nah it's natural
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You live in one of those places where the people you vote for do things you want, huh? Must be nice.
We can point fingers at governments and companies all day long, but unless something motivates them to change they're not going to. Right now the only real mechanisms we have at our disposal are our votes and our wallets. If people throw up their hands and can't even be arsed to leverage either of those things, nothing will change. Telling ourselves it's someone else's fault and doing nothing is the pinnacle of being part of the problem.
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Did they ignore it? Yes but the only reason they ignored it was because...
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The oil industry (and other adjacent industries) did their best to make sure everybody doubted the science of climate change
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Governments (the U.S gov't in particular) took the oil industry's side and subsidized their ventures
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Libertarian think tanks (like the Heritage Foundation and ALEC) took money from Big Oil to misinform the public about climate change and its connection to fossil fuel burning.
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Need graph source. Who had the thermometer in 12000 BC
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The problem is not the planet surviving, we know it'll most likely be fine eventually. The problem is that we're causing wide-spread death and destruction, including our own.
wrote last edited by [email protected]We evolved to be smart enough to be able to create and use tools, but not the wherewithal to prepare for compounding trends. Maybe this is the great extinction barrier that explains the Fermi paradox
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Thanks! Going down the rabbit hole now
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Not sure, but I think that wasn't because of higher temperatures but higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Correct! Insects have spiracles that basically passively exchange air. Max size is basically determined by this.
IIRC, some caterpillars only stop growing and pupate when they run out of a growth hormone.
I always wondered what would happen if you grew them in a high oxygen tank and supplemented their diet with the hormone.
Maybe get a Mothman that way.
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Not just ignored, but vehemently dismissed as “woke” quoting the fossil fuel lobby almost verbatim. Repeatedly. Over generations and overwhelming scientific consensus.
A majority of us voted for Al Gore, but I'm sure someone will next tell me he wouldn't have made a difference, both sides are the same, blah blah blah.
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Yeah, people were absolutely lied to - insidiously and exhaustively. That necessarily shapes their world views.
Yes, but people also see the truth. The information is there. Some people choose to believe the lies because it's convenient. They don't want to look into it. They don't want to listen to scientists, and instead choose to listen to politicians and companies.
Voters are systematically gerrymandered and disenfranchised. Popular candidates are smeared, removed from ballots, denied access to debates, and outright prosecuted.
Where are the riots? Where were the protests as Republicans red mapped? Why did they stop? Where was the blowback when Florida didn't give felons their right to vote back? Where are the riots when Republicans vote to remove the ability of citizens to add initiatives to the ballot?
What do you say to the 60-80% of the population with no material representation in government?
You don't need a vote to effect meaningful political change. Women couldn't vote. Until they could - through collective action.
Everyone chooses how to react and interface with the world. All the distortions in American democracy didn't materialize overnight.
People formed unions despite being murdered by pinkertons. Just because the system is fighting against us, doesn't absolve us of our responsibilities.
The modern moment is historically overdetermined. It's hubristic to pretend you have any control over it.
Correct my misunderstanding, but this tells me you have given up and think that nothing could have been done unless those with real power suddenly became altruistic in the past 3 decades.
And on that point, we may fundamentally disagree. I have to believe that citizens can effect change individually or collectively despite everything stacked against them. If I admit that the power differential is intractable and hopeless, then our only hope is a sudden wave of noblesse oblige to overcome people's greed, and we are truly fucked. Hubristic or not, I have to believe we have agency.
Yes, but people also see the truth.
People see information weighted by quality of presentation and volume of utterances. "The Truth" is not self-revelatory nor is it self-reinforcing, particularly for a lay person. There are whole philosophical treaties that break this down.
Where are the riots? Where were the protests as Republicans red mapped? Why did they stop? Where was the blowback when Florida didn’t give felons their right to vote back? Where are the riots when Republicans vote to remove the ability of citizens to add initiatives to the ballot?
You have to ask, you haven't bothered to look. We had a Jacksonville man arrested after he tried to run over a pack of protesters in his neighborhood in June. We had a Texas congressional candidate tackled by police in the middle of a legislative session just last week. Over 3,200 students had been arrested on campus in the spring of 2024. The riots in LA have been happening for months.
But the fact that you seem to be willing to deny the existence of ongoing domestic protests - flare ups that have been stretching back decades in this country - sort of illustrates the problem of "the truth of climate change". You've blinded yourself to crowds of people who may well be marching through your own neighborhoods. These are massive crowds of people who get regular news coverage, not obscure 19th century climatologists who go unmentioned save in the fine print of Wikipedia articles.
Correct my misunderstanding, but this tells me you have given up
If I had given up, I wouldn't be blaming random Boomers on the current state of affairs. I don't believe an entire generational cohort is irredeemably stupid.
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At what point on this graph is ecoterrorism justified?
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Gen Z is 1997-2010
How are they just entering voting age?
Perhaps "just entering" was an overstatement.
Wikipedia has the Gen-Z range from 1997-2012, so they're 13-28. This year, about 68% are eligible to vote; something over 50% were eligible to vote in the last presidential election, and one statistic I saw claimed they made up only about 8% of the total vote. They are, however, the biggest generation in history, ever. Given that the birth rates in the US stopped climbing and started falling in 2007, it's conceivable that they may be the biggest generation ever, forever.
In any case, statistically, young people vote at far lower rates than older; 18-29 (GenZ, at the moment) vote around 50%. At around 30 it's 60%, and by 65 it's over 70%.
So, given that some 65% of Gen Z are eligible to vote, and statistically about half of them will at this age bracket, that's only about 35% of Gen Z voting. That number will grow over three next decade and become the dominant number, but right now it's fairly small... hence "just entering voting age."
You're right, my wording wasn't accurate; the meaning was.
Ancillarily, births in the US peaked at 4.3M births in 2007 and have been declining since; they haven't hit 4M again since, and are down to 3.6M in 2025, below 1994 (3.9M) levels.
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So the industrial revolution safed us from temperature going below the level for agriculture?
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Yes, but people also see the truth.
People see information weighted by quality of presentation and volume of utterances. "The Truth" is not self-revelatory nor is it self-reinforcing, particularly for a lay person. There are whole philosophical treaties that break this down.
Where are the riots? Where were the protests as Republicans red mapped? Why did they stop? Where was the blowback when Florida didn’t give felons their right to vote back? Where are the riots when Republicans vote to remove the ability of citizens to add initiatives to the ballot?
You have to ask, you haven't bothered to look. We had a Jacksonville man arrested after he tried to run over a pack of protesters in his neighborhood in June. We had a Texas congressional candidate tackled by police in the middle of a legislative session just last week. Over 3,200 students had been arrested on campus in the spring of 2024. The riots in LA have been happening for months.
But the fact that you seem to be willing to deny the existence of ongoing domestic protests - flare ups that have been stretching back decades in this country - sort of illustrates the problem of "the truth of climate change". You've blinded yourself to crowds of people who may well be marching through your own neighborhoods. These are massive crowds of people who get regular news coverage, not obscure 19th century climatologists who go unmentioned save in the fine print of Wikipedia articles.
Correct my misunderstanding, but this tells me you have given up
If I had given up, I wouldn't be blaming random Boomers on the current state of affairs. I don't believe an entire generational cohort is irredeemably stupid.
"The Truth" is not self-revelatory nor is it self-reinforcing, particularly for a lay person.
It is not self-revelatory, but there are objective truths. If a lay person lacks the expertise to understand, they should defer to experts - not politicians or pundits.
Falling for propaganda is a reason, but it is not an excuse. The electorate has a responsibility to be informed.
You have to ask, you haven't bothered to look.
I'm incredibly proud of what has been happening in my home city of LA. That's what we fucking need everywhere. Burn cities down until things change.
But fair point! I was being more rhetorical and less literal. But that's my miscommunication error. My question wasn't to say they don't exist or haven't happened. I asked it to highlight that it isn't enough. That for the magnitude of what is happening and its importance, the response is impotent and not proportional.
The world is increasingly on fire (almost literally). I'm living in a downtown metropolitan area minutes from city hall and protests are not daily.
I don't believe an entire generational cohort is irredeemably stupid.
Nor do I. I never said that. I said I blame them for their willful ignorance and their decision not to prioritize climate change politically.
My position is simple. More could have been done, and because of that, we share blame and responsibility - however small. This is why I also blame myself.
Anyway, I think we've kind of hit a natural end. I appreciated our conversation, and it's given me some things to mull over.
Thank you
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I read a stat like 70% of all carbon emissions come from like 10 sources, and our individual efforts is basically like pissing in the sea, its not going do much.
In Europe, 40% of emissions come from private cars. If we remove all other emissions, we still can't reach the factor of 4 just because of cars.
Are you sure your source isn't BP? -
Our parents didn't ignore it.
Our Governments, and the corporations who bribed those governments, just didn't give a shit enough to listen.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Nah it's time to hold Boomers accountable. They were too busy focusing on hedonism, selling out future generations for a tax cut and buying pickup trucks they didn't need, to care about big picture concepts like climate change.
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Idk man remember when that ozone hole was supposed to kill us all but we started fixing it in like 10 years? How about when we decided plastic would choke the oceans to death only to find that microbes are busily learning how to break down all those man made forever polymers? Member those? Meeeember?
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I read a stat like 70% of all carbon emissions come from like 10 sources, and our individual efforts is basically like pissing in the sea, its not going do much.
Consumer use of private vehicles and air conditioning / heating absolutely have a non-negligible impact.
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We can point fingers at governments and companies all day long, but unless something motivates them to change they're not going to. Right now the only real mechanisms we have at our disposal are our votes and our wallets. If people throw up their hands and can't even be arsed to leverage either of those things, nothing will change. Telling ourselves it's someone else's fault and doing nothing is the pinnacle of being part of the problem.
wrote last edited by [email protected]People are using their votes and their wallets though. Not everyone, but more and more people all the time. Basic ecological awareness in the general population is higher than it ever was for our parents and grandparents, and there will always be more an individual could do.
Blaming individuals just creates an unreachable vague goal. What level of buy in in the general population will be enough? How many people have to live up to some arbitrary goal line until we can start holding companies fucking accountable? Or even just holding rich individuals doing shit like work commute by private fucking plane accountable?
Always just a little bit more. No, hybrids aren't enough, you need to go full EV. EVs aren't enough, how is the electricity being generated? No, you aren't doing enough until you have no car and walk everywhere. Just keep chasing that moving target. Oh, you might be doing it all right, but too many of your neighbors aren't, so now you have to drag them kicking and screaming into it too. The companies and the rich will definitely start caring with just a little more work from the middle class and the poor. Just a little more now. They definitely won't use every dirty trick in the book to avoid losing profits.
If someone keeps getting papercuts on their fingers, and also a bullet wound in the corresponding shoulder, you focus on the bullet wound first. Doesn't mean that you ignore the fingers, you just have to prioritize, and not claim that slapping bandaids on the fingers will somehow close up the shoulder.
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Maybe if education and news media continue to degenerate they'll become too stupid to know any better.
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At what point on this graph is ecoterrorism justified?
Any point other than blue
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Consumer use of private vehicles and air conditioning / heating absolutely have a non-negligible impact.
As a group, yes...per individual not really.
