How would you propose we actually combat climate change?
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The simple fact is, we buy what's available on the market. If we want to phase out fossil fuels...the government needs to step in and ban using them. Then, car companies will all be forced to switch to cleaner alternatives, and that's what consumers will start buying.
This goes for every single product on the market. Regulate the shit out of it, and the market will shift. But if you leave it up to the market to decide...it will always choose the cheapest, most profitable option.
We, as consumers, have almost no say in the matter. We buy what we need, based on the available options.
Negative, you don't ban things to get them to go away, you just end up with tons of legal fights that last forever. You make the next gen stuff cheaper. You fund solar, electric and nuclear, and anything else that's renewable and cleaner than what we have now to the max. You kill the market for it, not try and ban it.
Fund the hell out of the research and you'll make the old tech obsolete. People will choose via their wallets and kill the industry overnight basically.
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How we gonna melt steel, copper, titanium, tungsten, etc?
Sadly, fossil fuels aren't going away anytime soon.
️There are ways to melt those without burning fossil fuels. Whether the alternatives are easy, affordable, or can run at a useful rate is debatable
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If a rigged vote gets 100 votes to person A and 0 votes for person B then you will think person B’s ideas aren’t valid.
If a rigged vote gets 100 for person A and 35 for person B, well person B’s ideas shouldn’t be ignored. It also shows the 90 people that didn’t vote that maybe they should vote next time.
In a rigged election, you’re not going to be delivered legitimate vote totals.
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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!
We get our strongest guy and they get their strongest guy and we end it with single combat. Winner takes all, no do-overs, no mulligans, one alternate for each side, and the weapons and location will be decided by a board of neutral parties in coordination with each side's coach, contender, and any other relevant staff.
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Negative, you don't ban things to get them to go away, you just end up with tons of legal fights that last forever. You make the next gen stuff cheaper. You fund solar, electric and nuclear, and anything else that's renewable and cleaner than what we have now to the max. You kill the market for it, not try and ban it.
Fund the hell out of the research and you'll make the old tech obsolete. People will choose via their wallets and kill the industry overnight basically.
Remember when we discovered there was a giant hole in the ozone layer, and scientists determined that it was due to all the chlorofluorocarbons we were using for a million different things?
Yeah. They didn't get rid of CFC's by incentivizing alternatives. They straight up banned them. And it forced the world to start finding other ways to get the same things done. Period. The world didn't end. We just started using less harmful methods.
When it comes to fossil fuels, we've been fucking around with incentives, in the hope that industry and the market will change their patterns, voluntarily...and we are still nowhere near our goals. And at this point, it's starting to look like they've stopped even pretending they care.
If you make it an "option"...they will never change. If you make it mandatory...they have no choice. It really is that simple.
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dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
This is ridiculous, because the problem inherently requires cooperative change, and as we've seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
A big thing would be to start switching from ever expanding auto infrastructure to public transit systems where possible.
- Fewer vehicles that transport more people
- Can use the space that is currently occupied for parking cars better
Another big thing requires changing our diets. Some types of food are more resource intensive than others, but also we ship food all over the planet and the resources for transport also contributes. Eating food that is in season on your continent would make a big difference.
The last thing is maybe the least obvious to regular people, but maybe we don't need to build that data center yet if we can't power it without fossil fuel. We need to entirely stop expanding energy usage until we've switched over entirely to sustainables.
In summary, basically everything that needs to happen is going to affect regular people, and they're going to have to get over it, or we're going to make the planet completely unlivable.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Agree with you here, life needs to change. For OP I'd say - define change.
I've gone almost completely carbon neutral (I mean, outside of groceries and things I literally need to survive), but for my house and my daily routine, I'm happy. I'd say my life has been changed - but not much. Now if you asked my conservative family if my life changed they'd be clutching their pearls and fainting.
I have:
- Went from a 2-car household to a 1-car household, replacing the aging vehicle with an EV with an in-home charger
- My spouse can only drive to work (US based), but I now take the bus
- I currently use Lime and am getting an e-bike soon for local travel
- I've switched our HVAC system from gas furnace to a heat pump. I still have gas if it gets insanely cold, but last year it only turned on twice, so my usage is down about 95% from where it was before
- My water heater is still gas, but within the next year I'll be converting it
- My electricity is 100% renewable in my area, but even if it wasn't all of this would still be more efficient, and even then solar and batteries are still on the table.
For me these have been relatively easy changes, minor impacts to my life. If I even mention that we went down to be a one car house my conservative family freaks out - unable to even imagine it. So for them yeah life would be pretty different - but as a whole it'd be better for us.
It's easy to blame the corporations, but we buy their products. Yes the oil and gas are the worst. You know what would change those companies though? If we all stopped buying so much oil and gas. "But what about airlines or other industries". Again, we're the ones who buy them. We don't have much rail where we are but I vote with my wallet and take rail whenever I can. I avoid flying unless it's the only option. If everyone tried to do even some of these things we'd be having a noticeable impact. (Force the corps too, they don't get off scot-free, but damnit neither do we. We can do both)
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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 think the first step is to get a good spotter and then exhale on the pull.
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Well if we start down the Billionaire list, we can drop half of all emissions after just a few thousand names.
But the actual solution is moon base manufacturing solar reflectors and having orbital platforms beam microwave energy down to the planet.
Billionaires pollute like crazy with their jets.
For each one of their jets that goes down, you save the environment and you have one less billionaire that shouldn't exist in the first place. -
Remember when we discovered there was a giant hole in the ozone layer, and scientists determined that it was due to all the chlorofluorocarbons we were using for a million different things?
Yeah. They didn't get rid of CFC's by incentivizing alternatives. They straight up banned them. And it forced the world to start finding other ways to get the same things done. Period. The world didn't end. We just started using less harmful methods.
When it comes to fossil fuels, we've been fucking around with incentives, in the hope that industry and the market will change their patterns, voluntarily...and we are still nowhere near our goals. And at this point, it's starting to look like they've stopped even pretending they care.
If you make it an "option"...they will never change. If you make it mandatory...they have no choice. It really is that simple.
CFCs didn't make your food, or transport you to work or make sure the electricity stayed on in hospitals. You're talking about something that while used, was not a major foundation of the entire global existence. It's not even in the same galaxy.
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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 going off the top of my head here:
Okay so you know the concept of evaporative cooling for the new AI data centres? It's hugely wasteful, and definitely not the only way to accomplish the goal, but it's cheaper. I feel like if we actually figured out all the bullshit of that calibre and just outlawed it, we'd make a significant start towards improvement and only marginally impact the bank statements of a few ultra rich billionaires.
Stop allowing people to dump exhaust and waste untreated into the air and otherwise in the environment, full stop. Full illegal, if you violate it the entire company is dissolved. That'll suck for shipping, manufacturing, fuck it. We need to actually stop this to achieve some kind of meaningful change. Go back to sails and windmills if we need to, we achieved global industry and shipping before the internal combustion engine existed, we can do it again.
Phase out fossil fuels. It'll suck a bit, fuck it. Increase reliance on public transport and population density. Make it so you don't need individual transport to accomplish basic necessities for the vast majority of people.
Ramp up public collaborative research into batteries, power storage, carbon capture, climate science. At this point we're playing catch up, we need everything we can to try to rectify this shit storm like yesterday.
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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!
Starting about 2 years ago, we in the US had a plan and investments. Building out renewables and grid storage like gangbusters. Incentives to weatherize and update hvac. EV incentives and a program to build out charging infrastructure. Finally some investment in intercity rail. No new ice cars after 2035, and a mandate for EV trucks. Huge promises of EV delivery trucks from usps, ups, amazon. It was a good start.
So much for that idea
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CFCs didn't make your food, or transport you to work or make sure the electricity stayed on in hospitals. You're talking about something that while used, was not a major foundation of the entire global existence. It's not even in the same galaxy.
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.
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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!
Engineer a virus to send back in time to slow down CO2 emissions
wait a minute...
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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
