Too many of our modern conveniences rely on fossil fuels or fossil fuel derivatives for us to even make a dent against climate change without reverting back to a pre industrial revolution era. You should read Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm on how the fossil fuel industry is intrinsically linked to the history of capitalism.
The prevalence of petroleum derived fertilizers and pesticides that are essential to grow the large amount of the worldwide animal and plant food supplies and also products are one of the reasons I don’t think we can feasibly solve this problem without causing mass famine and war (itself a massive contributor to the climate crisis).
One has only to look at how reliant we are on fossil fuels in fertilizers alone to see that the goal of cutting carbon emissions in any meaningful way is highly likely to be insurmountable without also incurring mass death due to famine.
Many people who are conscientious about their own personal practices and how they relate to the environment still don’t understand the scope of the problem imho. The smart phone or computer you and I are utilizing to communicate right now, the server it is being run on, think carefully about it.
Sure, all could be powered by solar, wind, or some other renewable energy source, but what about the CO² emitted in the manufacturing process? The cities where the factories are located which produce these computer parts and other engineering marvels are some of the most polluted places on Earth, and the process by which they are created requires fossil fuel to be possible, and indeed, the production of these devices accounts for emitting more CO² than the energy it will use during its lifetime.
What alternative packaging solutions do you have for the massive and powerful beverage industry where the convenience of disposability is a deal breaking feature that the lobbyists representing said industry will fight to have it never addressed meaningfully by governmental bodies?
How do you convince people not only to insist on veganism, but also on organics AND most important to every aspect of our modern capitalist lifestyles, turn a profit from it?
My simple answer is you can’t. Environmentalism isn’t compatible with modern day capitalism, and I’d argue isn’t compatible with modern life. These technologies have simultaneously trapped and freed people in different ways, but tech has made it so our lives are no longer solely determined by a might makes right life, and rather has more to do with utilizing said technologies to concentrate power in the hands of those that solely wish to keep the status quo going for just the next 3 months (quarterly income reports to stock holders).
By eliminating the technological boons that fossil fuels have made possible, it is likely that the expansion of human rights, that only came into conversation after new technologies made it possible to not solely rely on the strongest and most powerful among us, will recede.
Either we solve climate change, and after suffering mass deaths from famine due to the lack of fossil fuel dependant crops, and then go back to a preindustrial era lifestyle, with all the societal implications that entails (the subjugation of women, minorities, and the disenfranchised, as well as the return of blatant human slavery).
Or we don’t, and honestly probably end up in a more nightmarish situation. The mass deaths in this alternative scenario won’t be from famine, but from war, and those wars (powered by fossil fuel) will cause the effects of climate change to last longer and possibly that will send us into runaway climate change, in which case we won’t survive at all.
I know which nightmare I’d prefer, and which nightmare is likely to happen, but either way, we’re not in for a good time.
Get ready for the greatest tragedy mankind has ever bore witness to. Drink plenty of water, cuz at best you’ll be dehydrated from all the tears.
So why isn’t the media covering this all day every day? Cuz they secretly know it’s probably not solvable, that pointing this out would likely tank their ratings, and ultimately we’re all just partying at the end of the world. Not to mention making money is easier than cleaning up this inherited mess.
Fossil fuels aren’t necessary, they’re just how people did things the first time. This means we can get off them as part of a managed transition and keep on feeding everybody.
Great article with a nuanced and well researched take. I abandoned my hope in a grave a long time ago, but perhaps when I see these changes actually happening within my lifetime it’ll rise again like Jesus or Frankenstein.
this honestly feels like oil industry astroturfing, what does this comment accomplish other than make people complacent and give up? How does this in any way further the fight against fossil fuels?
Totally up voting this. Personally I watch my plastic consumption, l was vegan for 4 years and refused to travel by anything other than bicycle in one of the most bicycle unfriendly cities in the world for 8 years before I gave up the ghost and fell into despair when it came fo the climate.
My take on it is doing something about the environment these days is more like having props for the afterlife, where you can say, “Hey, I tried.” But make no mistake about it, this is the end, but choosing to do something about the environment is choosing to go out fighting, and I’m all for that.
At the same time, I’m not gonna blame people for giving up either. It’s hard not to when you know it’s now and inevitable. And I refuse to throw shade at people who have fallen into despair and don’t provide helpful rhetoric. Sometimes people just need to express their despair publicly. It doesn’t help the cause, and therefore it doesn’t help SOME people who want to keep up the good fight. But I’m done looking for solutions, I just want to grieve.
To be clear though, I don’t shill for big oil. They couldn’t pay me enough to endorse a mass murder to the point of extinction.
Be careful you don’t end up doing it by accident. When climate change denial stopped being effective, they switched to “Oops, looks like it was real all along but we’ve fucked it now anyway so go buy a truck”.
I am definitely not outright encouraging people to go out and hedonistically purchase products. I do however, think that has been people’s logical reactions to the grim realities and the existential crises that the presentation of seemingly insurmountable hurdles of the climate crisis.
There are some hopeful glimmers, I’ll admit. But an expression of despair isn’t always needed to have one of two responses. Most of the time I hear either “We cant do anything to solve it, so let’s not talk about it.” Or “That’s not helpful rhetoric, so let’s not talk about it and only talk about poasible solutions.”
Personally I find both of these responses to be a form of depression stigma. I get that if the worst effects of climate change are capable of being addressed if we take action now, then there isn’t time to ”wallow in depression," but if you’re like me and truly believe that the hand has already been dealt and the game is over, then the point is moot, and climate despair is a logical and possibly even healthy response.
Again, not advocating making the problem worse, just lamenting humanity having apparently lost a battle against it’s own myopic view of their place in the universe.
How about this crazy idea: We keep essential emissions like fertilizers and still reduce overall emissions by 95% by mildly inconveniencing most people.
Nah thats crazy, if we cant get to zero, why even bother? Doesnt matter if earth heats up by 1° or 5°, right?
I appreciate your passion and the energy you put into this. We will soon feel the great equalizer that nature has for us and it was honestly inevitable. Once the human population goes down to a reasonable number the planet will have a chance to heal and it can start all over again. It will be the greatest tragedy of our time. Currently out consumption and the population are unsustainable. Even if we were to fully correct or pollution today we wouldn’t see the effect for a hundred years or more.
Not if the latter nightmare scenario occurs. Runaway climate change will ensure the extinction of humanity outright.
Runaway global climate change is not reversible by any amount of human action. Once a certain rise in global temperatures occurs, pockets of previously trapped methane gases in the ocean will be released into the atmosphere, heating the climate even more. The oceans themselves will then proceed to acidify, killing the necessary diatomes that produce the majority of O² on Earth that is necessary for the survival of most life on Earth.
100% chance of human extinction event. You better hope evolution repeats itself for humanity to get another chance at this.
This is why I think people who try to downplay carbon reuptake are insane. Yes of course we should move as much as we can to decarbonize. But we also have to be honest with ourselves. For the reasons you’ve listed and more, there’s going to be a lot of carbon being released into our atmosphere for a long time. That is in addition to the carbon we’ve already released and the cascading effects it will have to release more. There’s no way out and we have to stop being purists about this and figure out a way to quickly and reliably recapture carbon before it’s too late for us.
One has only to look at how reliant we are on fossil fuels in fertilizers alone
Recently read The Wizard and the Prophet about Vogt and Borlaug, and coupled with what I’ve seen over the last decade, all I can surmise is that the green revolution simply sped up our own destruction by giving us more and more rope (ability to feed larger and larger populations) to hang ourselves with, as a species.
Too many of our modern conveniences rely on fossil fuels or fossil fuel derivatives for us to even make a dent against climate change without reverting back to a pre industrial revolution era. You should read Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm on how the fossil fuel industry is intrinsically linked to the history of capitalism.
The prevalence of petroleum derived fertilizers and pesticides that are essential to grow the large amount of the worldwide animal and plant food supplies and also products are one of the reasons I don’t think we can feasibly solve this problem without causing mass famine and war (itself a massive contributor to the climate crisis).
One has only to look at how reliant we are on fossil fuels in fertilizers alone to see that the goal of cutting carbon emissions in any meaningful way is highly likely to be insurmountable without also incurring mass death due to famine.
Many people who are conscientious about their own personal practices and how they relate to the environment still don’t understand the scope of the problem imho. The smart phone or computer you and I are utilizing to communicate right now, the server it is being run on, think carefully about it.
Sure, all could be powered by solar, wind, or some other renewable energy source, but what about the CO² emitted in the manufacturing process? The cities where the factories are located which produce these computer parts and other engineering marvels are some of the most polluted places on Earth, and the process by which they are created requires fossil fuel to be possible, and indeed, the production of these devices accounts for emitting more CO² than the energy it will use during its lifetime.
What alternative packaging solutions do you have for the massive and powerful beverage industry where the convenience of disposability is a deal breaking feature that the lobbyists representing said industry will fight to have it never addressed meaningfully by governmental bodies?
How do you convince people not only to insist on veganism, but also on organics AND most important to every aspect of our modern capitalist lifestyles, turn a profit from it?
My simple answer is you can’t. Environmentalism isn’t compatible with modern day capitalism, and I’d argue isn’t compatible with modern life. These technologies have simultaneously trapped and freed people in different ways, but tech has made it so our lives are no longer solely determined by a might makes right life, and rather has more to do with utilizing said technologies to concentrate power in the hands of those that solely wish to keep the status quo going for just the next 3 months (quarterly income reports to stock holders).
By eliminating the technological boons that fossil fuels have made possible, it is likely that the expansion of human rights, that only came into conversation after new technologies made it possible to not solely rely on the strongest and most powerful among us, will recede.
Either we solve climate change, and after suffering mass deaths from famine due to the lack of fossil fuel dependant crops, and then go back to a preindustrial era lifestyle, with all the societal implications that entails (the subjugation of women, minorities, and the disenfranchised, as well as the return of blatant human slavery).
Or we don’t, and honestly probably end up in a more nightmarish situation. The mass deaths in this alternative scenario won’t be from famine, but from war, and those wars (powered by fossil fuel) will cause the effects of climate change to last longer and possibly that will send us into runaway climate change, in which case we won’t survive at all.
I know which nightmare I’d prefer, and which nightmare is likely to happen, but either way, we’re not in for a good time.
Get ready for the greatest tragedy mankind has ever bore witness to. Drink plenty of water, cuz at best you’ll be dehydrated from all the tears.
So why isn’t the media covering this all day every day? Cuz they secretly know it’s probably not solvable, that pointing this out would likely tank their ratings, and ultimately we’re all just partying at the end of the world. Not to mention making money is easier than cleaning up this inherited mess.
The US just kicked billions into the manufacture of hydrogen via electrolysis, which works just fine off renewably-generated electricity. Hydrogen is the key ingredient in nitrate fertilizers that has been coming from fossil fuels, so we will have a path off of them for fertilizers.
Fossil fuels aren’t necessary, they’re just how people did things the first time. This means we can get off them as part of a managed transition and keep on feeding everybody.
Great article with a nuanced and well researched take. I abandoned my hope in a grave a long time ago, but perhaps when I see these changes actually happening within my lifetime it’ll rise again like Jesus or Frankenstein.
this honestly feels like oil industry astroturfing, what does this comment accomplish other than make people complacent and give up? How does this in any way further the fight against fossil fuels?
Totally up voting this. Personally I watch my plastic consumption, l was vegan for 4 years and refused to travel by anything other than bicycle in one of the most bicycle unfriendly cities in the world for 8 years before I gave up the ghost and fell into despair when it came fo the climate.
My take on it is doing something about the environment these days is more like having props for the afterlife, where you can say, “Hey, I tried.” But make no mistake about it, this is the end, but choosing to do something about the environment is choosing to go out fighting, and I’m all for that.
At the same time, I’m not gonna blame people for giving up either. It’s hard not to when you know it’s now and inevitable. And I refuse to throw shade at people who have fallen into despair and don’t provide helpful rhetoric. Sometimes people just need to express their despair publicly. It doesn’t help the cause, and therefore it doesn’t help SOME people who want to keep up the good fight. But I’m done looking for solutions, I just want to grieve.
To be clear though, I don’t shill for big oil. They couldn’t pay me enough to endorse a mass murder to the point of extinction.
Be careful you don’t end up doing it by accident. When climate change denial stopped being effective, they switched to “Oops, looks like it was real all along but we’ve fucked it now anyway so go buy a truck”.
I am definitely not outright encouraging people to go out and hedonistically purchase products. I do however, think that has been people’s logical reactions to the grim realities and the existential crises that the presentation of seemingly insurmountable hurdles of the climate crisis.
There are some hopeful glimmers, I’ll admit. But an expression of despair isn’t always needed to have one of two responses. Most of the time I hear either “We cant do anything to solve it, so let’s not talk about it.” Or “That’s not helpful rhetoric, so let’s not talk about it and only talk about poasible solutions.”
Personally I find both of these responses to be a form of depression stigma. I get that if the worst effects of climate change are capable of being addressed if we take action now, then there isn’t time to ”wallow in depression," but if you’re like me and truly believe that the hand has already been dealt and the game is over, then the point is moot, and climate despair is a logical and possibly even healthy response.
Again, not advocating making the problem worse, just lamenting humanity having apparently lost a battle against it’s own myopic view of their place in the universe.
How about this crazy idea: We keep essential emissions like fertilizers and still reduce overall emissions by 95% by mildly inconveniencing most people.
Nah thats crazy, if we cant get to zero, why even bother? Doesnt matter if earth heats up by 1° or 5°, right?
Do what you can. I’d say definitely do that. But 95% is waaaay too generous a number.
I appreciate your passion and the energy you put into this. We will soon feel the great equalizer that nature has for us and it was honestly inevitable. Once the human population goes down to a reasonable number the planet will have a chance to heal and it can start all over again. It will be the greatest tragedy of our time. Currently out consumption and the population are unsustainable. Even if we were to fully correct or pollution today we wouldn’t see the effect for a hundred years or more.
Not if the latter nightmare scenario occurs. Runaway climate change will ensure the extinction of humanity outright.
Runaway global climate change is not reversible by any amount of human action. Once a certain rise in global temperatures occurs, pockets of previously trapped methane gases in the ocean will be released into the atmosphere, heating the climate even more. The oceans themselves will then proceed to acidify, killing the necessary diatomes that produce the majority of O² on Earth that is necessary for the survival of most life on Earth.
100% chance of human extinction event. You better hope evolution repeats itself for humanity to get another chance at this.
If that happens, then I think humanity had its shot. Let another species try.
This is why I think people who try to downplay carbon reuptake are insane. Yes of course we should move as much as we can to decarbonize. But we also have to be honest with ourselves. For the reasons you’ve listed and more, there’s going to be a lot of carbon being released into our atmosphere for a long time. That is in addition to the carbon we’ve already released and the cascading effects it will have to release more. There’s no way out and we have to stop being purists about this and figure out a way to quickly and reliably recapture carbon before it’s too late for us.
We don’t have to, we can just not.
We’re gonna let this happen, you just haven’t accepted it yet. Humanity is already extinct, it largely just doesn’t realize it.
Recently read The Wizard and the Prophet about Vogt and Borlaug, and coupled with what I’ve seen over the last decade, all I can surmise is that the green revolution simply sped up our own destruction by giving us more and more rope (ability to feed larger and larger populations) to hang ourselves with, as a species.