Of course not. But it does feel a little silly when there are town-sized data centres being built in every direction and billionaires are just “choosing” to break all laws. Meta’s got gas turbines running to power theirs and they just said they’re gonna do it for another year. Who’s gonna stop ‘em? Everyone is too busy working and trying to survive to stop them from pretty literally torching our futures and especially our children’s futures.
Things will need to get pretty bad before we see any kind of justice or change of direction, I fear ☹️
Yeah, I've become something of a refuse-police everywhere I go.
It pisses me off that you can just put whatever in the bin and it gets disappeared and you've done a great job caring for the planet.
Most of it is just plain not recyclable. Never was. Some can theoretically be downcycled into expensive ugly park benches that no one wants so no one bothers to do that. Only PET can be "re" cycled, but plenty isn't.
Billionaires do give a fuck. They just don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves, and maybe close family/friends to some extent.
If I were to hazard a guess I'd guess billionaires fall into 3 camps regarding climate change. Those that still don't believe in it or that their will be any consequences. They are probably in the minority of billionaires (I do believe most of them believe climate change is real at this point, but their unbridled greed won't allow them to admit it in public).
Then you've got the billionaires who do believe in climate change split into 2 more camps. Those that are so old that they predict they won't live long enough to see the large scale consequences effect them, and thus don't care. Finally, those that are young, but believe they can save themselves, without having to help save the world. Those are the billionaires building underground bunkers and compounds. Planning to ride it out from their private utopias.
'Sharp acceleration' meaning 75% faster warming in the last decade compared to the 40 years previous, and blowing past the 1.5° target in 3-4 years. No speculation was given, but I think it's likely we're seeing the limits of oceanic absorption of co2 and heat. The ocean's latent heat capacity has flattened the curve for more than a century, and it's very hard to predict when that will run out, but sea surface temperatures spiking all over have been good evidence that we have passed a major tipping point in the last few years.
They also banned sulphur oxide in ship fuel which would have had a cooling effect, that was hiding the full extent of the damage and is slowly dissipating
Won’t be long until we start doing that again on purpose
Don't take it too seriously, there is an effect but it's not that large. And anyways, the change in maritime fuel standards happened in 2020, while this trend goes back to 2015. A geoengineering project is just going to cause more problems, we don't know nearly enough about how the world works, truly.
Acid rain is not that big of a deal, the amount of sulfur over oceans isn't really a problem. Acid rain is only an issue in certain areas. Sulfur emissions aren't global.
Delaying the collapse of civilization by changing the chemistry of the atmosphere further will only serve to hurt the entire ecosystem to allow a few more years of our planet-wide rape. Decarbonizing was the only hope for both human civilization and Earth to survive together. Our choice now is to accept that or possibly kill everything in desperation.
I’ve read that the models used to predict the rate of change were too optimistic or an assumption about them was too conservative and thus not very realistic. Now we have data showing the models under-predicted the rate of change, so one argument is that we were already on this path since decades ago, we just didn’t model it right.
In any case, we’re all fucked so who gives a shit anyway no?
Is there a name for when we know what the right thing to do is but we keep not doing it?
Isolated pockets in relatively protected areas. Global society won't survive it. Most of the places we grow food won't be able to grow food, that's already accelerating. Ocean acidification kills that food source. Blue ocean event accelerates runaway heating leading to massive hurricane force continental storms. Amoc shuts down and Europe ices over. Humanity may persist but civilization won't.
Vast current areas become arid but vast areas in Siberia and Canada become arable. Very bad but not extinction for humans. Likely extinction for many species though.
None of that thawed soil will be worth a damn for growing at any scale. Like yeah there will be areas that are more or less hospitable but large scale agriculture will not recover
We are adaptable creatures with command of technology. So we've got that going for us. We also have temperature limitations in which we can live, and so do our food sources. Then there's the issue of potable water.
It really depends on how far we're pushed the planet's ecosphere. It could do like before (most recent is the PETM) and hover high, then eventually equalize back into something not the same as we had, but similar. It's done this before, albeit after millions of years. Or it could find a new equilibrium in another state, aka hothouse. Not Venus-like, as some media has spun it, but its own version of feedback to retain a lot more heat than now. Not great for anything that evolved in this climate.
Fun fact: the PETM was the most recent heating event, 56 million years ago. Some species went extinct, others were able to adapt and survive as they evolved into smaller forms. The fun fact is that they adapted because the rate of heating change was over a large amount of time, many hundreds of thousands of years. Now look at us, a spike on the geological temperature graph in (looks at data) less than a 100 years (a few decades, really). So what kind of inertia does a more rapid acceleration usually give compared to a slower one? But hothouse Earth is just a speculation, just a guess. We don't know how far this will go.
Really depends on what happens with phytoplankton; if they can adapt well enough to survive the excessive heat. Some of them can but others are dying out. If we lose all of them, then everything that breaths oxygen is extremely fucked since they make ~70-80% of that oxygen. Then we only have plants and forests like the amazon to make O^2^ (and we all know how that ones going), and then we would also have to deal with the gasses produced by all the oceans on the face of the earth dying and everything in them rotting... if they're not par-boiled.
I’ve often wondered… What if we are way wrong about the level of danger, and ultimately climate change will turn Earth into another Venus, and we only find out once it’s too late?
All of the climate models have adjustable parameters. We are still within the bounds of the worst case scenarios but scientists are always afraid to claim too much. An academic's reputation is a lot less recoverable than a pop star or politician in the sense that they, and their colleagues, actually take their words and predictions seriously. I don't want to completely dismiss the effect of lobbying and corruption toward the downplaying of global warming, but making smaller-than-necessary claims is a common sight in most academic fields.
I think it's mostly in fields with exponential outcomes, which experiences the too conservative estimates.
We as a species has a really hard time understanding exponential/accelerant movement, we expect the next decade to change as much as the previous one. Despite every decade has been changing more than the previous one did
I just wish people would stop acting like I am a "Doomer" over this shit.
Every year its record high summers and winters, tnado alley is moving, rain patterns are all fucked up, I am not even a professional and I can tell the extreme weather shifts from climate change are happening.
I've tried having this same conversation with my mum multiple times and she keeps saying that there has been no meaningful increase in temperatures in her lifetime and I'm just thinking what are you talking about?! I just don't understand what they stand to lose by admitting that humans have demonstrably increased the global temperatures.
Some level of personal guilt for continuing to exist in a system where fossil fuels are burned on their behalf and we often need to burn them ourselves to live a nornal life because the alternatives may barely exist. For example see DEI bike lanes in the states and the banning of them in ontario in canada thus promoting more car use and discourage/making it more dangerous to bike.
yeah those "california wildfires" didn't take over all of the pacific northwest for five months back when i was little. now they do. congratulations, Europe! all that coal and oil all y'all burned for your exclusive benefit, now you get the fires too!
I think it's sunk cost. It's too late for them to admit that they were wrong because now it's too late to do anything. And admitting they were wrong this whole time would mean that there was time to do something and they squandered it to the detriment of not only their own descendants, but for literally every human on the planet.
Remember that the fossil fuel industry knew what was going to happen in the 1970s and lied to governments around the world to ensure our future of maximal fossil fuel burning and damn the consequences came to pass.
We have words for people who betray their country, we have words for people who betray their family, we even have words for people who betray the firm they work for every day, but we have no words for people who betray their entire species.
Kids today just love to complain about the weather. It was hot when i was young too and the rain didn't stop us. Tornados have always happened outside their traditional range occasionally. If CO2 is to blame then volcanos are the real problem. /s
People aren’t good at long term thinking. They have a hard time conceptualizing that actions now affect the entire following century. Our actions build on each other a little at a time, and keep adding up to worse
It urgent not because of what’s happening now, but what will continue to get worse. It’s urgent because we’re locking in climate change now
I mean, maybe, except we are way way way past the point where we can fix this. Very large numbers of humans, will die, likely in the next 20 years. From famine and fighting caused by mass migration from now unlivable areas.
Given our response level when we had time and resources and somewhat willing to work governments, vs now, its going to be a very large percentage, probably 100% within 40-50 years as it spirals and gets worse more and more rapidly.
People got all pissy during COVID when things became hard to get from shipping delays and they couldn't go out to eat. Wait until things become hard to get because those things can no longer be manufactured and they can't go out to eat because there is no food.
But hey, enough Doomer talk. Fidja see, Elon Musk isna Trillionaire! Everything is booming! MONEY!
we are way way way past the point where we can fix this
While it’s hard to make things better, it’s easy to make things worse. It can always get worse and giving up means it will
It’s more important than ever to advocate for change. To do what you can, both personally and with whatever influence you have, either in your social circle or through your consumer practices, or voting.
As a citizen of the US, we seem to be the main villain here. We are making some progress, maybe more than you’d think, but the denial, the politics, the spite and racism means we’re not getting as much done as we need to. A year ago we had corporations on board, we had half the stars on board, we had many major cities on board. Then we got run over by a giant coal rolling monument to excess that modern pickups are. Time to get up, dust ourselves off, and get things moving again
Depends on what you mean by tipping point and it’s an important distinction.
You are right that we are not only stuck with climate change but have zoomed past the target that might have left reasonably adaptable changes. We’re leaving a real challenge for the next generation. But if that’s the result and civilization survives the resulting instability, the climate should recover for our great grandchildren.
The bigger challenge is “tipping point”. I don’t know if that’s what you meant but there are a series of projected climatic tipping points that will not only make things markedly worse for humans but are permanent (on the scale of human civilization). I don’t believe we’re able to predict any with any accuracy but I recall a prediction that were already greater than 50% of having triggered at least one. These are things like AMOC collapse, melting of Greenland glaciers, melting west Antarctic ice shelf, etc
We’ve seen in the news repeatedly this summer the Greenland ice sheet melting faster than ever, causing a slowdown of AMOC currents …. So they also build on each other and we don’t yet know whether/when the tipping point is locked in, when there’s no longer any hope of preventing it
We have had the technology to completely switch to sustainable energy for at least 20 years, but we haven’t because it wouldn’t be profitable to the capitalist class. This problem isn’t caused by us, it’s caused by them.
Come to Europe one of these days. We're at 2.3°C.. Come and see our cities getting closer to temperatures of Phoenix, or the many forest fires, the droughts, powerplants shutting down because of a lack of water, transportation issues. The idiots saying more CO2 being good for plants can ask the farmers how things are going. We're not having a good summer.
Hätte ich nicht meine Katzen auf die ich bei der Temperatur echt aufpassen muss, würd ich wahrscheinlich versuchen die nächsten tage auf nen berg zu fahren oder so. Die lange andauernde Hitze ohne Pause ist echt zermürbend.
You know what I just realized since America doesn’t use metrics we’re even further isolated from the rest of the world because I have no clue what those temperatures mean
30 C is what you'd probably consider a nice warm summer (86 F). 40 C is 104 F. I've seen mention of some places in Europe or Asia hitting 50 C, which is insane. Just add 18 more F to 104.
There's talk of a possible new alltime record, old one was 40,5°c. There is also a forecast which says we will have a very high chance of setting a new nightly minimum record of 28°c on Wednesday night.
Three worst thing are the populist parties attempting to dress this up as "a summer as it used to be". My childhood memories tell me that summers were maxing out somewhere in the 32°c, and we had a lot of heat thunderstorms cooling the evenings when reaching those temperatures.
I often hear that line "it's always been this way here" from people in my area too, knowing full well that most of them are transplants, probably pulling from maybe ten years experience here at best. Whereas I grew up in the 70s here, and know it was NOT like this.
Not really. My house is from the 1960s and we were able to update it to handle 40C+ days consecutively.
The brick vs balloon frame argument isnt really bait. Stick frame is easy to update and make energy efficient. I think there is a real discussion to had about modernizing older homes in Europe to handle the future.
Our homes are built to isolate, and the apartment building i live in is older than most of the buildings currently existing in the US that are used as living space. It's from the 1920s, and although it was modernized in the 2000s, the basic attributes don't change. They were never built with heatwaves in mind, they were constructed to make sure you didn't freeze to death in winter. A large percentage of available living spaces here are constructed this way.
A) there is no AC, and the European Window Style does not make it easy to retrofit, in addition to needing permits - these are historical buildings that are protected by law, preventing most permanent changes to the facade, and rentals are the default in Vienna, so you are messing with someone else's property.
B) short bouts of heat are no issue because of the isolating attributes, but long term heat slowly seeps in, and it's hard to cool the rooms back down again. I only open my windows after sunset and close them shortly after sunrise, while hanging cloth into them on the outside to prevent direct sun, but when the nights dont drop below 25°c, you can't get the heat out fast enough.
C) Our infrastructure is only slowly catching up. Even things like older hospitals or care facilities dont have HVAC. At least nowadays most public transport has AC, but that is a pretty new thing.
So no, our infrastructure at large is not made to deal with long stretches of 40°c heat. It was made when we still had -25°c winters and 30°c were noteworthy.
Anecdotally, just the other day, I roamed around a little and realized that the large rapeseed fields around my city are all totally burned. EDIT: meant to write: shriveled up. Dry as bone.
Just... gone.
Sadly we're now at the "I told you so" phase of global warming and much sooner than expected. Now it's a case of how bad are things going to get.
We still haven't even peaked in terms of global emissions per year, let alone meaningfully reduced them. Then even after reducing from the peak, we really need to get to net 0, which seems impossible right now.
I've been in spectator mode for a while now once I realized the trend. Act locally, know your neighbors, become as self-sufficient as you can. Not much else you can do that will have actual effect.
That won't have any effect. That's precisely what the billionaires will come up with. Sort of individual peasant responsibility. We'll be the ones on a carbon allowance, collecting plastic bottles while they can just buy their carbon credits and burn even more private jet fuel. Congrats on playing right into it.
Like blaming the guy behind bars for not trying something to get out.
I get it - don't give in, change the world, and hold those responsible accountable. All great goals. But without a plan to do so and leadership/infrastructure, you're just as bad as me saying to help oneself first. Maybe worse, since at least I'm doing something instead of victim blaming. If you want to rally the peasants to storm the castle, go ahead, but you aren't going to do that by blaming peasants who aren't doing it solo.
I also get your point on shifting responsibility. I was there when recycling and the rest was marketed to us. That doesn't make recycling or its forgotten sisters reusing and repairing useless. It just shouldn't end there, and shouldn't be an excuse for other things we do as if there's some balancing of credits. So if being more self-sufficient is some playing into their scheme, well, at least it's less that they can control.
100% with you mate, posting revolutionary hopium on Lemmy isn't doing anything. We have to affect what we can reasonably touch. It starts with talking to friends and neighbours, and making sure you have some security and certainty first.
Yeah, seriously, the whole thing with generalizations in the face of suggested individual action is just so silly. We all know we need to hold billionaires/corporations accountable for their bullshit, energy subsides for fucking oil need to go away like yesterday, citizens United needs to be overturned by legislation, members of congress taking bribes from plastic and energy companies and making legislative decisions as a result need to straight up go to prison, etc. But wtf is the normal, everyday person actually gonna do about it? Call their representatives that may or may not listen because they're a partisan hack? Good one.
The cliché of getting involved locally is the correct course of action. It's not throwing molotovs in DC, it's getting to know your local farmers and getting food from them instead of shipped around the globe five times at some supermarket owned by a giant corporation. Get more trees planted in your neighborhood. Start some butterfly sanctuaries. Start a movement to ban egregiously wasteful lawns in your municipality. Get a coalition of people who pay attention and can mob city hall if/when the city council tries to pull some bullshit deals about yet another fucking data center. Establish better water conservation with your neighbors. This is what the actual, real, legitimate revolution looks like. It doesn't start with "AND I TOOK OUT MY GUN AT THE GUBMINT!", it starts with "My neighbors and I started our own little kinda country. ¯_(ツ)_/¯"
Acting locally, means the people hired to handle private jets.. Can handle locally. I suppose if you're rich enough for a private jet, you can pay everyone enough to retire after 5 years. But I doubt they do, so go ahead mechanics. Do your part to keep planes grounded
The thing that doesn't get called out enough is that many greenhouse gasses have a lag time before they actually start causing heat. CO2 for example takes about 20 years if I recall correctly. So we are seeing the results of what was emitted years ago... not necessarily the current emissions.
Well greenhouse gases are often described as a blanket and a blanket doesn't immediately get warm, it take time. I doubt the trickling effect is much different in lag time than sudden pulses, its just gradually increasing the blanket rather than pulling it all on at once. Its still gonna take time for more solar energy to accumulate by bouncing off the trickling in CO2.
In the book plows, plagues, and petroleum, the author uses several factors of humans history to argue that man made climate change was slowly having an impact much before the industrial revolution, which is the common "starting point" for most people and scientists. Althought not as drastic as this sudden increase in fossil fuel burning, they argue that impacts such as deforestion and burning of cropland in early human settlements had a measureable impact on carbon sinks and carbon releases, still enough to start skewing the natural rate of climate change.
Yeah.. realising I was not making a distinction between greenhouse effect (e.g. increased rate of warming), and the result (e.g. actual increased heat content/temperature. I think the rate of warming increase is basically instant, but yes, it takes some time for the temperature levels to catch up.
I don't know if I was explicitly taught it at uni, buy I have always understood as a climate scientist that GHG emissions started before the industrial revolution (albeit small). I think that's common knowledge in climate science.
They may be thinking of the half-life of C02, around 120 years ... or the delayed effect of temperature uptake by the ocean. I'm not a clime scientist.
My intuitive answer is that the collapse of globalised industrial society seems fairly likely (as a result of the end of cheap liquid fuel if nothing else). What that looks like is highly dependent on how we respond - it's not a climate problem, it's a social problem.
I don't think humans are going to go extinct, but a population crash seems likely. And we're taking out a tonne of other species.
I would hazard that the the extintion of Mankind really depends on the innevitable water and food wars escalating out of control in the nuclear era or not.
A lot of this shit (you also see it in Economics, as Inequality explodes and Social Mobility grinds to a halt) can escalate out of control via the reactions of Human Societies to it (just look at the rise of the Far Right in response to the above mentioned trends in Inequality and Social Mobility).
As I see it, people's and countries' reaction to the problems caused by Climate Change are were the nastiest of nasty shit can come out from.
I would say that the ultimate impact on Mankind of Climate Change is itself outside the scope of Climatology by itself - by its own nature it would be an interdisciplinary effort involving at the very least Climatologists, Sociologists and Economists.
That said, anybody can, as non-expert, mention some possibilities, though obviously not claiming any authoritativeness on the subject. (That's what I tried to do, hence why I began by saying it was just my "hazarding").
Yep, agree! That first paragraph is where I'm at now, trying to work with social scientists, business people, economists, who ever is keen. That interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary work is suuuuper interesting and fun and fucking hard.
I don't think that last bit is right, see my other comment to FireRetardant's reply. I think the increase in warming rate is basically instantaneous (maybe a few months for atmospheric mixing), it's the peak of temperature/heat that is delayed (agreeing with your 3rd paragraph)
Apologies I should have linked a source in that claim. I only had a rough understanding of it and had read an article on phys.org that mentioned that previously. Arguably still a big concern since we could not be seeing the actual warming done in present day 2026 for another decade or more.
There is some hope if we chip at it as much as we can. No action is too small:
less travelling. Life is fun near home. Happiness isn't tied to an airplane and a beach far away
eat less animals. You ll get used to whatever diet in a few weeks. It doesnt have to be vegan or nothing. Also, beans are delicious:)
bamboo toilet paper. Grows fast, renewable.
plant bushes, trees. Look up local resilient species. I've been planting everywhere I can. You can call your local municipality, they have regreening programs.
buy less stuff. Available tech is already good enough.
vote with your wallet. This is the only real power we have over corporations, imo. Lots of great easy to repair brands. Fair trade, etc.
If we convince ourselves we are screwed, we ll give up. Be the hero of your own story. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET IT 100% RIGHT. Any improvement is improvement. We all live different lives, and the economy is hard on alot of us.
If we dont support billioniares business is, and turned "the individual" into an organized mass, it would work.
I dont know if this opinion, to change using amazon and the other big retailers, will ever come though. I saw someone legit promoting aliexpress for a product not too long ago, and I was surprised no one gave them shit for it.
If Working for and using, for example, amazon, was suddenly shamed and everyone stopped using it, it would stop making the billionaire at the top money. If no one buys the product, no one is willing to work for the company, the company would disolve. bezos still wouldnt be broke, or held to account, but this revenue stream would stop.
Will it happen though? I feel like a nhilist for saying, I dont think so.
Edit just in case you're an idiot like that other guy, no, this isn't addressed to the person I replied to, if you can't figure out the joke, maybe reflect on why we're here. Jfc
and yes, more putting the onus on us, when all of our individual yearly pollution barely amounts to a day of pollution released by average industry.
You know it was industrial propaganda that started the whole personal responsibility thing to begin with right? to shift blame away from themselves and onto you and me.
I mean, yeah, you can make yourself feel good by reducing, but its doing fuckall compared to industrial release.
I understand the sentiment, but doesn't "the industry" essentially produce things that are for "us", even if indirectly?
Factories don't exist for their own sake, they exist to make an end product for people. So if you want to change that, we do need to consume less, like the parent you replied to said.
I get what you're saying. It's a both are true type of thing in my opinion. Our impact pales in comparison to the ultra wealthy. What gets left out of the conversation is that the AI data centres, factories, and transport trucks exist because there is demand. Each and every one of us is part of that demand and by significantly changing our lifestyles we can change our demands.
Your argument is valid though, the wealthy need to be the first to reduce their demand and by the most. Also that they're not going to do that without the threat of state violence, just like we're obligated to be lawful on the threat of state violence. It's just that we're not absolve of our contribution to climate change because the ultra wealthy have contributed more.
The point I poorly made, is that it's capitalists/capital interests, the uber rich and techno-fascists that are clamoring for AI. It's not "EVERYONE."
Demand for a thing doesn't mean that the poor and rich are demanding the thing equally.
The point I poorly made was the uber rich, and their greed are driving global warming far more than your average person.
I recycled like a good little soldier through the 80's, 90's, 2000's, 2010's and early 2020's, only to find out that much of our plastic waste was just sold to third world countries rather than ACTUALLY being recycled. I've eliminated plastic everywhere I can in my life, and reuse it until it degrades and it's got to be tossed.
I keep my thermostat set at 62 in the winter, and 78 in the summer to reduce my demand for electricity, even though these aren't comfortable temperatures, they are tolerable. I already eat a primarily vegetarian diet, not because I want to, but because I am being priced out of meat. I repair my shoes and clothes to get a second life out of them. I don't own a car and ride a bicycle. (Before I moved closer to work I'd average 45 miles a day between commute and errands on the way home.)
Corporate interests have actively hampered transitions to greener energy and public transportation, and bicycle infrastructure, (at least in the USA where I am.)
The point I am trying to make here is that the poor, and lower middle class don't have large footprints to begin with, and have reduced consumption due to inflation and shit pay. Corporate interests and the uber wealthy are the biggest drivers of climate change.
I understand the sentiment, but doesn’t “the industry” essentially produce things that are for “us”, even if indirectly?
No. They produce for income. For brand imaging. To keep shelf space and maintain market presence.
And they do that by producing significantly more than the market requires. More than customers would ever want to buy.
They do it by making low quality slop products that they specifically engineer to be as unrepairable as possible, to fail as soon as they can get away with it, to force consumers to buy replacements more frequently than they would ever want to.
Do you go to the store and go "Wow, I wish this brand would generate more waste to take up shelf space so (competitor) cant have it?"
Do you look at a brand and go "I will only support this company if it fills the landfills every 3 months with perfectly usable products?"
Do you go "Wow, I wanna pay 500 dollars for this device thats gonna fail in 18 months and need to be replaced, because repairing it is gonna cost so much that its better just to get a new one again"?
Do you go "god, I like this product, I really hope entire communities lost their access to clean water to cool the AI's that generated the design?"
No?
Neither do I.
Because they don't serve the interest of the customer. They serve the market, which has taken a life of its own (which is especially apparently with the AI scam bubble, where companies keep making promises to buy future products from each other with the same imaginary trillion dollars that keeps getting passed around, generating endless imaginary value without producing anything.. and when the AI bubble pops, its going to crash harder than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs)
If they served the interests of the customers, they'd keep prices low, and pay high, and produce quality goods that people would have the money to buy.
By putting the burden on the end consumer for climate change and pollution, they are escaping blame, and are allowed to continue to pollute and accelerate the decline of our climate. Its like blaming you for growing a tomato, while ignoring the industrial farm that mowed down 2 million acres of south american rainforest to produce alfalfa for saudi horses.
I don't think you should think about it in terms of blame, I think that's a big part of the propaganda. Seeding of anger, frustration, and apathy. Rather than allowing empowerment, organizing, and hope.
Blame should only be reserved for those that act with careless disregard. And doing things that are good for the environment shouldn't be seen as 'paying back'. You are actively doing more than you should and letting your actions speak louder than your words. And those actions can (and should) be part of building the collective that will force those truly responsible from stopping.
That's my one wish for lists like OP posted. It should always contain that the only lasting change is organizing.
Did you respond to the wrong person? EDIT: Okay, you're responding elsewhere, so you're just not going to respond to leaving a nonsensical but also kind of vile comment? Crazy, considering I was mostly agreeing with you, other than saying you shouldn't accept the propagandized idea that people are or should be doing something to make up for some perceived guilt. Rather than doing it to empower themselves and foster collective action.
I was coming here to say this how does traveling less make a difference when a million (unknown if a true number but I didn't look up how many trucks are in the USA) semi trucks are on the road every day (and the rest of the world too). None of those things even significantly reduce anything until industry stops wasting so much. J just look at the food and retail products thrown away every day. Dumpsters full all across the country, all that pollution to produce some shit and they just throw it away
I very clearly laid out where the problem is that we have to deal with. Which is the actual drivers of climate change. Not you choosing to drive to work instead of walking 8 miles in the heat.
(Seriously though: I agree that every action counts, but I also think that, even if the majority of the population followed that list perfectly, the globalized corporate structure would still be operating in such a way that the personal impact wouldn't be noticeable. When agriculture produces more than what's sold, they have no issue dumping the items that don't sell into the ground. Clothing outlets will shred unsold merch instead of giving it away. The waste is built into the system and a structural change is needed NOW if we are to survive.)
If there was a decline in consumption of climate harming products, large enough that these companies could see it in thier financial reports, I cant believe it wouldnt have any effect on the market.
Youre points are valid, and I agree with them, but if a majority wanted to (ideally, and I dont think they will) I think "voting with our wallet" would work, it is simple, but not practical because humans seem to love convience.
This is true but individual action is still necessary. Just because it's important that we hold corporations and the wealthy accountable and curb industrialized pollution doesn't mean that the average person isn't needing to make significant changes. We can't both maintain a consumer mindset and abdicate individual responsibility while also demanding sweeping societal changes.
We can consume the wealthy and abdicate them of the responsibility of carrying on and also demand change. Especially if we consume them while they're still alive, as a mob, and do it with dull forks.
Sure, we can do that, but keep in mind that unilateral individual actions will not make the difference, all you can do is trying to create more broad awareness, form coalition and support for tighter laws and regulation, in order to have meaningful effect.
Also avoid blaming or moralizing individuals for their own choices, this will cause fatigue and infighting, which will distract from focus on policy change.
If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, crashing the world economy in the process, we would still have to deal with the same temperature levels we have right now. We not only need to reduce emissions, but we now have to reverse it. Nothing short of an immediate global transition to nuclear power and/or nuclear fusion coming online will stop what is happening.
Nothing short of immediate global transition to nuclear power and/or nuclear fusion renewable energy + storage coming online will stop what is happening.
ftfy
Also, nobody alive today will see the effect of any reversing we do in our time, even if we manage to find something and start tomorrow. But it'll get much worse if we do nothing.
"If all human emissions of heat-trapping gases were to stop today, Earth’s temperature would continue to rise for a few decades as ocean currents bring excess heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface. Once this excess heat radiated out to space, Earth’s temperature would stabilize. Experts think the additional warming from this “hidden” heat is unlikely to exceed 0.9° Fahrenheit (0.5°Celsius). With no further human influence, natural processes would begin to slowly remove the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and global temperatures would gradually begin to decline.
It’s true that without dramatic action in the next couple of decades, we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) compared to pre-industrial temperatures—a threshold that experts say offers a lower risk of serious negative impacts. But the more we overshoot that threshold, the more serious and widespread the negative impacts will be, which means that it is never “too late” to take action."
Your first point is so huge IMO. If you can't enjoy being at your own home then trying to have some kind of fulfilling life is going to be a steeper uphill battle than it already was.
Look at it like the Buddhists and stoics. Thinking your happiness is out there waiting on some beach, or in some fancy car or McMansion, is only going to perpetuate your suffering in the actual real now.
Or put another way, if you decide to find happiness and fulfillment in your home and your local community, and it works, then THEY can't stop you. Whoever that is in your case.
Your first point is so huge IMO. If you can’t enjoy being at your own home then trying to have some kind of fulfilling life is going to be a steeper uphill battle than it already was.
Been on the dating apps recently. The number of people who present "travel" as their entire personality is unsettling. Every photo somewhere exotic, every prompt answer is about traveling. It makes me wonder what they're all running from. I don't disagree that vacationing can be enjoyable, but there's more to life.
And don't get me started on the people who try to say that "traveling" is different from "vacationing" and that what they're doing is travelling and not vacationing. Egads.
Prolly they all live in a big city. And living in a big city sucks ass, but most people have no choice because that's where the jobs are.
I luckily live outside a big city in small village with forests and fields around me. But still near enough a medium-sized city so that I don't have to commute for ages. But I see that not everyone can live in places like mine, so the big city it is, where it is loud and full. Kinda understandable that u want to get away from it, then. But yeah, it doesn't mean that u need to fly to other side of the earth to do vacation, usually your own country has enough pretty spots to spend ur vacation.
Lol. I don't think anyone reading this is going to stop the minimal traveling they do in the short breaks from The Grind that they get while dipshit rich people are yachting and jetting all over the planet. And they shouldn't. Average people shouldn't have to give up any travelling whatsoever because their budgets prevent them from doing enough to actually cause significant harm anyway. We need to use force to make the real culprits adjust their habits.
Taylor Swift's jets alone cancel out any benefit all of your steps might have for a few million or hundreds of millions of people.
It's wonderful to want to try to do something about this, but the only real way we have to do something about it is to stop the people and corporations who are the actual biggest contributors to the issue.
I'm thinking less along the lines of voting and more along the lines of stabbing.
Come on. You're off by multiple orders of magnitude. No, a single private plane is not offsetting millions or hundreds of millions of people living more sustainably. I'm genuinely not sure if you're this clueless or just trying to manipulate opinions.
Plus, emissions are additive, so you can avoid your own emissions, while doing what you can to keep billionaires in check.
I tend of assume someone being off thousands of orders of magnitude about something is using hyperbole. You didn't even mention the possibility. Seeing one example of an incorrect ratio and leaping clear to being torn between deciding if the person who said it is a complete idiot or some insidious evil force manipulating folks is enough to qualify you to wear a cape.
No way.. billionaires with yachts and private planes releasing more carbon in an afternoon then I use in a lifetime and I'M the one you think should wipe his ass with bamboo.. get the fuck out of here.
Eat the rich then tell me I'm not doing enough because I eat a burger and use proper toilet paper
This is not an "individual action will solve this" case anymore. WE can't do jack about it, individually. If we get the corporations to stop doing harm, and the rich cut down traveling in their superjets, maybe then. But some schmuck driving a Toyota corolla a few hundred miles on a vacation, or taking a commercial passenger jet on a vacation with 100-some-odd people isn't the problem here.
I wonder if this have anything to do with moving quickly from "we must all limit our energy consumption" to "we must burn as much energy possible for no real purpose".
Meanwhile, my workplace just announced RTO, starting next year. It's a moderately large, 100% white collar office site.
Gotta drive those CO2 numbers up, baby!
yeah, back when i was young and had energy there was this 12 mile run up a mountain to the glacier (or where it was) and back i'd do once or twice a year. last time i saw the glacier was like, 20 years ago.
Conservatives in the US (at least as a platform, not so much down to the individual) have mostly given up pretending that the climate isn't changing, they are just refusing to take responsibility for it. They are currently pretending it's an act of God/ nature and that it's laughable for man to be able to influence it.
Yearly average global mean surface temperature from five data sources, in two versions: (top) unadjusted, (bottom) adjusted for El Niño/Southern Oscillation, volcanism, and solar variation. All are aligned so that the average from 1991 to 2020 equals 0.88°C, to approximate warming since pre-industrial.
They weren't expecting a linear model. Did you read the article?
The increase in acceleration is something theyve noticed since 2013, as reported in the article (of about .35 per year instead of .2). There was also an unusual increase in 2023 and 2024.
These are all important things scientists should be measuring and reporting on, even if it seems obvious by random lemmy user looking at a graph (graph that was made by scientists measuring and reporting on their observations).
As long as we set up a terminal with an LLM on our barren dead planet, future civilizations will be able to use it to learn about some completely stupid made up shit long after we are gone.
Before this whole thing goes under, I vote we take it upon ourselves to punish those responsible for destroying this planet for their own greed. All billionaires and trillionaires must go, in a method befitting what they have done. Every member of the board of every oil company should join them. And all politicians who have allowed this should go first.
Crypto farming, feeding the ai bubble, large scale wars of aggression, commuters replacing cars with trucks, buying throwaway junk has never been easier. That's the relatively new completely unnecessary hubris that I can think off atm. These should be the low hanging fruits to just not do, but apparently we're going to continue doing them anyways. If we can't address the low hanging fruits, then tackling the harder challenges will remain a pipe dream until it's too late. Climate stability is fucked, and we're in for a rough ride.
The real "low hanging fruit to not do" is blaming individual choices for societal issues. Capitalism is the one and only reason for anthropogenic climate change. Ending capitalism is the one and only way to solve it. There is no individual action you can take that is effective, we have to reorder society in such a way that it is impossible to profit from environmental destruction.
That's what you get when you build insane amounts of AI data centers. In The Netherlands Microsoft data centers are responsible for 1% of all power consumption in the country. Google refuses to give insight in their power consumption. And now there's a sharp acceleration in global warming. I wonder how. FFS.
I believe there could be some valid uses for responsible use of them, but summarizing the best chocolate chip cookie recipes every time someone searches for a recipe certainly isnt that use.
Plus in theory the data centers could be using green energy, makung their main impacts come from the cooling towers and additional mining of resources rather than the energy they consume. Its the same argument with EVs they are better if powered by green energy, but still better if the energy isn't spent at all, for example being able to take a bike to the store rather than a 6000 lbs EV.
Right. In theory ai datacenters came along at the perfect time, when renewables are the cheapest power source. We could be using them to trigger a massive increase in renewable energy generation. That’s a nice fantasy
Some data centers are necessary for modern life. They facilitate pretty much everything you do online. Some could also be used to optimize the power grid when running on renewable energies.
It doesn’t. The process we have now kicked off is not going to change to any great degree whether we continue to build or stop building data centres.
Even if we immediately stopped all pollution and went back to a pre-industrial way of life, the damage is done, the ice caps will continue to melt and we will still have to deal with the consequences of our actions.
I’m not saying we should continue to abuse the environment, but AI wasn’t the catalyst for climate change and it isn’t the worst thing we are doing.
"AI data centers are ALSO bad" wasn't your initial statement, and you know it.
And even if it was, that's kind of beside the point. AI data centers are a relatively new (10 years) usage of the energy produced with the burning of hydrocarbons. The burning of hydrocarbons is the problem and has been for 150 years.
We can't focus on the real problem if you insist on redirection of people's ire towards your latest socio-political beef.
The rise of those centers did cause an insane increase. The energy and water used is insane. They contribute for a very large part. Cars are suddenly not that big of an issue anymore, compared to those data centers. Next to the energy and water usage, it's also made from components which have an insane carbon footprint themselves.
Don't underestimate those centers. We were alarmed by climate change, we discussed how we can reduce it, then built these centers making it early impossible to come back from, while the construction of these centers is far from done.
If you spend an evening in talking with an AI instead of streaming a movie from Netflix in 4k you'd have used less energy. Which would be still less than just the gas used to drive a few miles away for a night out.
And all data center usage is significantly less than something like A/C usage (which is likely to be increasing as temps increase).
There's a lot of legitimate grievances and concerns about AI — just today I was seeing a mathematician having an identity crisis in response to the unrelenting solving of open questions, something probably every field will soon struggle with adapting to — but the inflated perception of the environmental impacts means that so much less public attention is being spent on the actual culprits and possible solutions thereof.
Is that what Ai told you? Because that is complete bullshit.
Just taking to Ai doesn't use that much energy, except unless you let it make complicated code, but the energy it took for training the LLM's for your evening conversation took so much energy, resources and caused so much pollution, you could fly an airplane around the world for an entire year and still pollute the earth less.
For me its mostly the cost to benefit ratio given my current electricity prices. At current prices I'm not even sure I'd break even financially for my maintenaince costs of solar (like battery replacement) versus just paying my utility bill. As energy prices change that might change but currently it doesn't make sense for me, i still have a mortgage to pay and other major repairs to do to my house and ideally id have to prematurely redo the roof before installing solar.
The US military is one of, if not the largest, enemy of the environment. Every one of us could do our part but without militaries being mindful too, the environment is cooked.
How is it better? It all just evaporates and breaks down into the same amount of CO2, while also poisoning some habitat along the way. I guess it's less NOx, so maybe that's a benefit?
As a fan of Diogenes, I feel obliged to point out that Cynicism is not the same as pessimism. Cynicism is the philosophical belief that society/civilization was a mistake and that humans would be best advised to follow the example of dogs, who are (generally) innately happy creatures who don't worry about pointless abstract things like real estate ownership and licensing agreements.
We've done more in the last five years to curb fossil fuel consumption than at an point in human history.
From a massive pivot to renewable energy to our Green-Centric foreign policy of blowing up Nordstrem II, embargoing Venezuela, and shutting down the Straight of Hormuz, we are absolutely turning a corner on future fossil fuel consumption.
Donald Trump may go down in history as the most climate friendly leader in our generation. A hundred thousand Greenpeace activists could not have achieved in their lifetime what he's done in less than two terms as president.
Hilariously, you are right. It certainly wasn't his intention to do so, but it is happening. Strangely aligned with China spending like crazy to pivot to a green energy super-supplier. End of an era, although no one will admit it yet.
Unfortunately, we have to wait until we have fed enough training data into the slop machines until we can do anything about it, because humans are way too stupid to do it, and even if they weren't, it wouldn't be futuristic enough.
Trump's first term started in 2017. This warming effect first became visible around 2013-2014. As much as i hate that orange menace, this thing was already happening before him. It'll take several years, if not a decade for his actions to show their effect on the climate.
From the article:
Across all of the datasets, the acceleration started to become visible in 2013 or 2014. The researchers describe the broader shift as beginning around 2015, when the evidence became clearer.
Further in the article they point out, that they don't have an explanation yet, but they do mention that the models occasionally show that kind of effect. So it's not entirely unexpected.
I hate data centers as much as the next guy but usually there is a lag time of several years for climate change to link to its causes. We probably haven't seen the worse of the climate related impacts for up to date AI use yet.
A sensible and measured reply. That being said, when you see images/videos of all the gas turbines running and the shimmering air from the heat by colossus/stargate/whatever it’s called it’s difficult not to think that it’s doing damage now
During the late 1970's, ExxonMobil scientists predicted global warming would accelerate with use of fossil fuels. They were shockingly accurate and the f'ed up weather patterns are the result. Keep buying and driving gas guzzlers.
That would be a crazy timeline if somehow, despite any logic or sense, we discovered that the tiny island of Tuvala was somehow responsible for a quarter of the world's cumulative CO2 emissions. 😂
279 Comments
_chris@lemmy.world · 249 pts · 1d
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the billionaire pedophiles not giving a fuck.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 81 pts · 1d
Of course not. It’s not enough people recycling their grocery bags.
MolochHorridus@piefed.social · 35 pts · 1d
Not to say you shouldn’t recycle.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 1d
Of course not. But it does feel a little silly when there are town-sized data centres being built in every direction and billionaires are just “choosing” to break all laws. Meta’s got gas turbines running to power theirs and they just said they’re gonna do it for another year. Who’s gonna stop ‘em? Everyone is too busy working and trying to survive to stop them from pretty literally torching our futures and especially our children’s futures.
Things will need to get pretty bad before we see any kind of justice or change of direction, I fear ☹️
Canajan@piefed.ca · 13 pts · 1d
Unfortunately we’ve been duped, a lot of it sadly ends up in landfills.
fizzle@quokk.au · 11 pts · 23h
Yeah, I've become something of a refuse-police everywhere I go.
It pisses me off that you can just put whatever in the bin and it gets disappeared and you've done a great job caring for the planet.
Most of it is just plain not recyclable. Never was. Some can theoretically be downcycled into expensive ugly park benches that no one wants so no one bothers to do that. Only PET can be "re" cycled, but plenty isn't.
coolman@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 8h
Glass and metals are recycled pretty frequently, but yeah pretty much everything is just garbage
MolochHorridus@piefed.social · 4 pts · 16h
In some less advanced countries, like the United States of America.
LuckyDevil@piefed.social · 11 pts · 23h
Billionaires do give a fuck. They just don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves, and maybe close family/friends to some extent.
If I were to hazard a guess I'd guess billionaires fall into 3 camps regarding climate change. Those that still don't believe in it or that their will be any consequences. They are probably in the minority of billionaires (I do believe most of them believe climate change is real at this point, but their unbridled greed won't allow them to admit it in public).
Then you've got the billionaires who do believe in climate change split into 2 more camps. Those that are so old that they predict they won't live long enough to see the large scale consequences effect them, and thus don't care. Finally, those that are young, but believe they can save themselves, without having to help save the world. Those are the billionaires building underground bunkers and compounds. Planning to ride it out from their private utopias.
greenbit@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 10h
In any case the power factions' agendas combined have the effects of accelerationism
Canajan@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Gotta make them dollas. /s
midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 172 pts · 1d
'Sharp acceleration' meaning 75% faster warming in the last decade compared to the 40 years previous, and blowing past the 1.5° target in 3-4 years. No speculation was given, but I think it's likely we're seeing the limits of oceanic absorption of co2 and heat. The ocean's latent heat capacity has flattened the curve for more than a century, and it's very hard to predict when that will run out, but sea surface temperatures spiking all over have been good evidence that we have passed a major tipping point in the last few years.
dudeface@lemmy.world · 59 pts · 1d
They also banned sulphur oxide in ship fuel which would have had a cooling effect, that was hiding the full extent of the damage and is slowly dissipating
Won’t be long until we start doing that again on purpose
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 25 pts · 1d
Good news is cloud seeding is viable? Bad news is we're probably gonna need it.
hneerqe@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1d
How great fixing pollution with more pollution.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1d
🎵 The solution to pollution is...more pollution? 🎵
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Actually it's kinda good news as it shows we can make direct impact to the climate. Just with a substance actually made for it.
midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 1d
Don't take it too seriously, there is an effect but it's not that large. And anyways, the change in maritime fuel standards happened in 2020, while this trend goes back to 2015. A geoengineering project is just going to cause more problems, we don't know nearly enough about how the world works, truly.
snoons@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 16h
Death from overheating the entire earth < Death from near constant acid rain?
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13h
Acid rain is not that big of a deal, the amount of sulfur over oceans isn't really a problem. Acid rain is only an issue in certain areas. Sulfur emissions aren't global.
NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 7h
Geoengineering is the only thing that can really blunt this at this point...
midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 5h
Delaying the collapse of civilization by changing the chemistry of the atmosphere further will only serve to hurt the entire ecosystem to allow a few more years of our planet-wide rape. Decarbonizing was the only hope for both human civilization and Earth to survive together. Our choice now is to accept that or possibly kill everything in desperation.
rf_@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 1d
I’ve read that the models used to predict the rate of change were too optimistic or an assumption about them was too conservative and thus not very realistic. Now we have data showing the models under-predicted the rate of change, so one argument is that we were already on this path since decades ago, we just didn’t model it right.
In any case, we’re all fucked so who gives a shit anyway no?
Is there a name for when we know what the right thing to do is but we keep not doing it?
4am@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 1d
Hubris.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1d
Great Filter.
protist@retrofed.com · 5 pts · 1d
No way in hell we're facing an extinction event. Unimaginable human suffering, probably, but humanity will persist.
edible_funk@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1d
Isolated pockets in relatively protected areas. Global society won't survive it. Most of the places we grow food won't be able to grow food, that's already accelerating. Ocean acidification kills that food source. Blue ocean event accelerates runaway heating leading to massive hurricane force continental storms. Amoc shuts down and Europe ices over. Humanity may persist but civilization won't.
Scrogu@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 23h
Vast current areas become arid but vast areas in Siberia and Canada become arable. Very bad but not extinction for humans. Likely extinction for many species though.
edible_funk@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 23h
None of that thawed soil will be worth a damn for growing at any scale. Like yeah there will be areas that are more or less hospitable but large scale agriculture will not recover
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 40m
We are driving 200 species extinct a day and that figure is increasing every year. Eventually we run out of nature and we go with it.
The temperature on the planet has never in its history changed so abruptly, which means plants and animals don't have enough time to adapt.
protist@retrofed.com · 2 pts · 20h
Yes, that's what I said
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 5 pts · 23h
We are adaptable creatures with command of technology. So we've got that going for us. We also have temperature limitations in which we can live, and so do our food sources. Then there's the issue of potable water.
It really depends on how far we're pushed the planet's ecosphere. It could do like before (most recent is the PETM) and hover high, then eventually equalize back into something not the same as we had, but similar. It's done this before, albeit after millions of years. Or it could find a new equilibrium in another state, aka hothouse. Not Venus-like, as some media has spun it, but its own version of feedback to retain a lot more heat than now. Not great for anything that evolved in this climate.
Fun fact: the PETM was the most recent heating event, 56 million years ago. Some species went extinct, others were able to adapt and survive as they evolved into smaller forms. The fun fact is that they adapted because the rate of heating change was over a large amount of time, many hundreds of thousands of years. Now look at us, a spike on the geological temperature graph in (looks at data) less than a 100 years (a few decades, really). So what kind of inertia does a more rapid acceleration usually give compared to a slower one? But hothouse Earth is just a speculation, just a guess. We don't know how far this will go.
snoons@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 16h
Really depends on what happens with phytoplankton; if they can adapt well enough to survive the excessive heat. Some of them can but others are dying out. If we lose all of them, then everything that breaths oxygen is extremely fucked since they make ~70-80% of that oxygen. Then we only have plants and forests like the amazon to make O^2^ (and we all know how that ones going), and then we would also have to deal with the gasses produced by all the oceans on the face of the earth dying and everything in them rotting... if they're not par-boiled.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 23h
But will that subsequent civilization get to space again?
Snowies@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 21h
I’ve often wondered… What if we are way wrong about the level of danger, and ultimately climate change will turn Earth into another Venus, and we only find out once it’s too late?
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 18h
History has taught that humanity wont stop until it has gone too far.
midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 13 pts · 1d
All of the climate models have adjustable parameters. We are still within the bounds of the worst case scenarios but scientists are always afraid to claim too much. An academic's reputation is a lot less recoverable than a pop star or politician in the sense that they, and their colleagues, actually take their words and predictions seriously. I don't want to completely dismiss the effect of lobbying and corruption toward the downplaying of global warming, but making smaller-than-necessary claims is a common sight in most academic fields.
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 17h
I think it's mostly in fields with exponential outcomes, which experiences the too conservative estimates.
We as a species has a really hard time understanding exponential/accelerant movement, we expect the next decade to change as much as the previous one. Despite every decade has been changing more than the previous one did
snoons@piefed.ca · 5 pts · 16h
Sometimes I open up nullschool and just stare at the El Niño on the southern pacific. Looks like a gaping wound.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 121 pts · 20h
I just wish people would stop acting like I am a "Doomer" over this shit.
Every year its record high summers and winters, tnado alley is moving, rain patterns are all fucked up, I am not even a professional and I can tell the extreme weather shifts from climate change are happening.
lordziv@lemmy.nz · 49 pts · 19h
I've tried having this same conversation with my mum multiple times and she keeps saying that there has been no meaningful increase in temperatures in her lifetime and I'm just thinking what are you talking about?! I just don't understand what they stand to lose by admitting that humans have demonstrably increased the global temperatures.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 18h
Some level of personal guilt for continuing to exist in a system where fossil fuels are burned on their behalf and we often need to burn them ourselves to live a nornal life because the alternatives may barely exist. For example see DEI bike lanes in the states and the banning of them in ontario in canada thus promoting more car use and discourage/making it more dangerous to bike.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 12h
Cars.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 13h
yeah, we didn't have fire season out here when i was growing up. we used to call it summer.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 2 pts · 11h
Europe somewhere? Like apparently Europe has California wildfires everywhere now. WTF.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 11h
yeah those "california wildfires" didn't take over all of the pacific northwest for five months back when i was little. now they do. congratulations, Europe! all that coal and oil all y'all burned for your exclusive benefit, now you get the fires too!
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 9h
I think it's sunk cost. It's too late for them to admit that they were wrong because now it's too late to do anything. And admitting they were wrong this whole time would mean that there was time to do something and they squandered it to the detriment of not only their own descendants, but for literally every human on the planet.
Their ego will not allow it.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 12h
Remember that the fossil fuel industry knew what was going to happen in the 1970s and lied to governments around the world to ensure our future of maximal fossil fuel burning and damn the consequences came to pass.
We have words for people who betray their country, we have words for people who betray their family, we even have words for people who betray the firm they work for every day, but we have no words for people who betray their entire species.
MisterD@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 20h
My government will do nothing until most politicians dies in not one but multiple tornadoes hitting the parliament... in the same year..
Rooster326@programming.dev · 4 pts · 19h
And then they would invest in better healthcare plans, and better security
MumboJumbo@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 18h
*for the MPs
Rooster326@programming.dev · 1 pts · 10h
Why do they care about the Military Police?
skibidi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9h
MPs = members of parliament
Rooster326@programming.dev · 1 pts · 8h
Ah okay. Yes agreed. 💯
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 18h
Kids today just love to complain about the weather. It was hot when i was young too and the rain didn't stop us. Tornados have always happened outside their traditional range occasionally. If CO2 is to blame then volcanos are the real problem. /s
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 17h
AA5B@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 9h
People aren’t good at long term thinking. They have a hard time conceptualizing that actions now affect the entire following century. Our actions build on each other a little at a time, and keep adding up to worse
It urgent not because of what’s happening now, but what will continue to get worse. It’s urgent because we’re locking in climate change now
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 12h
Doomerism is giving up, not accepting the reality that things are bad and getting much worse.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 5 pts · 11h
I mean, maybe, except we are way way way past the point where we can fix this. Very large numbers of humans, will die, likely in the next 20 years. From famine and fighting caused by mass migration from now unlivable areas.
Given our response level when we had time and resources and somewhat willing to work governments, vs now, its going to be a very large percentage, probably 100% within 40-50 years as it spirals and gets worse more and more rapidly.
People got all pissy during COVID when things became hard to get from shipping delays and they couldn't go out to eat. Wait until things become hard to get because those things can no longer be manufactured and they can't go out to eat because there is no food.
But hey, enough Doomer talk. Fidja see, Elon Musk isna Trillionaire! Everything is booming! MONEY!
AA5B@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
While it’s hard to make things better, it’s easy to make things worse. It can always get worse and giving up means it will
It’s more important than ever to advocate for change. To do what you can, both personally and with whatever influence you have, either in your social circle or through your consumer practices, or voting.
As a citizen of the US, we seem to be the main villain here. We are making some progress, maybe more than you’d think, but the denial, the politics, the spite and racism means we’re not getting as much done as we need to. A year ago we had corporations on board, we had half the stars on board, we had many major cities on board. Then we got run over by a giant coal rolling monument to excess that modern pickups are. Time to get up, dust ourselves off, and get things moving again
AmyAye@nord.pub · -1 pts · 8h
Even if everyone on the planet agreed to go completely "green" or whatever, we are pretty much past the tipping point of no return I feel.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
Depends on what you mean by tipping point and it’s an important distinction.
You are right that we are not only stuck with climate change but have zoomed past the target that might have left reasonably adaptable changes. We’re leaving a real challenge for the next generation. But if that’s the result and civilization survives the resulting instability, the climate should recover for our great grandchildren.
The bigger challenge is “tipping point”. I don’t know if that’s what you meant but there are a series of projected climatic tipping points that will not only make things markedly worse for humans but are permanent (on the scale of human civilization). I don’t believe we’re able to predict any with any accuracy but I recall a prediction that were already greater than 50% of having triggered at least one. These are things like AMOC collapse, melting of Greenland glaciers, melting west Antarctic ice shelf, etc
We’ve seen in the news repeatedly this summer the Greenland ice sheet melting faster than ever, causing a slowdown of AMOC currents …. So they also build on each other and we don’t yet know whether/when the tipping point is locked in, when there’s no longer any hope of preventing it
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h
You are really misreading what Im saying. Im not saying things should go on as usual. Im saying we need to fight to salvage what we can.
Your last paragraph is especially misrepresenting my point.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 1 pts · 8h
I get that.
I am.saying that we are already past any point of "salvaging what we can."
Well past.
And I was mostly agreeing with the original comment.
Nowtayneicangetinto@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 19h
People who call you a doomer over this are just those who want to keep their head in the sand.
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip · 84 pts · 1d
We're all trying to find who did this
tigermountain@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1d
"When after all, it was you and me".
Tujio@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 1d
Turns out, the real treasure is the global catastrophe we made along the way.
And by "we" I mean the ghouls running the world.
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 1d
We have had the technology to completely switch to sustainable energy for at least 20 years, but we haven’t because it wouldn’t be profitable to the capitalist class. This problem isn’t caused by us, it’s caused by them.
jestho@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 1d
Pleased to meet you, hope you've guessed my name!
... Capitalism. My name is capitalism.
naught101@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 23h
Especially if "you and me" includes corporations
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 8 pts · 1d
Flower@sh.itjust.works · 80 pts · 1d
Come to Europe one of these days. We're at 2.3°C.. Come and see our cities getting closer to temperatures of Phoenix, or the many forest fires, the droughts, powerplants shutting down because of a lack of water, transportation issues. The idiots saying more CO2 being good for plants can ask the farmers how things are going. We're not having a good summer.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 53 pts · 1d
This is the forecast for the next 5 days in Vienna/Austria. Last week was the same. I am fucking exhausted.
Cant wait for Friday.
Jumi@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
Ach du liebes Schnitzel, und ich dachte hier in Oberbayern isses übel.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 2 pts · 9h
Hätte ich nicht meine Katzen auf die ich bei der Temperatur echt aufpassen muss, würd ich wahrscheinlich versuchen die nächsten tage auf nen berg zu fahren oder so. Die lange andauernde Hitze ohne Pause ist echt zermürbend.
Jumi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 8h
Ich hab ne Wohnung nach Süden und fühle deinen Schmerz.
boobookittyfrick@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 1d
You know what I just realized since America doesn’t use metrics we’re even further isolated from the rest of the world because I have no clue what those temperatures mean
Areldyb@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 21h
30 is hot,
20 is nice,
10 is not,
and 0 is ice.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 11 pts · 23h
30 C is what you'd probably consider a nice warm summer (86 F). 40 C is 104 F. I've seen mention of some places in Europe or Asia hitting 50 C, which is insane. Just add 18 more F to 104.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 3 pts · 9h
There's talk of a possible new alltime record, old one was 40,5°c. There is also a forecast which says we will have a very high chance of setting a new nightly minimum record of 28°c on Wednesday night.
Three worst thing are the populist parties attempting to dress this up as "a summer as it used to be". My childhood memories tell me that summers were maxing out somewhere in the 32°c, and we had a lot of heat thunderstorms cooling the evenings when reaching those temperatures.
Nowadays we don't even get rain.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 2 pts · 9h
I often hear that line "it's always been this way here" from people in my area too, knowing full well that most of them are transplants, probably pulling from maybe ten years experience here at best. Whereas I grew up in the 70s here, and know it was NOT like this.
pahlimur@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 8h
So strange to me to see temperatures that are like a normal summer 30 years ago being seen as some end all scenario.
Do your homes not handle 40C+ weather? We run a single window AC that cools the whole house in the weather you describe.
Rugnjr@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 7h
Bait.
pahlimur@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3h
Not really. My house is from the 1960s and we were able to update it to handle 40C+ days consecutively.
The brick vs balloon frame argument isnt really bait. Stick frame is easy to update and make energy efficient. I think there is a real discussion to had about modernizing older homes in Europe to handle the future.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 1 pts · 7h
Our homes are built to isolate, and the apartment building i live in is older than most of the buildings currently existing in the US that are used as living space. It's from the 1920s, and although it was modernized in the 2000s, the basic attributes don't change. They were never built with heatwaves in mind, they were constructed to make sure you didn't freeze to death in winter. A large percentage of available living spaces here are constructed this way.
A) there is no AC, and the European Window Style does not make it easy to retrofit, in addition to needing permits - these are historical buildings that are protected by law, preventing most permanent changes to the facade, and rentals are the default in Vienna, so you are messing with someone else's property.
B) short bouts of heat are no issue because of the isolating attributes, but long term heat slowly seeps in, and it's hard to cool the rooms back down again. I only open my windows after sunset and close them shortly after sunrise, while hanging cloth into them on the outside to prevent direct sun, but when the nights dont drop below 25°c, you can't get the heat out fast enough.
C) Our infrastructure is only slowly catching up. Even things like older hospitals or care facilities dont have HVAC. At least nowadays most public transport has AC, but that is a pretty new thing.
So no, our infrastructure at large is not made to deal with long stretches of 40°c heat. It was made when we still had -25°c winters and 30°c were noteworthy.
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz · 14 pts · 1d
Anecdotally, just the other day, I roamed around a little and realized that the large rapeseed fields around my city are all totally
burned. EDIT: meant to write: shriveled up. Dry as bone.Just... gone.
BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world · 70 pts · 1d
Sadly we're now at the "I told you so" phase of global warming and much sooner than expected. Now it's a case of how bad are things going to get.
We still haven't even peaked in terms of global emissions per year, let alone meaningfully reduced them. Then even after reducing from the peak, we really need to get to net 0, which seems impossible right now.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 30 pts · 1d
I've been in spectator mode for a while now once I realized the trend. Act locally, know your neighbors, become as self-sufficient as you can. Not much else you can do that will have actual effect.
hneerqe@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
That won't have any effect. That's precisely what the billionaires will come up with. Sort of individual peasant responsibility. We'll be the ones on a carbon allowance, collecting plastic bottles while they can just buy their carbon credits and burn even more private jet fuel. Congrats on playing right into it.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 28 pts · 1d
Like blaming the guy behind bars for not trying something to get out.
I get it - don't give in, change the world, and hold those responsible accountable. All great goals. But without a plan to do so and leadership/infrastructure, you're just as bad as me saying to help oneself first. Maybe worse, since at least I'm doing something instead of victim blaming. If you want to rally the peasants to storm the castle, go ahead, but you aren't going to do that by blaming peasants who aren't doing it solo.
I also get your point on shifting responsibility. I was there when recycling and the rest was marketed to us. That doesn't make recycling or its forgotten sisters reusing and repairing useless. It just shouldn't end there, and shouldn't be an excuse for other things we do as if there's some balancing of credits. So if being more self-sufficient is some playing into their scheme, well, at least it's less that they can control.
batmangrundies@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
100% with you mate, posting revolutionary hopium on Lemmy isn't doing anything. We have to affect what we can reasonably touch. It starts with talking to friends and neighbours, and making sure you have some security and certainty first.
NoTagBacks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 18h
Yeah, seriously, the whole thing with generalizations in the face of suggested individual action is just so silly. We all know we need to hold billionaires/corporations accountable for their bullshit, energy subsides for fucking oil need to go away like yesterday, citizens United needs to be overturned by legislation, members of congress taking bribes from plastic and energy companies and making legislative decisions as a result need to straight up go to prison, etc. But wtf is the normal, everyday person actually gonna do about it? Call their representatives that may or may not listen because they're a partisan hack? Good one.
The cliché of getting involved locally is the correct course of action. It's not throwing molotovs in DC, it's getting to know your local farmers and getting food from them instead of shipped around the globe five times at some supermarket owned by a giant corporation. Get more trees planted in your neighborhood. Start some butterfly sanctuaries. Start a movement to ban egregiously wasteful lawns in your municipality. Get a coalition of people who pay attention and can mob city hall if/when the city council tries to pull some bullshit deals about yet another fucking data center. Establish better water conservation with your neighbors. This is what the actual, real, legitimate revolution looks like. It doesn't start with "AND I TOOK OUT MY GUN AT THE GUBMINT!", it starts with "My neighbors and I started our own little kinda country. ¯_(ツ)_/¯"
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 17h
Acting locally, means the people hired to handle private jets.. Can handle locally. I suppose if you're rich enough for a private jet, you can pay everyone enough to retire after 5 years. But I doubt they do, so go ahead mechanics. Do your part to keep planes grounded
kinther@lemmy.world · 65 pts · 1d
The thing that doesn't get called out enough is that many greenhouse gasses have a lag time before they actually start causing heat. CO2 for example takes about 20 years if I recall correctly. So we are seeing the results of what was emitted years ago... not necessarily the current emissions.
naught101@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 23h
Really? I've never heard of this, and I'm a climate scientist.. Not saying it's definitely wrong, but a citation would be good.
Edit: Huh, seems it's true: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/3/031001 although that is for large pulses of CO2, I don't know how that translates into a constant stream of emissions..
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 18h
Well greenhouse gases are often described as a blanket and a blanket doesn't immediately get warm, it take time. I doubt the trickling effect is much different in lag time than sudden pulses, its just gradually increasing the blanket rather than pulling it all on at once. Its still gonna take time for more solar energy to accumulate by bouncing off the trickling in CO2.
In the book plows, plagues, and petroleum, the author uses several factors of humans history to argue that man made climate change was slowly having an impact much before the industrial revolution, which is the common "starting point" for most people and scientists. Althought not as drastic as this sudden increase in fossil fuel burning, they argue that impacts such as deforestion and burning of cropland in early human settlements had a measureable impact on carbon sinks and carbon releases, still enough to start skewing the natural rate of climate change.
naught101@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 17h
Yeah.. realising I was not making a distinction between greenhouse effect (e.g. increased rate of warming), and the result (e.g. actual increased heat content/temperature. I think the rate of warming increase is basically instant, but yes, it takes some time for the temperature levels to catch up.
I don't know if I was explicitly taught it at uni, buy I have always understood as a climate scientist that GHG emissions started before the industrial revolution (albeit small). I think that's common knowledge in climate science.
book@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 22h
They may be thinking of the half-life of C02, around 120 years ... or the delayed effect of temperature uptake by the ocean. I'm not a clime scientist.
naught101@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 20h
I edited in a reference - it's a thing aparently
Snowies@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 21h
How fucked are we?
naught101@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 20h
My intuitive answer is that the collapse of globalised industrial society seems fairly likely (as a result of the end of cheap liquid fuel if nothing else). What that looks like is highly dependent on how we respond - it's not a climate problem, it's a social problem.
I don't think humans are going to go extinct, but a population crash seems likely. And we're taking out a tonne of other species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrisis
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 13h
I would hazard that the the extintion of Mankind really depends on the innevitable water and food wars escalating out of control in the nuclear era or not.
A lot of this shit (you also see it in Economics, as Inequality explodes and Social Mobility grinds to a halt) can escalate out of control via the reactions of Human Societies to it (just look at the rise of the Far Right in response to the above mentioned trends in Inequality and Social Mobility).
As I see it, people's and countries' reaction to the problems caused by Climate Change are were the nastiest of nasty shit can come out from.
naught101@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h
Yep, plausible, but again, that's a social problem. It's super interesting, but not something a climate scientist can really speak to.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 9h
I would say that the ultimate impact on Mankind of Climate Change is itself outside the scope of Climatology by itself - by its own nature it would be an interdisciplinary effort involving at the very least Climatologists, Sociologists and Economists.
That said, anybody can, as non-expert, mention some possibilities, though obviously not claiming any authoritativeness on the subject. (That's what I tried to do, hence why I began by saying it was just my "hazarding").
naught101@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 7h
Yep, agree! That first paragraph is where I'm at now, trying to work with social scientists, business people, economists, who ever is keen. That interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary work is suuuuper interesting and fun and fucking hard.
Also I'm just opinionated in general, you know? 😅
betanumerus@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 9h
Not true at all. Compare:
"lag time before they actually start causing heat" and
"the timing between an emission and the maximum temperature response is a decade on average"
A "start" and a "maximum" are completely different. IR absorption starts immediately and increases over years to a maximum.
naught101@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
I don't think that last bit is right, see my other comment to FireRetardant's reply. I think the increase in warming rate is basically instantaneous (maybe a few months for atmospheric mixing), it's the peak of temperature/heat that is delayed (agreeing with your 3rd paragraph)
kinther@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
Apologies I should have linked a source in that claim. I only had a rough understanding of it and had read an article on phys.org that mentioned that previously. Arguably still a big concern since we could not be seeing the actual warming done in present day 2026 for another decade or more.
Polyphilic@lemmy.ca · 62 pts · 1d
"Data centers fix this" -billionaires probably
UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
And then AI says the should reduce emissions and they order some engineers to fix that clearly broken model 🙄
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
Literally
Legislators too.
b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 61 pts · 20h
But at least we made a bunch of grotesque genocidal pedophiles obscenely wealthy.
bobbbu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 56 pts · 12h
There is some hope if we chip at it as much as we can. No action is too small:
If we convince ourselves we are screwed, we ll give up. Be the hero of your own story. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET IT 100% RIGHT. Any improvement is improvement. We all live different lives, and the economy is hard on alot of us.
I believe:)
chinaski@lemmy.ml · 32 pts · 8h
Unfortunately, you missed the mark. The individual is not the problem and will not make an iota of difference.
Billionaires are the enemy. They are useless. They are pitting the average citizen against one another. There is no good billionaire.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-emit-more-carbon-pollution-90-minutes-average-person-does-lifetime
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 7h
If we dont support billioniares business is, and turned "the individual" into an organized mass, it would work.
I dont know if this opinion, to change using amazon and the other big retailers, will ever come though. I saw someone legit promoting aliexpress for a product not too long ago, and I was surprised no one gave them shit for it.
If Working for and using, for example, amazon, was suddenly shamed and everyone stopped using it, it would stop making the billionaire at the top money. If no one buys the product, no one is willing to work for the company, the company would disolve. bezos still wouldnt be broke, or held to account, but this revenue stream would stop.
Will it happen though? I feel like a nhilist for saying, I dont think so.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 6h
Here's a handy guide to a better world for the rest of us!
Edit just in case you're an idiot like that other guy, no, this isn't addressed to the person I replied to, if you can't figure out the joke, maybe reflect on why we're here. Jfc
chinaski@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 5h
The kys comedy is too low hanging fruit nowadays. Do better.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -2 pts · 4h
you ml folks are bitterly miserable all the fucking time, do us all a favor and heed your own advice shitheel
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 10h
and yes, more putting the onus on us, when all of our individual yearly pollution barely amounts to a day of pollution released by average industry.
You know it was industrial propaganda that started the whole personal responsibility thing to begin with right? to shift blame away from themselves and onto you and me.
I mean, yeah, you can make yourself feel good by reducing, but its doing fuckall compared to industrial release.
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl · 15 pts · 9h
I understand the sentiment, but doesn't "the industry" essentially produce things that are for "us", even if indirectly?
Factories don't exist for their own sake, they exist to make an end product for people. So if you want to change that, we do need to consume less, like the parent you replied to said.
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 9h
CEOs burning tons of fuel riding luxury jets does nothing for us. AI data centers clamoring for more electricity will do nothing for us.
InputZero@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 8h
I get what you're saying. It's a both are true type of thing in my opinion. Our impact pales in comparison to the ultra wealthy. What gets left out of the conversation is that the AI data centres, factories, and transport trucks exist because there is demand. Each and every one of us is part of that demand and by significantly changing our lifestyles we can change our demands.
Your argument is valid though, the wealthy need to be the first to reduce their demand and by the most. Also that they're not going to do that without the threat of state violence, just like we're obligated to be lawful on the threat of state violence. It's just that we're not absolve of our contribution to climate change because the ultra wealthy have contributed more.
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 7h
The point I poorly made, is that it's capitalists/capital interests, the uber rich and techno-fascists that are clamoring for AI. It's not "EVERYONE."
Demand for a thing doesn't mean that the poor and rich are demanding the thing equally.
The point I poorly made was the uber rich, and their greed are driving global warming far more than your average person.
I recycled like a good little soldier through the 80's, 90's, 2000's, 2010's and early 2020's, only to find out that much of our plastic waste was just sold to third world countries rather than ACTUALLY being recycled. I've eliminated plastic everywhere I can in my life, and reuse it until it degrades and it's got to be tossed.
I keep my thermostat set at 62 in the winter, and 78 in the summer to reduce my demand for electricity, even though these aren't comfortable temperatures, they are tolerable. I already eat a primarily vegetarian diet, not because I want to, but because I am being priced out of meat. I repair my shoes and clothes to get a second life out of them. I don't own a car and ride a bicycle. (Before I moved closer to work I'd average 45 miles a day between commute and errands on the way home.)
Corporate interests have actively hampered transitions to greener energy and public transportation, and bicycle infrastructure, (at least in the USA where I am.)
The point I am trying to make here is that the poor, and lower middle class don't have large footprints to begin with, and have reduced consumption due to inflation and shit pay. Corporate interests and the uber wealthy are the biggest drivers of climate change.
Frankly, I'm tired of the powers that be trying to make me feel shame for fucking breathing because they think it contributes to global warming.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
No. They produce for income. For brand imaging. To keep shelf space and maintain market presence.
And they do that by producing significantly more than the market requires. More than customers would ever want to buy.
They do it by making low quality slop products that they specifically engineer to be as unrepairable as possible, to fail as soon as they can get away with it, to force consumers to buy replacements more frequently than they would ever want to.
Do you go to the store and go "Wow, I wish this brand would generate more waste to take up shelf space so (competitor) cant have it?"
Do you look at a brand and go "I will only support this company if it fills the landfills every 3 months with perfectly usable products?"
Do you go "Wow, I wanna pay 500 dollars for this device thats gonna fail in 18 months and need to be replaced, because repairing it is gonna cost so much that its better just to get a new one again"?
Do you go "god, I like this product, I really hope entire communities lost their access to clean water to cool the AI's that generated the design?"
No?
Neither do I.
Because they don't serve the interest of the customer. They serve the market, which has taken a life of its own (which is especially apparently with the AI scam bubble, where companies keep making promises to buy future products from each other with the same imaginary trillion dollars that keeps getting passed around, generating endless imaginary value without producing anything.. and when the AI bubble pops, its going to crash harder than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs)
If they served the interests of the customers, they'd keep prices low, and pay high, and produce quality goods that people would have the money to buy.
By putting the burden on the end consumer for climate change and pollution, they are escaping blame, and are allowed to continue to pollute and accelerate the decline of our climate. Its like blaming you for growing a tomato, while ignoring the industrial farm that mowed down 2 million acres of south american rainforest to produce alfalfa for saudi horses.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 8h
If people stop buying a thing, any company that wants money is going to stop making that thing.
They have no financial incentive to pay the cost of manufacturing if they can't sell their widget.
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 7h
I never said they were altruistic. I'm saying: at the end of the line, there is a consumer buying the stuff they polluted for.
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 7h
PREACH. Can I get a hallelujah!
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
I don't think you should think about it in terms of blame, I think that's a big part of the propaganda. Seeding of anger, frustration, and apathy. Rather than allowing empowerment, organizing, and hope.
Blame should only be reserved for those that act with careless disregard. And doing things that are good for the environment shouldn't be seen as 'paying back'. You are actively doing more than you should and letting your actions speak louder than your words. And those actions can (and should) be part of building the collective that will force those truly responsible from stopping.
That's my one wish for lists like OP posted. It should always contain that the only lasting change is organizing.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 8h
This sounds like some empty corporate focus tested "Don't blame us, its not our fault" BS.
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 8h
Did you respond to the wrong person?EDIT: Okay, you're responding elsewhere, so you're just not going to respond to leaving a nonsensical but also kind of vile comment? Crazy, considering I was mostly agreeing with you, other than saying you shouldn't accept the propagandized idea that people are or should be doing something to make up for some perceived guilt. Rather than doing it to empower themselves and foster collective action.mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 8h
industry doesn't need to pump out so much product if we consume less
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6h
Industry doesnt need to overproduce so much product right now, but it does, and sends tons of it to landfill every quarter
So if its already doing it, what makes you think they'll stop doing it if sales reduce a few % points.
mangobanana@discuss.online · 2 pts · 8h
I was coming here to say this how does traveling less make a difference when a million (unknown if a true number but I didn't look up how many trucks are in the USA) semi trucks are on the road every day (and the rest of the world too). None of those things even significantly reduce anything until industry stops wasting so much. J just look at the food and retail products thrown away every day. Dumpsters full all across the country, all that pollution to produce some shit and they just throw it away
Spooge@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
EDIT: WHOOPS! Wrong comment.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
Where did I even allude to that?
I very clearly laid out where the problem is that we have to deal with. Which is the actual drivers of climate change. Not you choosing to drive to work instead of walking 8 miles in the heat.
Spooge@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
I replied to the wrong comment. My bad, dude.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
No worries.
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 17 pts · 8h
The bidet gang would like a word with you.
(Seriously though: I agree that every action counts, but I also think that, even if the majority of the population followed that list perfectly, the globalized corporate structure would still be operating in such a way that the personal impact wouldn't be noticeable. When agriculture produces more than what's sold, they have no issue dumping the items that don't sell into the ground. Clothing outlets will shred unsold merch instead of giving it away. The waste is built into the system and a structural change is needed NOW if we are to survive.)
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 7h
If there was a decline in consumption of climate harming products, large enough that these companies could see it in thier financial reports, I cant believe it wouldnt have any effect on the market.
Youre points are valid, and I agree with them, but if a majority wanted to (ideally, and I dont think they will) I think "voting with our wallet" would work, it is simple, but not practical because humans seem to love convience.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 5h
Individual action was a myth designed by FF companies to shift responsibility
ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1h
This is true but individual action is still necessary. Just because it's important that we hold corporations and the wealthy accountable and curb industrialized pollution doesn't mean that the average person isn't needing to make significant changes. We can't both maintain a consumer mindset and abdicate individual responsibility while also demanding sweeping societal changes.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 56m
We can consume the wealthy and abdicate them of the responsibility of carrying on and also demand change. Especially if we consume them while they're still alive, as a mob, and do it with dull forks.
The survivors will be far more willing to listen.
cmhe@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 11h
Sure, we can do that, but keep in mind that unilateral individual actions will not make the difference, all you can do is trying to create more broad awareness, form coalition and support for tighter laws and regulation, in order to have meaningful effect.
Also avoid blaming or moralizing individuals for their own choices, this will cause fatigue and infighting, which will distract from focus on policy change.
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 10h
If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, crashing the world economy in the process, we would still have to deal with the same temperature levels we have right now. We not only need to reduce emissions, but we now have to reverse it. Nothing short of an immediate global transition to nuclear power and/or nuclear fusion coming online will stop what is happening.
Don_alForno@feddit.org · 5 pts · 9h
ftfy
Also, nobody alive today will see the effect of any reversing we do in our time, even if we manage to find something and start tomorrow. But it'll get much worse if we do nothing.
IlovePizza@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
"If all human emissions of heat-trapping gases were to stop today, Earth’s temperature would continue to rise for a few decades as ocean currents bring excess heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface. Once this excess heat radiated out to space, Earth’s temperature would stabilize. Experts think the additional warming from this “hidden” heat is unlikely to exceed 0.9° Fahrenheit (0.5°Celsius). With no further human influence, natural processes would begin to slowly remove the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and global temperatures would gradually begin to decline.
It’s true that without dramatic action in the next couple of decades, we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) compared to pre-industrial temperatures—a threshold that experts say offers a lower risk of serious negative impacts. But the more we overshoot that threshold, the more serious and widespread the negative impacts will be, which means that it is never “too late” to take action."
Source: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/global-warming-frequently-asked-questions#hide28
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 54m
And you trust an American government website.. Why?
Zink@programming.dev · 8 pts · 8h
Your first point is so huge IMO. If you can't enjoy being at your own home then trying to have some kind of fulfilling life is going to be a steeper uphill battle than it already was.
Look at it like the Buddhists and stoics. Thinking your happiness is out there waiting on some beach, or in some fancy car or McMansion, is only going to perpetuate your suffering in the actual real now.
Or put another way, if you decide to find happiness and fulfillment in your home and your local community, and it works, then THEY can't stop you. Whoever that is in your case.
Hazor@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7h
Been on the dating apps recently. The number of people who present "travel" as their entire personality is unsettling. Every photo somewhere exotic, every prompt answer is about traveling. It makes me wonder what they're all running from. I don't disagree that vacationing can be enjoyable, but there's more to life.
And don't get me started on the people who try to say that "traveling" is different from "vacationing" and that what they're doing is travelling and not vacationing. Egads.
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4h
Prolly they all live in a big city. And living in a big city sucks ass, but most people have no choice because that's where the jobs are. I luckily live outside a big city in small village with forests and fields around me. But still near enough a medium-sized city so that I don't have to commute for ages. But I see that not everyone can live in places like mine, so the big city it is, where it is loud and full. Kinda understandable that u want to get away from it, then. But yeah, it doesn't mean that u need to fly to other side of the earth to do vacation, usually your own country has enough pretty spots to spend ur vacation.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 5h
Lol. I don't think anyone reading this is going to stop the minimal traveling they do in the short breaks from The Grind that they get while dipshit rich people are yachting and jetting all over the planet. And they shouldn't. Average people shouldn't have to give up any travelling whatsoever because their budgets prevent them from doing enough to actually cause significant harm anyway. We need to use force to make the real culprits adjust their habits.
Other than that I fully agree.
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 11h
I appreciate you. Thank you for posting that thoughtful and insightful comment.
You're awesome.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 9h
And vote. Pay attention to issues and vote. Don’t get caught up in a single issue, or voting with emotions or spite: vote for your future
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 5h
"I don't think I'll super size it after all", I saw as I drive past the MegaCity One GigaChad data center.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
Taylor Swift's jets alone cancel out any benefit all of your steps might have for a few million or hundreds of millions of people.
It's wonderful to want to try to do something about this, but the only real way we have to do something about it is to stop the people and corporations who are the actual biggest contributors to the issue.
I'm thinking less along the lines of voting and more along the lines of stabbing.
Applejuicy@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 38m
Come on. You're off by multiple orders of magnitude. No, a single private plane is not offsetting millions or hundreds of millions of people living more sustainably. I'm genuinely not sure if you're this clueless or just trying to manipulate opinions.
Plus, emissions are additive, so you can avoid your own emissions, while doing what you can to keep billionaires in check.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 26m
I tend of assume someone being off thousands of orders of magnitude about something is using hyperbole. You didn't even mention the possibility. Seeing one example of an incorrect ratio and leaping clear to being torn between deciding if the person who said it is a complete idiot or some insidious evil force manipulating folks is enough to qualify you to wear a cape.
CatalpaRed@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 4h
Jevon’s Paradox
moodwrench@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1h
No way.. billionaires with yachts and private planes releasing more carbon in an afternoon then I use in a lifetime and I'M the one you think should wipe his ass with bamboo.. get the fuck out of here. Eat the rich then tell me I'm not doing enough because I eat a burger and use proper toilet paper
LandBasedDaveyJones@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 55m
No. Just no.
This is not an "individual action will solve this" case anymore. WE can't do jack about it, individually. If we get the corporations to stop doing harm, and the rich cut down traveling in their superjets, maybe then. But some schmuck driving a Toyota corolla a few hundred miles on a vacation, or taking a commercial passenger jet on a vacation with 100-some-odd people isn't the problem here.
cley_faye@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 1d
I wonder if this have anything to do with moving quickly from "we must all limit our energy consumption" to "we must burn as much energy possible for no real purpose".
I guess we'll never know /s
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · 30 pts · 1d
we should ask AI!
mig@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
Fire up the natural gas generators, this baby isn't grid tied yet!
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 6 pts · 19h
Lol natural gas? What, do you like, hate America? We need diesel trucks transporting coal to burn on site
naught101@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 23h
Since it started in the mid 2010s, it's probably not AI related. That will be an extra addition..
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz · 43 pts · 1d
Meanwhile, my workplace just announced RTO, starting next year. It's a moderately large, 100% white collar office site.
Gotta drive those CO2 numbers up, baby!
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 43 pts · 1d
Tranlation: Do you remember the level in Super Mario Bros. 3 where the Sun tries to kill you?
This is today.
auzy1@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 16h
Even if you ignore anything else, just speak to ANY mountaineer, and they'll all tell you that glaciers are drying up
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 13h
yeah, back when i was young and had energy there was this 12 mile run up a mountain to the glacier (or where it was) and back i'd do once or twice a year. last time i saw the glacier was like, 20 years ago.
NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 9h
Conservatives in the US (at least as a platform, not so much down to the individual) have mostly given up pretending that the climate isn't changing, they are just refusing to take responsibility for it. They are currently pretending it's an act of God/ nature and that it's laughable for man to be able to influence it.
FatVegan@leminal.space · 4 pts · 8h
You don't hace to be a mpuntaineer, i can see the glacier going away from my window.
UltraMagnus@startrek.website · 1 pts · 8h
Oh damn that's gotta suck. Do you have to deal with flooding or anything like that?
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 11h
Lakes in Minnesota are frozen something like 30 days less per year on average than they were in 1975.
Climate change deniers are either stupid, greedy, or both.
narp@feddit.org · 35 pts · 1d
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13h
i mean that curve is pretty clear. were the scientists they were talking to expecting a linear model?
UltraMagnus@startrek.website · 1 pts · 8h
They weren't expecting a linear model. Did you read the article?
The increase in acceleration is something theyve noticed since 2013, as reported in the article (of about .35 per year instead of .2). There was also an unusual increase in 2023 and 2024.
These are all important things scientists should be measuring and reporting on, even if it seems obvious by random lemmy user looking at a graph (graph that was made by scientists measuring and reporting on their observations).
Avicenna@programming.dev · 29 pts · 20h
Even the billionaire cult conterences shifted from "debunking global warming" to "adapting to global warming".
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 29 pts · 1d
Don't worry guys, AI is gonna save us!
NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social · 14 pts · 1d
As long as we set up a terminal with an LLM on our barren dead planet, future civilizations will be able to use it to learn about some completely stupid made up shit long after we are gone.
nullPointer@programming.dev · 19 pts · 1d
"no wonder this civilization died; they put glue on their pizza"
muhyb@programming.dev · 13 pts · 1d
Meanwhile AI:
bcgm3@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Me: AI, how do we fix global warming?
AI: You knew what I was before you picked me up
OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 1d
I have also detected this by the way it is.
Agent641@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 23h
That's pretty neat!
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13h
The mark 1 ass can detect extreme heat or cold and earthquakes and local humidity.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 29 pts · 13h
We tried capitalism in a hundred different ways and we are all out of ideas.
Rugnjr@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 7h
I wish we had tried it in a hundred ways. Best we can do is try it in two ways: monopoly consolidation, followed by oligarchy
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 7h
If we're good little consumers we can have some trickle down crony capitalism for dessert.
datavoid@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 1d
Before this whole thing goes under, I vote we take it upon ourselves to punish those responsible for destroying this planet for their own greed. All billionaires and trillionaires must go, in a method befitting what they have done. Every member of the board of every oil company should join them. And all politicians who have allowed this should go first.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
We’re all here for that. Just a matter of getting it started…
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 11h
This.
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 24 pts · 23h
I know people who are having babies now; and to think I was worried what would happen in my lifetime.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 21h
I have kids. those little shits deserve it for all the times they hit me in the balls when I had to drag them to the timeout spot.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 9h
Prepare to be treated like a guard, if you treat your kids like prisoners
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 8h
OK 👌
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 23 pts · 1d
Any idea what could be causing this?
PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 1d
It’s a mystery, wrapped in an enigma and covered in secret sauce.
Aqivex@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 1d
Ocean is too tired to hold in extra Co2, and far too blue and not white anymore where it matters either.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 1 pts · 1d
Nah, it was snowing last year where I live so I'm sure it's just changing weather.
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 4h
Crypto farming, feeding the ai bubble, large scale wars of aggression, commuters replacing cars with trucks, buying throwaway junk has never been easier. That's the relatively new completely unnecessary hubris that I can think off atm. These should be the low hanging fruits to just not do, but apparently we're going to continue doing them anyways. If we can't address the low hanging fruits, then tackling the harder challenges will remain a pipe dream until it's too late. Climate stability is fucked, and we're in for a rough ride.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 2h
The real "low hanging fruit to not do" is blaming individual choices for societal issues. Capitalism is the one and only reason for anthropogenic climate change. Ending capitalism is the one and only way to solve it. There is no individual action you can take that is effective, we have to reorder society in such a way that it is impossible to profit from environmental destruction.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 17 pts · 1d
That's what you get when you build insane amounts of AI data centers. In The Netherlands Microsoft data centers are responsible for 1% of all power consumption in the country. Google refuses to give insight in their power consumption. And now there's a sharp acceleration in global warming. I wonder how. FFS.
Iamaquantummechanic@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1d
The acceleration started happening 11-13 years ago...
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 13h
When did they start building insanely huge data centers? (:
Psiczar@aussie.zone · 17 pts · 1d
Yeah, because if it wasn’t for AI, the climate would be just fine.
Blame the motor vehicle, logging, industrial farming, factories…
I get that AI is the new poster-boy for everything that’s wrong with the world, but the environment was fucked long before it came along.
moustachio@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Right, “AI” LLM chatbot companies shouldn’t exist, for many reasons; climate change is just the cherry on top for why they should be dismantled.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18h
I believe there could be some valid uses for responsible use of them, but summarizing the best chocolate chip cookie recipes every time someone searches for a recipe certainly isnt that use.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18h
Plus in theory the data centers could be using green energy, makung their main impacts come from the cooling towers and additional mining of resources rather than the energy they consume. Its the same argument with EVs they are better if powered by green energy, but still better if the energy isn't spent at all, for example being able to take a bike to the store rather than a 6000 lbs EV.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9h
Right. In theory ai datacenters came along at the perfect time, when renewables are the cheapest power source. We could be using them to trigger a massive increase in renewable energy generation. That’s a nice fantasy
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
Some data centers are necessary for modern life. They facilitate pretty much everything you do online. Some could also be used to optimize the power grid when running on renewable energies.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -1 pts · 13h
Just because it was already fucked doesn't mean the insane acceleration due to AI data centers doesn't matter anymore.
Psiczar@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 2h
It doesn’t. The process we have now kicked off is not going to change to any great degree whether we continue to build or stop building data centres.
Even if we immediately stopped all pollution and went back to a pre-industrial way of life, the damage is done, the ice caps will continue to melt and we will still have to deal with the consequences of our actions.
I’m not saying we should continue to abuse the environment, but AI wasn’t the catalyst for climate change and it isn’t the worst thing we are doing.
NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 8h
"AI data centers are ALSO bad" wasn't your initial statement, and you know it.
And even if it was, that's kind of beside the point. AI data centers are a relatively new (10 years) usage of the energy produced with the burning of hydrocarbons. The burning of hydrocarbons is the problem and has been for 150 years.
We can't focus on the real problem if you insist on redirection of people's ire towards your latest socio-political beef.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 7h
The rise of those centers did cause an insane increase. The energy and water used is insane. They contribute for a very large part. Cars are suddenly not that big of an issue anymore, compared to those data centers. Next to the energy and water usage, it's also made from components which have an insane carbon footprint themselves.
Don't underestimate those centers. We were alarmed by climate change, we discussed how we can reduce it, then built these centers making it early impossible to come back from, while the construction of these centers is far from done.
qevlarr@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 19h
That 1% figure was one data center, not combined. That one had to disclose its energy usage. And the country has an energy problem
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 13h
Because of data centers.
kromem@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 23h
If you spend an evening in talking with an AI instead of streaming a movie from Netflix in 4k you'd have used less energy. Which would be still less than just the gas used to drive a few miles away for a night out.
And all data center usage is significantly less than something like A/C usage (which is likely to be increasing as temps increase).
There's a lot of legitimate grievances and concerns about AI — just today I was seeing a mathematician having an identity crisis in response to the unrelenting solving of open questions, something probably every field will soon struggle with adapting to — but the inflated perception of the environmental impacts means that so much less public attention is being spent on the actual culprits and possible solutions thereof.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 13h
Is that what Ai told you? Because that is complete bullshit.
Just taking to Ai doesn't use that much energy, except unless you let it make complicated code, but the energy it took for training the LLM's for your evening conversation took so much energy, resources and caused so much pollution, you could fly an airplane around the world for an entire year and still pollute the earth less.
Greyghoster@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 20h
There should be solar panels on all the roofs to help offset aircon use etc.
BenevolentOne@infosec.pub · 0 pts · 19h
I have solar panels on my roof, why don't you?
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18h
For me its mostly the cost to benefit ratio given my current electricity prices. At current prices I'm not even sure I'd break even financially for my maintenaince costs of solar (like battery replacement) versus just paying my utility bill. As energy prices change that might change but currently it doesn't make sense for me, i still have a mortgage to pay and other major repairs to do to my house and ideally id have to prematurely redo the roof before installing solar.
boomlandjenkins@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 11h
The US military is one of, if not the largest, enemy of the environment. Every one of us could do our part but without militaries being mindful too, the environment is cooked.
ChetManly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
the air force literally dumps jet fuel all the time so they can adjust to proper weight to land
Olhonestjim@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
It's messed up, but it's better than burning it.
spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 7h
How is it better? It all just evaporates and breaks down into the same amount of CO2, while also poisoning some habitat along the way. I guess it's less NOx, so maybe that's a benefit?
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
Finally, some good news.
This is either sarcasm or deep, distressing cynicism. Even though I wrote it, I'm not sure which it is.
frongt@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
Sarcasm. Cynicism is the attitude that all people are driven by selfishness. Which is true, but not related to your statement.
Tango@piefed.ca · 13 pts · 1d
As a fan of Diogenes, I feel obliged to point out that Cynicism is not the same as pessimism. Cynicism is the philosophical belief that society/civilization was a mistake and that humans would be best advised to follow the example of dogs, who are (generally) innately happy creatures who don't worry about pointless abstract things like real estate ownership and licensing agreements.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Okay, I can pivot to following the example of dogs.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I'm going to sniff your butt now.
CarrierLost@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 1d
I’m here for it.
vegeta@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
But we had a record cold wave this winter
/s
Jumi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
The hottest cold wave since they started recording data
Trampampoline@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 1d
Nice knowing, y'all. Smoke em if you got em.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 5h
We can't even stop a rise in fascism, an incredibly stupid thing, across the globe. We don't stand a chance against global warming. We're cooked.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 5h
We've done more in the last five years to curb fossil fuel consumption than at an point in human history.
From a massive pivot to renewable energy to our Green-Centric foreign policy of blowing up Nordstrem II, embargoing Venezuela, and shutting down the Straight of Hormuz, we are absolutely turning a corner on future fossil fuel consumption.
Donald Trump may go down in history as the most climate friendly leader in our generation. A hundred thousand Greenpeace activists could not have achieved in their lifetime what he's done in less than two terms as president.
vinsombra@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4h
Hilariously, you are right. It certainly wasn't his intention to do so, but it is happening. Strangely aligned with China spending like crazy to pivot to a green energy super-supplier. End of an era, although no one will admit it yet.
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 8h
Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 14h
Welp we're fucked
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com · 13 pts · 1d
The oceans around the Florida coast have summer temperatures of ++100˚ F for at least a few years now. I'd call that pretty sharp.
Godric@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 7h
Goes outside
Ah shit, no way!
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 1d
Were the literal fire tornadoes not a clue?
skisnow@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 16h
Almost like some kind of… hockey stick?
Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 23h
Here in Argentina we are getting 20°c in the middle of winter, last summer lasted 6 months
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 12h
Unfortunately, we have to wait until we have fed enough training data into the slop machines until we can do anything about it, because humans are way too stupid to do it, and even if they weren't, it wouldn't be futuristic enough.
khaleer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 10h
funny thing is the "ai" already gave us answers - which are known from years, thanks to scientists - but people do not want to listen.
saltesc@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Yeah, right.
They've been saying this for years...
"Scientists" alright? Pff
lights a cigar with a barrel of crude oil
Idiots.
Stonewyvvern@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 3h
That's my bad...I was super gassy the other week. I'll back on the beans and onions.
Jumi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Tja
JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 1d
What, they finally went outside?
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 1d
NGL, that article picture is one of the best cases of "exaggerating to an absurd degree to make a point" I've ever seen 😁
TransNeko@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 19h
notice that that sharp increase follows 2 events... AI data Centers and literally everything Trump related.
BlindPenguin@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 18h
The massive AI data centers are too new to have an effect yet.
TransNeko@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 17h
that only takes out one event. there is still Trump and the rest of the corporate corruption causing pollution
BlindPenguin@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 9h
Trump's first term started in 2017. This warming effect first became visible around 2013-2014. As much as i hate that orange menace, this thing was already happening before him. It'll take several years, if not a decade for his actions to show their effect on the climate.
From the article:
Further in the article they point out, that they don't have an explanation yet, but they do mention that the models occasionally show that kind of effect. So it's not entirely unexpected.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 18h
I hate data centers as much as the next guy but usually there is a lag time of several years for climate change to link to its causes. We probably haven't seen the worse of the climate related impacts for up to date AI use yet.
Waphles@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 16h
A sensible and measured reply. That being said, when you see images/videos of all the gas turbines running and the shimmering air from the heat by colossus/stargate/whatever it’s called it’s difficult not to think that it’s doing damage now
TransNeko@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 17h
I'm sure in a few years we will find out they already had a bunch of secret AI data centers already built...
DigiHippie@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 32m
Drill baby drill.
uberdroog@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6h
MAGA opening their mouths
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
I wasn't aware they could close them.
DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Checking in from San Jose, CA —Can confirm!
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
I had been thinking of moving back to San Jose. Has it gotten worse? I used to live in Japantown about 10 years ago and kind of miss it.
DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 23h
I would say it’s actually better. Especially over the last 10 years. At least my little corner.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15m
During the late 1970's, ExxonMobil scientists predicted global warming would accelerate with use of fossil fuels. They were shockingly accurate and the f'ed up weather patterns are the result. Keep buying and driving gas guzzlers.
Wataba@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 21h
Thanks Americans. You enabled this.
stylusmobilus@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 21h
They might have accelerated it, but it’s been happening since the Industrial Revolution.
It’s a few more than them.
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13h
The last 10k years has been steadily cutting down and burning trees and great forests drying up. That all adds up.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 8 pts · 20h
"We WILL HAVE our Rapture, one way or another!"
-- Average Christo Fascist American Idiot
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 20h
https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2
man_wtfhappenedtoyou@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18h
Damn Oceania
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 5 pts · 16h
Well, Australia has one of the highest per capita spendings a year. Historic data doesn't really show the current reality. (14.5 tons)
The US does also emit more than twice the co2 a year per capita compared to Europe. (14.2 v 6.5 tons)
Although we're seeing pockets reduce emissions, we do still increase emissions globally.
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 11h
Thank you for sharing this. It's helpful to see the big picture on a per capita basis.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 17h
That would be a crazy timeline if somehow, despite any logic or sense, we discovered that the tiny island of Tuvala was somehow responsible for a quarter of the world's cumulative CO2 emissions. 😂
razen@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 12h
Can we ask the globe to wait till I die?
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
danielfm123@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 5h
So we need more taxes to fail stopping it with windmills and solar panels trash? but no one plants trees? yeah, trees are not profitable.
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip · -2 pts · 6h
Surely the giant fucking space ships exploding and the destruction of oil refineries has nothing to do with it...
Edit: come out and say something instead of just down voting me, you cowards.