Climate change apathy Ragnarok thread - The Bear and Badger

Yossarian

My butter has melted on the counter in the middle of January.

mistercrayon

Do you live outside? Otherwise it doesn’t seem that unusual.

Diluted Dante

The melting point of butter is about 30 degrees, so I'd say that's fairly unusual for January in London.

Yossarian

Yeah, butter lives on the counter year round in my flat, it’s usually only summer when I have to worry about it melting.

TBF, the heating was on in the morning, and it was sitting in direct sunlight, but those things are usually true in January.

GurtTractor

Antarctica, Arctic 40 and 30 degrees Celsius above normal

Yossarian

We’ve fucked it, lads. Enjoy the world while it lasts.

b0r1s

Been meaning to watch The Day After Tomorrow again.

Wookienopants

Are we actually going to face an extinction level event within our lives?
Seems quite likely now

g.man

b0r1s wrote:

Been meaning to watch The Day After Tomorrow again.

b0r1s

dynamiteReady

A map projecting how fucked the planet might be in 2100. No matter what your take is, this is an excellent web page...

But I'm a sucker for a good choropleth:

https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/klimawandel-hitze-meeresspiegel-wassermangel-stuerme-unbewohnbar/en.html

monkey

Good news everyone!

hunk

More bad news.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/ng-interactive/2022/apr/14/climate-crisis-food-systems-not-ready-biodiversity

equinox_code

YouTube but with this at the end /watch?v=-M0jRaOOkT8&t=61s

we are so fucked

hunk

Don't look up but irl?

GooberTheHat

equinox_code

Looks like we might be getting 9 euro monthly travel tickets for the whole of Germany. It's only for the summer months, but what a great idea. I'm not sure I believe it until I see it, but here's hoping.

https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/9-euro-ticket-coming-june-1-valid-across-germany

Diluted Dante

The Tories are probably thinking of offering something similar, for £9,000 a month.

GurtTractor

This is some very cool stuff -

Diluted Dante

Moved out of the moaning about the weather thread.

Funkstain wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

I feel like maybe you're projecting the guilt of your own inaction onto others based on that Funk.

Maybe? But it’d be nice if you could explain how that’s relevant to my point above

Well it was a reply to your post at the bottom of the previous page.

But on the one at the top of this page, you seem to get mad at people who are doing more than you when they say the things they are doing are a drop in (rising) ocean and its Government and Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net that are the ones who actually can make a meaningful difference.

You're insistent that only individual action can make these change things and they wont do it themselves, whilst also being stuck on Phase 2 of the Underpants Gnomes plan, and not acknowleding that no one has ever argued they will do it entirely of their own volition.

It's like you're getting mad at the wrong people because you feel you don't do enough. Telling other people they're pathetic if they don't feel the things they do make any meaningful difference, and they need to be honest that they dont do anything when as shown with Paul you have no idea what they do seems to be pretty unhelpful.

This isn't to say you shouldnt be mad at the situation. You should be. But channel that anger into something constructive, not at other people who are also mad about it.

Funkstain

So I do not recognise this interpretation of what I'm trying to say. I'll caveat this with the usual "I'm not being clear enough" stuff. But I think I have tried to be clear.

I'm not angry. I'm irritated. I'm not getting mad at people. I'm irritated at them, at worst.

I'm saying: you need mass collective action, which starts with individual action and sacrifices, to force institutional corporate and governmental change. that we would all need to do more, much more, and sign up to it publicly, and do it publicly, and make the sacrifices, and drive others' actions, and build the movement and coalesce into mass action, and that will drive the change.

That by definition requires individual action, first and foremost.

I'm not saying: people don't need more help to understand what they could do and what it could achieve
I'm not saying: fuck you you lazy hypocrites

I haven't told anyone they are pathetic, I've said that handwaving away the truth of what I'm saying above - that knowingly or not, we all have an individual responsibility to do more, much more, and sacrifice much more, else we will not achieve the actual change that is needed - is irritating to me.

Unless you or someone else comes up with an alternative way to achieve the actions, the regulatory changes, the revolutions in tech, the new markets, the governmental change, the real investments etc etc that we all agree we need and we all agree will actually achieve something on a global climactic scale, my point stands.

I am aware that I should be doing much more (and less, so to speak) and that I am not. So I own my hypocrisy. I find it irritating that others don't, for some reason. It's not really a big deal.

Funkstain

The actual point is that if everyone was doing what Paul is doing (and more), and I'm not going to list because I'll just get stuff like "yea but where does Tesla get its batteries from", and doing it publicly (maybe annoyingly and smugly! but!) and working with each other and communities to support more action, then it would drive change at the highest level.

I'm not arguing about the likelihood of this happening. I'm not arguing about the best way to get it to happen (carrot v stick). I'm not haranguing anyone to do it. I'm just pointing out that we're all old and wise and knowledgeable enough to know that we could and perhaps should be doing a lot more, and that by not doing it, we are not part of a mass collective movement which is the only way to drive change. We should own that.

Paul the sparky

It's not really worth owning though. Like, no matter what you do, you could always do more. There's not a reachable limit is there? I think everyone (who cares about it) will do as much as is within reason for them based on time, money, effort etc, so there's definitely room for more. It just wouldn't really make a difference if they did. No point in owning that unless you want to flagellate yourself over the guilt

Diluted Dante

Funkstain wrote:

I'm not saying: people don't need more help to understand what they could do and what it could achieve I'm not saying: fuck you you lazy hypocrites I haven't told anyone they are pathetic

Well...

Funkstain wrote:

Pauls point is that it's not that though. People have been doing stuff and the effect has been... negligible at best.

like fuck bit of recycling here or there isn't 'doing something' listen I don't give a fuck, tbh, if people don't want to do anything about it. just stop pretending that it has "no effect". It's fucking childish. If lots of people do something or somethings, then that has an effect. it also makes more people do those somethings. and then it can achieve high level change, as companies see bottom lines suffering, and governments see support eroding. so do what the fuck you like, eat raw cow until they stop coming home, but stop fucking saying that "there's nothing little old me can do" cos it's pathetic

But if you didn't mean it fine, we can move on. Pauls post above is where I'm at. By your own words the only way to be part of a mass collective movement is to do more. But There is always more that any person can do. I'm typing this on a computer that is using electricity, generated by the following mix:

So I should turn off the computer because of that 55.5% fossil fuel. But what about in 7 minutes when my lunch ends, and I go back to work. Work that requires the use of a computer. So I should quit my job. If I don't I can't be part of a mass collective movement right?

If you think that what I'm saying here sound silly, well that's my point.

monkey

Individual action is pointless without a central coordinator of some kind - government, organisation, paramilitary eco-warrior terror cell etc

monkey

Big weapon is people's wallets but it's so slapdash. After hearing that every toothbrush I've ever owned is still in existence somewhere, I decided to try bamboo toothbrushes. Result - they're shit, they don't last, I'm not convinced they're cleaning my teeth as well. I burned through three times as many of them and I've got no idea if it's actually better for the planet or not. Maybe its more carbon intensive to make them than the others. Maybe they come from further away. Maybe the bamboo harvesting is killing distant ecosystems. Maybe they don't benefit from the efficiency of having an optimised supply chain. Maybe the ginormous markup the company make on them goes straight into some multinational's investment fund that then goes into the coffers of Big Oil, Big Gas or Big Cow Farts. I'm now back on the planet-killing Colgate ones.

The individual just hasn't got the first idea what they're doing because the problem is systemic and that system is opaque.

Funkstain

Paul the sparky wrote:

It's not really worth owning though. Like, no matter what you do, you could always do more. There's not a reachable limit is there? I think everyone (who cares about it) will do as much as is within reason for them based on time, money, effort etc, so there's definitely room for more. It just wouldn't really make a difference if they did. No point in owning that unless you want to flagellate yourself over the guilt

There is a reachable limit, by which I mean there is a reachable tipping point - the point at which if x millions of people are at this tipping point then systematic change starts to happen.

So the bit we disagree on is not the obvious (you can always do more), it's the "it wouldn't really make a difference". I believe that if enough people did enough then it would.

To be clear, I would hope we're past the point of Dante's level of debate here, where he tries to say "hey I could turn off my computer for 10 mins" or monkey's "stupid recyclable toothbrushes" - it should be fairly clear to people capable of thought that there are actions that are positive for the environment and actions which aren't - if you like, you could translate those actions into points (3 days a week no meat & fish = 1.2 points on a scale; replacing that with imported avocados = -0.5 points etc etc) So turning off your PC for 10 mins = +0.003 and using disposable toothbrushes = +who the fuck knows). YES I KNOW that you can attack this with "well how the fuck you know what the relative points are, "I challenge you to get sourced data about emissions and damage caused by bamboo toothbrushes x 30 a year vs plastic x6 a year" etc etc, the old lithium challenge. But come on. we all know that eating less meat is generally good. That driving less, flying less, using less is generally good. Right? Do we really need to pretend it's being clever to point out that no action is without consequence?

Funkstain

Arguing ignorance about this (bamboo worse than plastic, discuss) is another way of abrogating responsibility. You could look into it. You could understand the answers to at least some of your questions. And you could believe your instincts, to some extent: bamboo manufacture is almost certainly better than plastic manufacture. But sure

hunk

I'm willing to stop buying food wrapped up in plastic but all the food offered in the shops/ supermarket is wrapped up in plastic. Hence my enormous unavoidable pile of plastic at the end of the week.

Imo Industry regulation is the only way to force meaningful change. Big business (fossill energy/food industry) only answers to their shareholders and profit, no matter the consequences, is the only goal. Only regulation and the rule of law can reel them in.

Sadly, political parties are 'financed' by a lobbying system which in turn is powered mostly by Big Business. Which basically means we're fucked as no matter the government we choose, BB has a very tight hold on them and is effectively calling the shots.

If we want to change anything we need to reform the lobbying system. A catch-22 in the current political system, the future looks bleak filled with endless heat waves.

Funkstain

Diluted Dante wrote:

Funkstain wrote:

I'm not saying: people don't need more help to understand what they could do and what it could achieve I'm not saying: fuck you you lazy hypocrites I haven't told anyone they are pathetic

Well...

Funkstain wrote:

Pauls point is that it's not that though. People have been doing stuff and the effect has been... negligible at best.

like fuck bit of recycling here or there isn't 'doing something' listen I don't give a fuck, tbh, if people don't want to do anything about it. just stop pretending that it has "no effect". It's fucking childish. If lots of people do something or somethings, then that has an effect. it also makes more people do those somethings. and then it can achieve high level change, as companies see bottom lines suffering, and governments see support eroding. so do what the fuck you like, eat raw cow until they stop coming home, but stop fucking saying that "there's nothing little old me can do" cos it's pathetic

But if you didn't mean it fine, we can move on.

I mean - I literally don't call anyone childish. I say that certain behaviours and attitudes are childish. I don't think this is the home run you think it is? I am still asking how you believe we can achieve large scale other than by large scale individual action.

Yes, it's confusing
Yes it's difficult
yes it's unlikely to actually happen there are too many obstacles, too much comfort / embedded behaviours, too much noise and distractions
yes every action is not some kind of paragon or awful thing, it's not as simple as meat = bad veg = good

but it's still the only way to achieve change. The alternative is what?

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