How would you propose we actually combat climate change?
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attack the capitalist system.
And the free market value system, because it doesn't value externalities.
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How we gonna melt steel, copper, titanium, tungsten, etc?
Sadly, fossil fuels aren't going away anytime soon.
️Iceland refines a lot of metal and I think they're close, or at, 100% renewable.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
There's now no way to stop or reverse the inevitable collapse of the comfortable way of life we have right now. This isn't a fight for survival or for the planet, it's to perpetuate the system we enjoy at the moment.
The only way remaining to minimise the damage to our way of life is with some huge geo-engineering projects. Like scattering reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight away or releasing some novel chemical into the oceans to fix carbon dioxide and lock it away.
The risks of experimenting like this has always outweighed the benefits (like the guys who thought they could kill a hurricane and instead magnified it and sent it back inland resulting in the deaths of multiple people). But now it's too late to worry about things like that because the inevitable impacts of climate change including wild fires, habitat destruction, biodiversity collapse, extreme weather events are all here now while most of the world is still arguing about whether it even exists or not.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Move to renewable energy. We have the necessary capacity, just keep installing renewable sources and phasing out the rest. Keep nuclear plants operational as long as they're safe, too, but don't waste too much resources building new ones.
Keep on moving electric storage from lithium ion to pumped hydro/sodium ion/other technologies depending on scale. Leave lithium ion for portable electronics and specialized cases only.
Develop better public transit networks, ideally make it free like in some cities. Also, make bicycle lanes mandatory for new neighborhoods, and convert old roads to have bicycle lanes whenever possible. With that, you won't need to ban cars as they'll grow less relevant (although you can increase tax on car sales to raise money and further disincentivise car ownership).
Also, develop high-speed rail whenever it makes sense, as an organic and much more ecological replacement for planes. Make sure they are modular enough to scale for demand, to avoid dragging extra.
Plant more trees and algae to help scrub the extra CO2. Intensify marine plastic collection efforts to assist the natural growth of marine ecosystems.
Ban petroleum-based plastics whenever possible. For most applications, there are more friendly biologically produced options; they are fairly cheap, too, it's just that regular plastic is even cheaper.
Extend reduce-reuse-recycle. Make more places serve into your own tare, make use (on a personal level) of what you normally throw away, and for what you do throw away, make sure it gets into recycling. Get creative! For example, did you know some used plastic bottles can be turned into a 3D printer filament? You can go wherever from there!
Reduce beef production/import and consumption. For what you do consume, make sure it comes from milk breeds, because otherwise you don't share the ecological footprint with the dairy, which skyrockets the footprint of a steak. In any case, beef is the single most terrible food source in terms of ecological footprint, being several times worse than pork, poultry and dozens to hundreds times worse than plant foods.
Oh, and the AI centers currently in construction by tech giants are becoming one extra major point of concern. We should review which of these are actually necessary, because this thing doesn't seem to stop scaling up, with some planned centers consuming as much energy as a major city.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
I'm vegan, have no intention of ever buying a car and plan on never having children. That's probably as much individual action as anyone can ask for. Anything after that is up to corporations and governments, so we should make sure they are incentivized to do the right thing
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Ban planned obsolescence and make a rigorous standard that any new device is designed repairable, reliable and long lasting enough to last at least 10 years if treated right, 20+ years for vehicles and machinery..
This whole 'you gotta get a new thing every year' era causes sooo much unnecessary waste and pollution
️wrote last edited by [email protected]This would have almost 0 impact on climate change. It wouldn't stop new stuff being produced and bought, people still want shinier things than they had yesterday, long lasting or not. It'd be a positive change, but not for climate change.
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I'm vegan, have no intention of ever buying a car and plan on never having children. That's probably as much individual action as anyone can ask for. Anything after that is up to corporations and governments, so we should make sure they are incentivized to do the right thing
Throw in no plane travel also
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
wrote last edited by [email protected]companies and countries have largely abandoned it already, the most polluting ones dint do anything to reduce it at all. consumers are the smaller emitters of it.
these companies have actively funded groups to dissuade "carbon usage" so they dont have to reduce thier own emissions.
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But it's time to disrupt 99% of life.
Survey humanity, produce an agreed on level of technology and lifestyle.
We probably need to limit ourselves to housing, food, internet, and safety/defense for everyone and not much else - then slow all industries based on HOW people want to live.
So getting rid of things like, plastic toys, gizmos, extravagances. Phones wouldn't be updated as often. People would only be able to update their tech if they could meaningfully show it was necessary.
Lots of technology companies would be folded. Lots of industries would be nationalised and folded. International tourism would be greatly restricted. All the stuff we don't need basically.
People would be mostly employed in the basics: Housing, food, internet. Too far beyond that and you'd have to rely on local people/groups/makers/repair companies.
So massive degrowth, nationalization, and restrictions/regulations to the market.
Most of all, corporations would no longer count as people. In fact society should have to rely on person to person contracting. I don't really think corporations should exist becuase they become Zombies/Golems that do a lot of destructive things.
Basically degrowth, and restructuring society around degrowth.
wrote last edited by [email protected]All other "solutions" in this thread are so funny to me. People thinking more efficient/more sustainable stuff will change anything. Solar panels and whatever still need to be produced, causing emissions. If you continue growing infinitely, you're going to cause infinite emissions with that.
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Engineer a virus to send back in time to slow down CO2 emissions
wait a minute...
andromeda strain
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
I'm doing my part by not having children.
If there's no humans there cannot be pollution.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
If they won't shut down their CO²-spewing factories and plants, then we will have to.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
wrote last edited by [email protected]No plastics but natural materials, wood, leather stuff like that
Renewable energies, reduce consumption, public transport everywhere instead of cars. Higher density of living together.PUNISH THE COMPANYS! NO PRIVAT JETS OR IN LAND FLYING!
Go vegan/vegitarian. Not just for the enviorment but personal health! And when meat then not mass produced meat. Butcherm if you cant afford it then maybe dont. Its not neccissary
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Geoengineering: Whether through launching solar shades into space to block sunlight and cool the planet down, pump aerosols into the atmosphere, cloud seeding, or anything else. I think this is where our research should be going. I think it's too late to avoid the worst-case-scenarios of climate change from merely cutting emissions, so more drastic measures to alleviate or even reverse the effects may be necessary. Plus it'll help us with any future colonizing and terraforming of worlds outside of Earth.
Public transport infrastructure to reduce our reliance on cars & planes: While I don't think hyperloops or a transatlantic tunnel are feasible, building tens of thousands of kilometres worth of overground and underground railway routes to interconnect towns and cities with high speed maglev trains is. China have the right idea.
Right to work from home: Remote working reduces our dependency on cars and frees up real estate to address the various housing crises we have.
Right to repair and outlawing planned obsolescence: Should we have to buy a new smartphone every 3 or so years because Apple or Samsung want to maximize profits? Do we care at all about the amount of electronic waste we're producing?
Accelerate our efforts to reverse desertification and plant trillions more trees: If we can turn parts of the Sahel, Gobi Desert and the Australian outback green, that could have a very beneficial effect on the environment.
Oh hell no. Lets not fuck with nature even more. We must not play god! Geoengineering might cause more problems than its use!
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Proviso of this is that, globally, politicians grow a spine, along with a sense of morality, and long term planning. It would also require them to deal with the money hoarding issues with the hyper rich.
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The first step is a massive push for renewables. They should be representing 200-500% of grid demand regularly. If nuclear can get up to speed and be part of this, great, but we can't wait on it.
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That excess power should be soaked up by large scale, portable, energy storage. Green hydrogen is the current best option, but synthetic fossil fuels could also take up the slack. Depending on the area, desalination could also be combined into this.
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We seriously decarbonise the transport networks. For vans and smaller, electric vehicles win. BYD have demonstrated that low cost electric cars are viable. For larger vehicles, where electric becomes inefficient, hydrogen is viable. This is where a lot of the excess hydrogen will be going.
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Carbon credits with teeth. Rather than relying on a planned economy mindset, we can make capitalism work for us. We need a global fixed carbon emission limit. This limit should trend towards net zero on a preset timetable. Credits are bid on, akin to stock market trades. Companies must have credits by the end of the year/period. The fine for not having credits should be a multiple of the closing credits price (10x?). The fine for falsification should be multiples of that, erring towards corporate execution levels.
This will force easy savings out of the market quickly. It will then force compulsory emitters to factor in Carbon costs.
- Combined with the carbon credits will be negative credits. If a group takes a ton of CO² out of the air, long term, they gain a new credit. They can sell this to emitters. This will provide the CO² emissions industry requires, while meeting net zero.
An example of this might be large scale bio capture on the open ocean. Grow seaweed etc on pontoons, and turn it into a solid. This can then be locked up (old coal mines?) taking carbon out permanently.
- Geo engineering. There are multiple methods of reducing incident sunlight on the earth. Everything from powders in the upper atmosphere, to mylar solar shades at the Lagrange point. They will be short term fixes, but will buy us time.
None of these require massive reductions in quality of life. They do require changes in how we do things. It's also worth noting that I've not covered the numerous problems to be solved e.g. power grid upgrades to account for renewables. None of these should be insurmountable however, just engineering, or political/policing challenges.
An no, I've no fucking idea how to get politicians to grow a spine and do what's required for our long term comfort/survival. Fixing the planet? That's just a (really big) engineering problem. Fixing human nature? ...Fuck knows.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
Compost the rich
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
Genuinely there needs to be a fee that companies must pay for the pollution they create, with it written into law that they can't palm the cost off on their customers.
We need to move shipping away from the 'barely more refined than crude oil' fuels they use
We need to ensure protection of the oceans by making it so that outflowing waste from industry never reaches the watercourse in the first place.
Single use plastics need to be removed from the supply chain (alternatively changed at the production level so they're made from plant cellulose or a material that doesn't break down into PFOAS or microplastics)
We also need to block petrochemical companies from lobbying or interfering with politics, and prevent them from funding smear campaigns against renewable energy sources
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Move to renewable energy. We have the necessary capacity, just keep installing renewable sources and phasing out the rest. Keep nuclear plants operational as long as they're safe, too, but don't waste too much resources building new ones.
Keep on moving electric storage from lithium ion to pumped hydro/sodium ion/other technologies depending on scale. Leave lithium ion for portable electronics and specialized cases only.
Develop better public transit networks, ideally make it free like in some cities. Also, make bicycle lanes mandatory for new neighborhoods, and convert old roads to have bicycle lanes whenever possible. With that, you won't need to ban cars as they'll grow less relevant (although you can increase tax on car sales to raise money and further disincentivise car ownership).
Also, develop high-speed rail whenever it makes sense, as an organic and much more ecological replacement for planes. Make sure they are modular enough to scale for demand, to avoid dragging extra.
Plant more trees and algae to help scrub the extra CO2. Intensify marine plastic collection efforts to assist the natural growth of marine ecosystems.
Ban petroleum-based plastics whenever possible. For most applications, there are more friendly biologically produced options; they are fairly cheap, too, it's just that regular plastic is even cheaper.
Extend reduce-reuse-recycle. Make more places serve into your own tare, make use (on a personal level) of what you normally throw away, and for what you do throw away, make sure it gets into recycling. Get creative! For example, did you know some used plastic bottles can be turned into a 3D printer filament? You can go wherever from there!
Reduce beef production/import and consumption. For what you do consume, make sure it comes from milk breeds, because otherwise you don't share the ecological footprint with the dairy, which skyrockets the footprint of a steak. In any case, beef is the single most terrible food source in terms of ecological footprint, being several times worse than pork, poultry and dozens to hundreds times worse than plant foods.
Oh, and the AI centers currently in construction by tech giants are becoming one extra major point of concern. We should review which of these are actually necessary, because this thing doesn't seem to stop scaling up, with some planned centers consuming as much energy as a major city.
beef is the single most terrible food source in terms of ecological footprint
I simply haven't found compelling evidence this is true
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Why do you say stick to protein? I understand for health reasons but emissions wise starches like wheat and maize are some of the most efficient per calorie, especially when compared to animal protein..
I guess you could argue there less filling so you'll eat more but you'd need to eat a ton of potato chips to get to the same amount of emmisions as a steak.
Oh — I meant strictly for health reasons. Guess I got a bit off-topic there.
But yeah, starch breaks down to sugar and we don't need more of that. I do love my corn (maize) tortillas for wrapping up meat and vegetables though!
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They were used in almost everything that required compressed air to function...from fire extinguishers to refrigeration units, air conditioners, and even hair spray bottles. Entire industries needed to come up with alternatives, with millions of products directly affected.
Sure...fossil fuels are a bigger issue. But that only means that even harder methods are required to force a change.
Look around you. What gains have we made, by leaving it up to the fossil fuel industry to phase itself out, voluntarily? We already have cheaper alternatives...thanks to the incentives you mentioned. But we are still nowhere near the point of replacing them on any significant scale. That will never happen as long as they are still "allowed" on the market.
They were used in almost everything that required compressed air to function...from fire extinguishers to refrigeration units, air conditioners, and even hair spray bottles. Entire industries needed to come up with alternatives, with millions of products directly affected.
That's not a ton of stuff. They had replacements already in use. Oil is literally in everything we use, and I mean literally everything.
Sure...fossil fuels are a bigger issue. But that only means that even harder methods are required to force a change.
Again, good luck.
Look around you. What gains have we made, by leaving it up to the fossil fuel industry to phase itself out, voluntarily?
They won't, and that's not the argument I have presented at all. I've already stated they will fight.
We already have cheaper alternatives...thanks to the incentives you mentioned.
Yea no shit, but we've not done enough, and thanks to the turnip we're rolling back a huge portion of those incentives.
But we are still nowhere near the point of replacing them on any significant scale. That will never happen as long as they are still "allowed" on the market.
This is completely incorrect. EVs have a much bigger footprint then ever before, solar and wind as well. Nuclear should be next but NIMBYs push it away more than anything.
You make something that's cheaper than the alternative, people will choose the cheaper option.
And like I said. Good luck banning the use of oil.
