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aleda145 3 hours ago

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right (https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f...)

I don't know what to do.

davidw 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Work on local things to make your own city better. Plenty of stuff that's not too difficult, even if it won't fix everything:

* Multifamily housing is much more energy efficient. Is it legal to build throughout your city, or does zoning prevent it?

* Is there good bicycle infrastructure so people don't have to drive for everything?

* Does your city still have expensive parking mandates that lock in car dependency? Get rid of those. They also get in the way of places becoming more walkable.

* This one hurts, but: eat less beef.

* Advocate for good transit as another way for people to get around without driving a personal vehicle.

* What can be done in your city/region to electrify heating for homes and businesses?

* What can your region do to build more renewable energy capacity?

Those are all things where even a few voices can sometimes make a difference.

hackyhacky 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook.

If you want to see real progress on the climate, a few thousand people changing their daily habits is not enough. Governments need to take action and hold industry to account. That looks to be an increasingly unlikely event, but that doesn't justify taking ineffective action instead as a placebo.

It reminds me of the '90s when we are all told that recycling was necessary for saving the environment. Decades later, we'll still spending time sorting our garbage, despite evidence that no one wants recyclable waste, it still ends up dumped somewhere, and it costs more money to handle. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE

jhrmnn 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But individual behavior is not about preventing climate change, it’s about doing what’s right. It’s wrong to pollute the environment, one way or another. A single person not stealing won’t reduce the crime rate in a country yet it is the right thing to do.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not a fair comparison. Everything we do affects the environment. The goal is to limit that effect where it matters. It's not ethical, it's practical.

dbdr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

davidw 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And almost all of them have plenty of other benefits too:

Multifamily housing is generally cheaper in high land cost areas. It helps solve the housing shortage.

More bikes and transit and fewer cars means cleaner air and fewer traffic deaths.

Less fossil fuel usage in general means less pollution.

Cities that use land more efficiently tend to be more walkable, pleasant, and don't gobble up things like farmland or forests outside the city.

Come to think of it, less beef is probably better for your health, too.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> less beef is probably better for your health, too.

Won't matter when it's 120 degrees F every day.

HPsquared 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My advice is to install air conditioning, and choose a place to live that will be affected as little as possible. Avoid the Maldives or New Orleans, perhaps choose somewhere a little hilly and cool with good connectivity.

hackyhacky an hour ago | parent [-]

Great suggestions. I will pass your advice on to literally all of humanity.

HPsquared an hour ago | parent [-]

That's what will happen, you might as well get ahead of the rush.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

Exactly. That's why it's ineffective to evangelize this as individual effort. If you want to live in a multifamily home, they have to be zoned, funded, and built. That requires lobbying the government, moral rectitude.

davidw 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I did not write 'individual habits' - you did. Things like zoning are not individual choices at all. But they are something that you and a few friends might be able to influence at city hall.

an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
davidw 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

None of this "lulls" involved people, nor lets anyone off the hook.

These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on today in a country like, say, the US, where the federal government is in the hands of evil people and is not going to be doing much in terms of climate change in the near future.

The federal government may be a lost cause for the moment, but your city or state might provide an avenue to get some things done. Those things won't fix the whole problem, but they're still progress, and the connections you make while doing those things will be useful in future, bigger fights.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on toda

I agree: people can work on this individually. And it won't make a lick of difference.

How many items on this list require government action? How many require corporations' cooperation. What am I going to do, build the bike lanes myself as a hobby?

davidw 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The work is getting your local or state government to do the things. I thought that was quite obvious.

maybelsyrup 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook.

This can't be said enough. It simply cannot be said enough. It cuts right to the heart of how we view the world in the west: as autonomous, separate individuals, with no communal counterweight and certainly no model of power (some entities in the world have vastly more power than others) We assume that because our constitutions grant us equal rights or whatever, we all have equal responsibility and equal power.

But polluters, the biggest sources of emissions, have way more power and way, way less responsibility. And yet we continue to tell ourselves to focus on our own individual behaviors to combat global heating. The effects are real, but tiny, and our elites continue getting away with our annihilation.

ericd 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great list!

For those in the US, I'd add lobbying your congresspeople to support the revival of the Energy Permitting Reform Act. It's something that didn't make it across the line before the end of the last congress, but basically, making it easier to bring new generation capacity on the electrical grid disproportionately benefits renewables, because they make up the vast majority of wattage waiting in the queue. As we've seen by the explosion of deployment in less regulated grids (Texas, and most of the world), the economics now favor solar+storage and wind, we just have to let people build as much of it as they want to.

kawera 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would add:

* Plant more trees

timmg 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right

Is it the "far right"? Or is it that technology and fertility have actually lowered the risks substantially?

Solar plus batteries, right now, seems to be the cheapest form of new energy. Given that, you would expect most of new energy to be "green". (And if you look at the stats, that seems to be coming true.)

Electrification of transportation is happening quickly. China is cranking out cheap electric cars that are generally better than ICE cars of yesterday. And the world seems to be transitioning.

And fertility rates are dropping everywhere. So the amount of people we will need to support in the future continues to decline.

I've mostly stopped worrying about climate change. Not because I don't think it is real. But because I think we are clearly on the path to mitigating the worse scenarios.

hackingonempty an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> I think we are clearly on the path to mitigating the worse scenarios.

This evidence based article published in one of the worlds top scientific journals comes to the opposite conclusion.

maybelsyrup 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Is it the "far right"?

Yes, it is. They're committed to "Every molecule of hydrocarbon will come out". [0]. They keep saying this to us, and we don't seem to believe them. I like your optimism, and I'm not denying a lot of what you're saying -- renewables fast becoming the cheapest energy. But that's not deterring people: the far right here in the US are about to dismantle the government's legal rationale for regulating emissions. They're laughing at us right now, doing victory laps. They're telling polluters to take the gloves off.

These people are terrorists, extremists, and they're in charge of the world's single most powerful economy and military. They're obsessed with domination, with doing violence to the weak and the poor and to nature. It's pure Freudian thanatos.

It's just hard to take your position.

[0] https://theecologist.org/2023/dec/05/every-molecule-hydrocar...

akramachamarei 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the "far-right", but you seem to be implying this 'every molecule' quote (or more charitably, the goal) is of the "far-right" in the U.S. In reality the quote is from Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. I mean, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Saudi Arabia is considered far-right governed but I doubt your wording is giving the correct impression to readers.

maybelsyrup 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, I know it's a Saudi quote. They're also far right. They're bosom buddies with the same right-wing (Democratic) and far-right (Republican) US economic and governmental elites for decades. I don't think anyone would dispute this. In fact, it's so humdrum a set of facts that I think the burden would be on someone else to show that "no, actually, US elites are not into the whole 'every molecule of hydrocarbon' thing". But their behavior doesn't indicate that they disagree.

It's thus, yes, the correct impression for readers.

clumsysmurf 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yep, its the far right.

The Heritage Foundation (Project 2025, far-right, anti-climate) is working with the Heartland Institute (spreading climate science denial across UK / EU) / Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC, Jordan Peterson)

They do not like EU rules that hold US firms accountable to climate laws.

https://www.desmog.com/2026/02/10/donald-trump-uk-eu-maga-sl...

timmg an hour ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I'm not saying the far-right isn't (whatever) anti-climate change.

I just meant that I don't think the lack of concern is necessarily due to them. I think it may have more to do with the reality that we are already on a good path.

Bill Gates famously wrote a "note" about it last year: https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/accelerate-energy-innovation...

MetaWhirledPeas an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are actions you can cheer on, like China's quick adoption of renewable energy. You can't make it happen yourself but you can bring peoples' attention to good things, encourage those within your circle of influence, and vote for representation that shares your views.

As for what "we" collectively can do... let's assume you are speaking of areas of research. We may need to focus on researching adaptation techniques for the areas that are going to be the hardest hit, or that have the fewest resources to cope. It's a sad topic but it may be needed. Assume the worst, hope for the best, and plan for what you can.

danny_codes 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seems China is cooking atm. If solar power and battery tech continues at this speed and their nuclear ambitions pan out, fossil fuels will be economically non-competitive (if they aren’t already). China EV momentum is incredible.

So still some hope I think! And it’s possible the populist “dumb dumb bricks” crew will decline in popularity when the inevitable lack of tangible improvements continues. Though since we are dealing with dumb dumb it may take a while

rienbdj 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Significant emissions are from ground transportation. Advocate for walkable neighbourhoods, bike infrastructure and public transit.

foolfoolz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

this is like a tiktok rage bait way of thinking. western nations have largely peaked on carbon emissions. china is slowing down and will peak soon. there are a lot of countries that still are growing in emissions, sure, but you are not looking at this scientifically.

goatlover 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Scientifically according to the article, the world is on an emissions path to 2.8°C warming, not accounting for the extra rate of warming we've seen in recent years. And this puts us at greater risk of hitting tipping points into an even warmer planet. So the status quo isn't cutting it.

IAmGraydon an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

China is nowhere near peaking, nor is the world.

https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/china https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissi... https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

It's true that the West did peak in 2007 (as did South America, India, and Africa), but Asia's emissions are so massive that they more than make up for all of the reductions of the rest of the world. That last link I posted makes clear how big the problem with China is.

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
yongjik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you are a US citizen, voting Trump out might be unironically the most significant decision your country could make for the next 100 years of mankind.

Not because the alternative is so great, but because Trump is so horrible that it's not even a question. We really don't need someone who doesn't even acknowledge climate change in charge of the world's biggest economy.

jihadjihad an hour ago | parent [-]

Trump is ineligible to run for a third term. The time to vote him out was 15 months ago.

13415 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The answer to that question is always the same. Join a party and become politically active. Or, if you really can't find any party that represents your views, join an NGO and become active in it. If you're too lazy for that, consider paying an NGO that does spectacular actions that have a public impact. And never vote for any parties that don't do anything for better climate control, of course.

bayarearefugee 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I don't know what to do.

As a 52 year old who never believed we would take climate change seriously (and who is more convinced than ever I was correct as society actually regresses on this issue) I did what I had to do -- I purposefully didn't have children.

Good luck to those of you who did.

This ain't my problem. I'll be dead (or close enough) when the shit fully hits the fan and won't have doomed any offspring to the upcoming migration/resources wars

xyzal 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You work in software, right? Then you can donate some money to enviro orgs.

cosmic_cheese 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Not an expert in any of that, but I think overall impact may be greater if people with sufficient means take a more hands-on approach that grants visibility of where money is going. I lean environmentalist be the truth is that there’s a good deal of well-marketed snake oil in the environmental space.

tdb7893 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The issue with quibbling over impact is my experience is that people end up doing neither. I recently started a Master's in ecology so I don't have a good idea of what's cost effective right now but I know the field is pretty shockingly underfunded (both for general research and conservation projects). I learned the "fun" fact recently that bird populations in the US are down ~30% in the last 55 years.

cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A fair assessment. Doing nothing is not the answer to the risk of doing the wrong thing. It's probably worth some time spent on due diligence when selecting groups to donate to, regardless.

bamboozled 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Die a horrible death while watching a group of hateful people scream that it’s all the immigrants fault and that they ate all the cats and dogs, I guess …

shrubby 3 hours ago | parent [-]

... immigrants, LGBT, women, another religion, the ones with no religion, communist, liberal,...

But never the zillionaires, they've worked haaaard and deserve everything!

netsharc 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fear and egoism is probably causing the rise of the far-right, fear of not having enough, and egoism of "Why do I have to share?" (and being dumb enough to believe "make it great again" lies). And then the idiotic "center" who doesn't want to lose voters start moving to the right. With the decaying planet less capable of producing food, there'll be less, and there'll be more of that scarcity mindset (although do we even have scarcity, maybe it's just the uneven distribution, with billionaires eating cows that's been fed grass that's grown with the purest glacier water flown by helicopter from the Swiss alps...).

In one aspect, the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping has a positive: "We're going to cover the whole mountain with solar panels, and force electrification of cars." and there's no busybodies protesting and threatening to vote his party out of office.

akramachamarei 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ever admitting the positives of autocrats for their apparent efficiency disqualifies surrounding suppositions. And that's not an ad hominen, that's just Bayesian.

netsharc 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

Ok Smartypants, jog on...

panarchy 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think there's someone that wrote about what is to be done, but I can't remember who. /s

csmpltn 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

TheOsiris 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

the west is regressing on climate because, quite frankly, almost anything we do is pointless. we're not the ones who need to do anything to have an impact on the world. the entities that must do something don't want to