| ▲ | lukeify 2 hours ago |
| At this point I’m not sure what to do about it. I already live a low-ish carbon life. I barely ever fly. Only drive when I need to. Try and use items that are non-plastic where feasible. I don’t buy extra clothes. It’s at the point where I wish it were solvable, but I don’t believe it is, so I can’t afford to think about it. Maybe people better than me can, and good luck to them. |
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| ▲ | specproc an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's not at all about individual action. This scale of problem requires policy intervention and investment at national levels, and inter-governmental coordination internationally. The big, meaningful wins come from things like stopping the use of coal, not signing-off on new oil and gas exploration, tax-incentives and disincentives, grid work, fining polluters. We instinctively frame this as an individual problem, the cynic might say we've been encouraged to, but the reality is that whether or not you fly this summer has precisely dick-all impact globally. It's the actions of our governments that count. |
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| ▲ | rapnie an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's not at all about individual action. This scale of problem requires policy intervention and investment at national levels, and inter-governmental coordination internationally. It is all about individual action. And then the emergence from that to what amounts to the multi-pronged solutions that are needed to address a wicked problem. Like create the "big meaningful wins" you mention. There is no mailbox where you drop off "stop the use of coal", and it happens, neither is there a magic button. A complicating factor is that we are not able to see how our small individual actions contribute to solving the wicked problems, and we are not able to coordinate them at scale. | |
| ▲ | soco an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | At least in theory, our governments are voted in place exactly by us. Trump voters loved his ideas and he's implementing them now, yay success. Also industrial pollution is fueled by our buying habits just as well - if nobody would order stuff brought by ship from overseas, well, we wouldn't have many of those huge(ly) polluting ships around. So I wouldn't leave out the personal responsibility here: we make decisions every day, and giving up paper straws is only the most insignificant one. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 30 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Large merchant ships are extremely efficient in terms of CO2 and other pollutants released per ton of cargo. I agree with ordering less stuff when practical but most of the emissions happen due to manufacturing and use, not transport. | |
| ▲ | shiandow an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's about taking a holistic view of the situation as well. Shipping is a big producer world wide, but stopping it entirely barely makes a dent. A lot more is industry, appliances, heating. And those boats make a lot less of an impact than all those trucks driving everything across land. Wise choices are needed. | |
| ▲ | NopIdoN an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | did our buying habits force AI into everything? | | |
| ▲ | horsawlarway 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | To face this directly: I think an honest answer is probably "yes". Our buying habits empowered the type of company that wants to put AI into everything. Whether they continue to do so or not will also depend on our buying habits going forward. |
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| ▲ | roysting an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | harrouet 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Actually if that can bring up your morale, just replacing coal power plants with nuclear (or other 24x7 clean energy source) would keep up at the 1.5°C objective. |
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| ▲ | jaybrendansmith 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Stop voting for Republicans. That's a good start. |
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| ▲ | bs38 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Lot of info overload going on. Most people dont know covid hasnt disappeared. It keeps evolving and there are strains out there still causing issues. But thanks to the attention economy dynamics, all sorts of random people were acting like they were virologists, epidemiologists, microbiologists at its peak. They have all disappeared ie shifted focus to whatever else. Meanwhile the ecosystem and infra dedicated to keep track of this stuff chuggs along keeping the lights on. All am saying is there is no reason to keep everyone in a freaked out state. |
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| ▲ | unsupp0rted an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I do all those things freely, and that offsets your carefulness. But I don’t/won’t have kids, so I’m not even a drop in the bucket. |
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| ▲ | hamburgererror 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Maybe convince your relatives to do the same? |
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| ▲ | arrrg 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | That’s pointless. Political change is needed to achieve any of this. Changing your individual behavior or even the individual behavior of everyone you know – while certainly not wrong! – won’t solve this. This is like trying to abolish slavery in 19th century US by not owning slaves and trying your very best to not buy anything that involves slave labor … laudable, but not a way to abolish slavery. | | |
| ▲ | amulyabaral 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Isn't political change brought about by collective changes in behaviors of an individual and of those around them? | | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | mnewme an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Exactly! Politics try to appease the mass. If the mass would be willing to put climate change first we would have other policies, instead we follow the dark visions of lunatic billionaires |
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| ▲ | draw_down an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | GJim an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Don't have a pet cat or dog. Owning an unnecessary carnivorous animal is rather bad news from a CO2 perspective. A dog can be responsible for higher CO2 emissions than a car. https://impact.ed.ac.uk/research/climate-environmental-crisi... https://www.zerosmart.co.uk/post/the-average-carbon-footprin... (Que outrage from pet owners and people suggesting I'm a crazy vegan.... I'm most certainly not vegan or veggie!) |
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| ▲ | _luci_ an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | So we should not own pets, because the real polluters (companies) are lobbying to keep polluting? What bothers me so much about this idea of individual responsibility is that we get blamed for a choice we couldn't possibly make. It is up to the people in power to start making change, and it is important that people vote and educate themselves, but IMO this idea of individual responsibility for societal problems like climate change is ridiculous and only leads to inaction! We need to hold companies accountable, and we need to hold governments accountable. Own a dog, enjoy your life! | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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