The environmental scientist, whose book Not the End of the World offers a data-based analysis of the climate crisis, on being informed and engaged without succumbing to despair
What do you have in mind there here? Since we’ve increased our emissions and energy use over that time I have a hard time declaring we’ve been doing meaningful things.
Making things worse more slowly is not making things better, electric cars being a stand-out example.
We cut the rate of increases in greenhouse gas emissions. This shifted us from most likely 4C by 2100 to 3C of warming by then.
It’s not yet enough to say we succeeded, but it’s a start. It’ll take a lot more work to say we got full success, but that’s always how it was going to be: a multi-decade fight to end fossil fuel use and deforestation
It’s past the point where average people can change anything. Literally the only action a normal person can take is not having children. And that only helps us decades in the future, when it may already be too late to matter.
To avoid worst case scenario we need the rich and corporations to do something big.
They refuse to.
So now we need politicians worldwide to force them, and that doesn’t look likely either.
So I feel like my lottery analogy is a good fit.
America for example, Biden is bragging about the economy, but most of the gains are in trade goods shipped from half the globe away and increased fossil fuels drilling.
But our only other option is trump. So no matter who wins, were not going to have a chance of taking real action as a country for at least five more years. During which the problem gets worst and we’d have to take even more action even faster to stop it.
Pretending everything will be fine hasn’t worked so far, why would it now?
At this point, I assume that we need to either grab pitchforks or just accept that we’re doomed. It is historically and materially unjustifiable to think that voting once every 4 years for people who, no matter what they say about environmentalism, will continue to support capitalism and the military industrial complex at the cost of the of the planet will somehow save us. The system is set up to perpetuate itself. It will not allow for it to be peacefully dismantled.
That said I’m pretty pessimistic about that actually succeeding, what with all the military power, surveillance tech, etc. So unless shit starts changing fast, I’m just gonna go with we’re doomed.
Everything those big corporations do ultimately ends being consumed by we consumers. We can’t carry on driving SUVs to buy bottled water in Starbucks and saying it’s corporations that need to act for the environment. Yes, structural solutions will always be best, but it’s not an either-or situation and we can’t cop out of taking actions ourselves by acting as though it is.
I didn’t say that. But please do list some of the things big corporations do that don’t end up being consumed by consumers. The only area that comes immediately to mind that doesn’t end up with consumers is the military - and even that’s arguable
What’s been most prominent over that time period is greenwashing. Companies are cashing in by latching onto capitalist means of exploiting the crisis. “Carbon neutrality” is almost complete horseshit when you hear it because there are now firms that dish out that label while outsourcing the promise to plant enough trees to offset, say, BP’s or GAP’s carbon footprint.
Remember the constant child and slave labor exposes from the 90s/early 2000s? The same companies kept getting caught, and eventually they just outsourced to some no name company who in turn hired the dangerous factories full of children. That way, GAP could say, “we had absolutely zero knowledge of child labor. During our investigation we have found X company to be at fault and we have severed ties with said company.” Meanwhile, that company changes its name or they go right back to getting clothes for $0.02/garment and then still getting to act surprised there is abuse.
The same shit is happening with these “carbon offset” claims. “We have been promised by X company that at the end of every quarter our emissions will be offset by Y number of new trees planted.” There isn’t enough land on earth to plant as many trees as we would need to offset our still claiming emissions. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s all marketing. We are brainwashed by how many companies we hear making lots and lots of noise about the fact that they are green, their products are green, you’re green for buying them. It’s nonsense. Consumerism won’t save us. Drastic action that quickly dismantles the structure responsible for climate change would.
There is a lot of greenwashing…and a number of countries have emissions that have started falling too. It’s not enough to stabilize things yet, but that’s not surprising; it was always going to be a decades-long fight to get emissions down.
Removed by mod
We’ve actually started doing things in a meaningful way over the past decade though. Not yet enough, but enough to see success as possible
What do you have in mind there here? Since we’ve increased our emissions and energy use over that time I have a hard time declaring we’ve been doing meaningful things.
Making things worse more slowly is not making things better, electric cars being a stand-out example.
We cut the rate of increases in greenhouse gas emissions. This shifted us from most likely 4C by 2100 to 3C of warming by then.
It’s not yet enough to say we succeeded, but it’s a start. It’ll take a lot more work to say we got full success, but that’s always how it was going to be: a multi-decade fight to end fossil fuel use and deforestation
It’s past the point where average people can change anything. Literally the only action a normal person can take is not having children. And that only helps us decades in the future, when it may already be too late to matter.
To avoid worst case scenario we need the rich and corporations to do something big.
They refuse to.
So now we need politicians worldwide to force them, and that doesn’t look likely either.
So I feel like my lottery analogy is a good fit.
America for example, Biden is bragging about the economy, but most of the gains are in trade goods shipped from half the globe away and increased fossil fuels drilling.
But our only other option is trump. So no matter who wins, were not going to have a chance of taking real action as a country for at least five more years. During which the problem gets worst and we’d have to take even more action even faster to stop it.
Pretending everything will be fine hasn’t worked so far, why would it now?
At this point, I assume that we need to either grab pitchforks or just accept that we’re doomed. It is historically and materially unjustifiable to think that voting once every 4 years for people who, no matter what they say about environmentalism, will continue to support capitalism and the military industrial complex at the cost of the of the planet will somehow save us. The system is set up to perpetuate itself. It will not allow for it to be peacefully dismantled.
That said I’m pretty pessimistic about that actually succeeding, what with all the military power, surveillance tech, etc. So unless shit starts changing fast, I’m just gonna go with we’re doomed.
Everything those big corporations do ultimately ends being consumed by we consumers. We can’t carry on driving SUVs to buy bottled water in Starbucks and saying it’s corporations that need to act for the environment. Yes, structural solutions will always be best, but it’s not an either-or situation and we can’t cop out of taking actions ourselves by acting as though it is.
It sounds like you aren’t aware of what the largest contributors are…
Which makes sense, large corporations have spent a lot of money telling people they can do enough so corporations dont need to be forced to act.
I didn’t say that. But please do list some of the things big corporations do that don’t end up being consumed by consumers. The only area that comes immediately to mind that doesn’t end up with consumers is the military - and even that’s arguable
What’s been most prominent over that time period is greenwashing. Companies are cashing in by latching onto capitalist means of exploiting the crisis. “Carbon neutrality” is almost complete horseshit when you hear it because there are now firms that dish out that label while outsourcing the promise to plant enough trees to offset, say, BP’s or GAP’s carbon footprint.
Remember the constant child and slave labor exposes from the 90s/early 2000s? The same companies kept getting caught, and eventually they just outsourced to some no name company who in turn hired the dangerous factories full of children. That way, GAP could say, “we had absolutely zero knowledge of child labor. During our investigation we have found X company to be at fault and we have severed ties with said company.” Meanwhile, that company changes its name or they go right back to getting clothes for $0.02/garment and then still getting to act surprised there is abuse.
The same shit is happening with these “carbon offset” claims. “We have been promised by X company that at the end of every quarter our emissions will be offset by Y number of new trees planted.” There isn’t enough land on earth to plant as many trees as we would need to offset our still claiming emissions. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s all marketing. We are brainwashed by how many companies we hear making lots and lots of noise about the fact that they are green, their products are green, you’re green for buying them. It’s nonsense. Consumerism won’t save us. Drastic action that quickly dismantles the structure responsible for climate change would.
There is a lot of greenwashing…and a number of countries have emissions that have started falling too. It’s not enough to stabilize things yet, but that’s not surprising; it was always going to be a decades-long fight to get emissions down.
Meaning aforementioned 0.0001%? Then, sure. Technically.
It’s not some sort of stochastic process; it’s a human policy decision.
Sadly, the siren call of another yacht is too strong.