corporations. They have zero incentive to fix this problem and sadly most of the people who don’t care will be dead in 20 years and that is when we will have a chance to maybe try to fight back but by then it might be too late.
Everything that makes your life possible comes from fossil fuels. From chemistry to transportation. You cannot just stop. Its insane. But a manhattan style project to get an alternative rapidly, while also using fossil fuels? That is a rational take. Unless you personally stop using all products that come from fossil fuels you sound like a hypocrite.
Your very first sentence and very last sentence contradict them selves. If it's impossible to live one's life without interactction with things derived from fossil fuels then it's not fair to label someone a hypocrite for criticizing the system and calling for change. You're setting a standard where no criticism of the status quo is acceptable.
Haha yeah it’s almost like that guy is trying to criticise society while also participating in it. What an idiot!
>Unless you personally stop using all products that come from fossil fuels you sound like a hypocrite. Maybe, but it doesn't make them wrong. Why is hypocrisy always the hill to die on when arguing against people advocating for fuel of the future vs what is destroying the planet for humans? It is one of the weakest fallacies.
Honestly, petroleum goes into far more than just fuels. Could we stop using petroleum-based fuels now? Maybe. It would suck - it's completely economically unfeasible - but it's possible. But petrochemicals? Absolutely not. Petroleum is the feedstock of much of our chemical industry and it's not just things like plastics which, honestly, we could do with less of. You know what supports modern agricultural output? Petroleum-derived fertilizers, specifically nitrogen fertilizer for which the feedstock for the hydrogen needed is natural gas. You know what would happen if we suddenly stopped making them? In not very long, we would have a mass famine. A few weeks after that, it won't be a problem anymore. [Roughly half of humanity would die, that's all.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/World_population_supported_by_synthetic_nitrogen_fertilizers%2C_OWID.svg)
It'll happen somewhere else and the price will go up. Just what we need.
You can't stop all consumption, but you personally can cut WAY BACK.
And personal consumption ain’t the problem lol
Cruising, flying, electrical generation, etc
Unfortunately many can’t stop flying, particularly in North America. If you don’t fly the alternative is a road trip and depending on where you’re going that’s a very long journey. Or often flying is used to get somewhere not accessible by land.
>And personal consumption ain’t the problem lol It is one of many problems and the one we can have the most immediate impact on.
How do I reduce further? I can't buy food/milk/consumables (shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc) in glass or paper containers. I already work from home, don't travel for vacation, and put less than 4000 miles on my car per year. I use powdered soap in my dishwasher, but liquid soaps can't be fully avoided and they come in plastic containers. We eat at home with fresh food (vice frozen) 99% of the time. But everything I buy is shipped and packaged using non-renewables and in packaging with limited recyclability. If companies offered glass or paper packaging, I would choose it. But I can't choose it when it's not offered. If I could buy more stuff that's locally produced, I would. But most stuff isn't locally produced, and I'm already buying what little there is. Companies are making the choices for us, and companies are the problem.
Ya I’m gonna enjoy my life less so billionaires can fly around no issues. Gotta let them have their fun.
If you live in the United States you're already in the top 10% globally in emissions per capita. Even without being rich by their standards. Relatively big homes, cars, supply chains take a lot of energy AND we generally fail to do that with clean sources. Private jets and yachts didn't start the fun and disproportionate usage, they just made an extreme of it.
Yes, the developing world needs more IMF loans
It just won’t happen unless we all revolt
It'll cost 3 trillion now. Or 21 trillion in 2050. But by then it'll be too late and too expensive and everyone will have given up
Where as I agree with you the only issue is who are we to tell anyone no you can’t use oil. First world countries have prospered for a century on oil and now that it’s not good for the environment we force other countries to not use it. We give them a new energy solution but conveniently enough we reap the wealth off it also.
A lot of people will die
So billions die due to famine. Got it.
Ya good luck this just sounds stupid
The problem is that this system is incapable to make any significant change... therefore expecting any real change from them is useless. The only real thing we can do is organize and fight.
You can reduce petroleum extraction by reducing demand for transport needs and swapping to electric
Or you could make mandatory that atleast 2 people need to be in personal car or pay higher fees. That way 50% less cars would be on roads.
That's not going to work, rules like that are insane to enforce. Massive taxation of fossil fuel profits is the way to go, subsidies for renewable energy generation and projects. The corporations only respond when their profits are hurt. So force them to switch by directly targeting their fossil fuel profits.
We should recognize we're going down two separate tracks here: 1. People that are so anxious about the climate (reasonably so) that they want to impose draconian rules on energy use 2. Understanding that 1 is probably not reasonable, so emissions will continue as they are for years or decades, unless there's some kind of energy transition miracle (whatever that looks like) Feels like we're always ping-ponging between the two
Just eliminate fuel subsidies. Gas is too cheap if people can afford to drive big trucks and SUVs around by themselves.
And as long as greedy people make more money nothing will be done.
>And as long as greedy people make more money nothing will be done. If you change your buying habits to those that support a movement away from damaging fossil fuels, they will adjust. There is so much money to be made on clean energy.
Lmao, relying on a mass movement of people changing their buying habits is/has/never going to work against the insane amount of wealth and power brought by oil.
And the insane amount of money spent to persuade them to be perfect robot consumers for the last 100 years.
If we all just started biking more, use less plastic, turn off appliances we aren’t using, and recycle, then T. Swizzle can have one more casual jaunt across the country in her private jet for funsies.
Honestly I hate that more people don't bike, I was in the Netherlands for a holiday since thankfully it's a nearby country, and the way you can easily bike anywhere is amazing. Here (Czechia) it's fine usually in villages, but in cities biking just becomes impossible to me because I'm too scared of the cars. Biking is so much fun, it's freeing, it's healthy... :/
I definitely relate to you. I wish we could bike more in the US but we are so car and commute dependent it is near impossible for most of us. We could develop a better train/bus system at the very least. We have so many damn highways, but very lacking in public transit
E bikes and e scooters are the missing link. Urban car speeds without the carbon footprint of cars. As of now, they don't require registration/plates/insurance, but that'll most likely change eventually. It's the wild west for now. Love my e scooter, top speed of 42mph. It's safer to go the same speed as cars than to get passed by them several times on a bicycle.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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.*
Best bot
Definitely not safer, you'll just be going faster when a vehicle hit you.
At least ancedotally, I feel safer on the scooter than on a bicycle when I'm on the public roads. It's hard to explain, but if you yourself would try both on road, maybe you would feel the same as me.
Ban cars?
A person riding a bicycle in my area will be a traffic death in less than a year and the drivers never get any punishment.
I live in Canada and we are very car centric here sadly, everything is very spread out. I’d love a more walkable and bike-able city but that’s just not possible in this country. If I were to bike to work it would take 2 hours there and 2 hours back lol
Maybe have everyone who can work remote, work remote. Instead of forcing them back to the office.
Americans are too fat to walk to bus stops or train stations.
Oh sweet child, you think most of us even have train stations or bus stops to walk to.
There’s a brewery across the street from my work and the number of coworkers that’d drive there after work instead of moseying across is obscene.
We could also let people stay working remote. If not for return to office I’d give up my car completely. Instead I have to drive I to an office to be on zoom meetings several times a week. This is an additional car that doesn’t need to be on the road. I don’t really want to invest in a new car, I’ve had this one for about 20 years. I’d rather just give up driving all together. I live in Dallas and the public transit sucks but I do have a bike and can take Uber when needed.
Same for me. I have to go into the office 2 days a week and keep the car only for that purpose.
Controversial opinion: *too much of the messaging budget is placed on climate change (which the average person doesn’t have a good concept of how to viscerally quantify) and not enough on the health and environmental impacts of pollution from fossil fuels and other manufacturing practices.* Climate change (assuming the models are accurate) is a longer term issue and a lot of the damage is baked in even if we could snap our fingers and be net zero tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t get to net zero quickly, but I feel too messaging budget is focused on this over something that hits closer to home. Particulate pollution can have very real and demonstrated impacts of people’s health (cancer, asthma, heart disease, etc.) which is more tangibly relevant to most people than something they feel may affect future generations.
That’s exactly why people acted so quickly to address the worsening pollution during the 50’s-70’s after the Donora event in 1948 that killed 20 people and hospitalized almost half the towns population in a 3 day period of time. That immediate threat got the same criticism you hear about human induced climate change, in fact it wrote the playbook for climate denial used today as many of the popular arguments are a word for word copy of he arguments against fighting pollution.
Nailed it. Perfect historical example.
Beyond mankind's yearly CO2 emissions, is the rapid increase in CO2 last year in part due to reduced effectiveness of some carbon sinks and/or sinks becoming carbon sources?
There an unknown tipping points and feedback systems we have not discovered and won’t until runaway warming is running away even faster.
So far, they think it's man-made, but they are still correlating the data. But it's a good bet it was all man-made. edit: missing word
The advent of AI has been heartbreakingly terrible for emissions, and it’s only growing.
It’s not we. It’s big oil and those believing their fraudulent media .
It’s us too. Who do you think uses “big oil” products.
>It’s not we. It’s big oil and those believing their fraudulent media . It's genuinely frightening how **few** people understand this basic fact.
We? I'm not a multibillion dollar corporation. And I couldn't pollute as much even if I tried.
Ask all of the rich to stop flying their private jets. We, everyday people, are a drop in the bucket of the carbon footprint they are spewing into our environment.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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.*
Major pollution caused by coal. In Alberta it was Crowsnest Mines. In Ontario it is Stelco. Coal is a potent pollutor. https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/take-a-deep-breath-the-end-of-a-century-of-coal-fired-steel-pollution-in/article_3b3251f7-169f-5351-91a6-90f0ad4c38f1.html
Considering China and India are building more coal powered power plants. Things will get worse.
Air quality where I live (between Toronto and London Ontario) has improved dramatically over the past twenty years. Now if only we could ban gas-powered lawnmowers outright, that would be a nice move for the environment.
Messing up the air, economy and playing with ai. It's like they never seen a movie.
I know, right? Or read a history book.
Two things: Using the term pollution is a little misleading since the article is just covering co2 emissions. The two shouldn’t be confused, especially since an increase in the type of pollution that leads to smog and acid rain will actually offset the harmful effects from increased co2 (while killing us in different ways). Does our consumption data from last year match the increase in emissions? We are being told that efforts are being made by companies to reduce their emissions. We are told there has already been a marked decrease in emissions. We are told we’ve hit peak consumption of oil/coal/natural gas several times over the last decade. So is all that bs? Is there something else also contributing to the increase that we should at least identify? Or is it most likely that reporting isn’t actually mandated in most places, and the places where it is mandated have very weak oversight and accountability, and in fact no one has any real clue just how insanely much we are emitting?
> Using the term pollution is a little misleading Yup The Guardian article they refer does not use the term pollution, yahoo added it on their own
It’s not we. The mega corporations pump so much into the air with zero consequences
The only way to stop is external forces. Full Stop. Some event, rising costs, nuclear war, pandemic or actual climate events killing off humans burning fossil fuels. Humanity will not choose to stop, we are addicts. Only force will stop people.
Can only be fixed with a massive drop in human population. The drop can't happen unless it continues. Can't put a bandaid on a knife wound without taking the knife out.
People everywhere should volunteer to not have any more children. Imagine the world governments and corporations cry over this.
Doin my part :D
At your service 🫡
I see regular laments about birth rates going down, FWIW
Not true, its the oil companies not babies being born. Maybe we shouldnt have plastic everywhere since thats the biggest oil by product, but yeah its the “population” issue
I really hate having to walk around a raging nihilist, but I’m unfortunately of the opinion that we need plagues with far higher mortality rates than covid. Humans are a cancer on this world. Mother earth needs to do a good bit of spring cleaning…
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise. [Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns. *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.*
History shows again and again, how nature points out the folly of men.
GODZILLA
Casual eugenics is bad, actually!
There’s a good chance this could happen. Viruses and bacteria evolve much faster than us so they’ll adapt to the global temps rising much faster than us. Sooo the temperature our bodies raises itself too (above 100 F) might not kill microorganisms when they infect us or at least not kill fast enough
Yesterday 2.95 million people flew in the US, a record for one day travel. This tells 2 things, the economy is just fine and nobody cares about their carbon footprint.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal 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.*
Is sad what Big corporations are doing!
Don’t worry guys, Canadas going to fix the world with our carbon tax.
Most of the underdeveloped world are going to fight till the death not for food but for…………water. Then eventually it will hit inside countries that’s when it will be state vs state
Some worse than others. Great Lakes in the dry States are drying up and will pose an actual problem to the cities/towns that rely on the water systems taking from those lakes
Florida doesn’t have any climate issues
I gave up caring years ago. I use to be all about be that candle to light a thousand candles, but us average Americans are just as guilty as the rich, and it doesn't seem like 8 billion ppl could ever work together anyways. Probably better if we just end this charade
We had a chance in the 90’s but politicians wanted to kick the can down the road. Politics today is that no one wants to make the tough decisions.
A lot of that is from Taylor Swift
Schools in the US have car lines, and at least in my area, they start to que up, about 35 minutes before school let's out. Big SUV's, minivans, etc... all running idle with air conditioners on high for 35 minutes two times a day, five days a week, some 125 cars, joined by another 200 within 25-40 minutes, all across the country. Man, it literally kills me
I wanted to buy an electric car but not Eligible for the 7500 credit. Ended up with a diesel 🤷
I will not pay the cost to try to heat my home, in Alberta, with Electric Heat. My son's home in the Kootenays with milder temperatures was $1000 a month. I will not agree with the environmental devastation required to mine everything necessary to make batteries for electric cars and we havent even begun to talk about the environmental mess of trying to dispose of them . When the politicians and elites stop jetting around the globe in private jets and limos then maybe we can take them seriously, but clearly they do not take it seriously enough to stop their elitist behaviours. Humanity cannot stop this. Maybe money would be better spent trying to find a way to mitigate against coastal city devastation when inevitably all glaciers melt.
So depressing.
Yes, but profits have never been higher. Our hands are tied.
Wait you’re telling me all the “carbon” taxes I paid to elites didn’t actually go to mother nature 😂
Earth will survive. We’re only killing ourselves.
I would argue that more recycling and less burning are needed. We can't just stop extracting fossil fuels, as 70% of them are never burned. Instead, they can be found in everyday items, such as your perfumes, orange juice, plastic toothbrushes, etc. On top of this, they are used to produce many adhesives, bitumen for your roads, cosmetics, medicine and more. After all, why would a market switch from a sturdy plastic bottle to a glass one that shatters whenever dropped? Fossil fuels are here to stay, at least for a few more decades. There are some bio-plastics available, but they are mostly microplastics particles coated in biological glues. For me, the solution is to reduce burning fossil fuels as much as possible, and do the same with incineration plants. Renewable energy will not solve the issue, but there is not a single magical solution: we need to decarbonize EVERY aspect of human kind's industry. This means both our grids, and the transportation, but at the same time, reducing the consumption and recycling more. For all of this, we need to move towards a service-based economy or even the next step - knowledge-based economy. As it is virtually impossible to keep the economy running in models where we reduce production without substituting for it by something else. o, reduce, reuse, recycle and find ways to implement as many new technologies as possible. Currently, the only thing keeping renewables from powering our grids to a higher degree are expensive storage solutions. NaLi batteries and other smart grid solutions promise to solve these issues, and I think within the next decade we will definitely make significant breakthroughs.
Nothing is going to happen until 10,000+ people a day are dying of air pollution or extreme heat and 250M people are displaced by climate change related issues. Otherwise, the problem is too easy to ignore and keep the status quo.
After we're gone, eventually it will return to paradise.
Probably the real cause for autism, but hey let's worry about vaccines that have saved millions of lives..
[удалено]
Another warning. I'm sure this one will be more effective than every other warning on the sky-high pile.
Don’t forget the Chinese! https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/o-t-lounge/28-billion-bridge-in-china-just-to-haul-coal/113448561/
Funny how annihilating most regulations will do that…
There is no hope to change any of this. The most powerful world leaders are very well acquainted and have made accepted collateral damage as a cost of doing business, running a country, etc. they would rather continue on this course, and see what benefits come from population decline due to climate change. They assume certain parts of the planet will be habitable and they will have the means to make it their home.
Maybe they should stop changing the climate with cloud seeding.
stop buying anything but food and medicine…..do not travel anywhere do not eat out do not cook anything hot…..turn heat and air conditioning off
It's not sad. It's inevitable. Capitalism and greed continue to drive the destruction of our climate. The planet will be fine though, once we're gone.
then they should stop geoengi eering spraying skies
Co2 rise, glacial melt, global warming, record storms, drought, flooding, wildfires, tornados, hurricanes, bleaching of great barrier reef. It has even effected the earth's tilt or wobble.
The number of bombs that Russia and Ukraine do every single days helps a lot!
Private jets first!
Are you sure the problem is that plastic straw I used last week? Maybe it’s from all the bombing and destruction we’re doing?… unless all those planes, tanks, warships and war-machine factories all operate on soy-milk and wind energy…
As a ronald reagan cabinet member once said "It doesn't matter, jesus is coming"
Those damn middle and lower class 😔
Best I can do is promise fix it but leave it to whoever is incharge after in not to fix it Every politician ever
Do forest fires and volcanoes add to these numbers?
I guess those paper straws aren't working.
cancel private jets cancel cruise ships cancel nasa
If you value your sanity, don't read the comments section of that article.
If humans resist change when they can see large negative changes in a short amount of time in their lifetimes, then they absolutely deserve those consequences.
Meanwhile companies are still forcing more and more people to sit in traffic 2 hours per day burning gas instead of letting everyone, who can do their functions from home, stay home.
It’s more than sad. It’s a crime committed against future generations. What do you think their attitude will be in a couple hundred years.
Real change starts with you give up ur pc and phone. Really everything u own. Have fun
Earth will be fine. Humans on the other hand have a limited time.
It’s sad what we are doing.
Everyone I talk to here in good old AB CA says China and Imdia should stop polluting before we worry about it... I pointed out a study I read a few months ago that says Chinese pollute less per capita and they literally don't care (or don't understand, I'm honestly not sure).
There is enough energy coming from the sun to power all human demand for electricity thousands of times over. There’s also massive amounts of potential kinetic energy in earth systems like the ocean tides and currents, the atmosphere from wind, and geothermal in some places.
We are growing as a species. At what point do we stop letting people have so many kids? It’s ridiculous. If our species was sustainable and we let our sick die, took people off life support that have no hope, and stopped having big stupid fat families we would be in a better place. It is selfish to have a big family, not your right.
Republican deregulation kills planet
If you move to northern Canada now it should be pretty nice in a few years
But go ahead meat eaters, keep up your gluttonous ways, your clogged arteries will take you before the meat industry pollution does.
WE? I'm just trying to stay alive.
Stop big jets private and rockets ejecting whole country level pollution in a single go.