'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math'

[zero]

21 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

study basic engineering and practice hand-working, invest in self-sufficiency, learn plants and their uses, grow and herd your food, repair, reuse, walk, cycle, learn terrain and water and be cautious around new-agers, astro-vangelists or whatever, idk, play less games... this is a lot to change, and we don't all want to, what do you live for? but it can be a generational thing, a long goal (we used to do that for a long time, and very well, too). this is hard to do. it's probably as hard, as it is to turn the entire 'system'.

one can think like an ant, and wait for the queen to make a decision, and remain an ant. or one can think like a free-will individual connected into a larger organism.

remember what Thommy Yorke said while speaking through his speech synthesizer - "pragmatism not idealism." I agree in theory with all you said. but remember these are all ideals, and it's very hard to turn ideals into reality for the majority of people on the planet. IMO citizens living their lives aren't the biggest factor contributing to the environmental problem here. it is the big companies doing the worst damage, in the name of the almighty dollar. 

but if we're talking citizens, I know "we have to start somewhere." but it seems that the "start" part is the toughest thing to get off the ground in regard to practical solutions toward climate change. for example, recycling gained massive popularity in the 1980's with average citizens as a way to help the planet. has it helped? climate change continues to get worse. recycling is an easy way to "do" something to make ourselves feel better. but is it really helping? I think most of recycling got debunked along the way. plastics don't actually get recycled, etc. and it is way too small a dent in the big picture any way... and then there's the whole eco-friendly organic food movement, which is only for people who can afford it. for all those scraping by trying to survive, they eat anything they can get. to grow their own food requires knowledge + capital, and where does that realistically come from? who is going to show them how to do it? this used to be passed down generationally, but that time has now passed us by, since the majority of humans in western countries are no longer living off the land. 

I guess my point is small steps with easy to understand "instructions," are what it takes to get people changing their lifestyles. throwing climate change bad news in their faces through media, as is currently done, will only make them yawn and ignore... again, the biggest problem is for profit industries wrecking the environment. yes those companies are powered by citizens. and the citizens need income to live in the world. to stop for profit industry, we'd have to change the current structure of modern society completely, and uh, yeah...that for sure is an easy thing to do lol.

 

[may be rude]

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

i think that is like a 10 year project at least and with all the short memories in america it's a tough slog.

eh, the climate project... is more than 10 years... i would like to think it's a 30-50 year project. that is the optimistic hope, that, by 2050, we will be seriously transforming the energy infrastructure of the planet, and by 2070 we will have completed it. now that i've written that, and you've read it, i think we both know that the force of human stupidity will prevent that best case scenario, which we are already badly behind schedule for meeting. unfortunately, the climate project is a 100 year project. the question we have, at this point in time, is how bad will it get, once we're further into it. i wonder if people in the future are reading this or not.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

also, that corporate swing hits both parties. the dems are often just as complicit in bullshittery and shenanigans when it comes to making laws that only the law makers and industry lobbyists can understand.  the system is broken.

both sidesism is a narrative tactic that's widely deployed, imo. the numbers don't show an equality, when you look at donations from the oil sector. i have to push back on statements that equate the two major US parties. i also have to push back on statements like "the system is broken" because i find it inaccurate, unhelpful and actually counterproductive. also there, i suspect narratives are deployed to distract peoeple's attention and energy away from effective channels and toward ineffective channels talking about how the whole system is no good. it sure is fucked up right now, of course we can agree on that. i know better than most exactly what kind of a monster we have on our hands. i just don't see any path that makes sense aside from utilizing the mechanisms of the system, which seem perfectly adequate. while there are malfunctions, i think that's kind of how these things go. governments are grotesque, lovecraftian beasts. inaction is actually part of the objective. the system is designed to default to doing nothing. it's actually taoist. when both parties can't agree, nothing happens. only the shit that everyone agrees on gets through. it's funny when a few pieces of legislation actually get bipartisan support, these days. they're like "yeah of course we need to do something about ufos." balances of power can shift. things are getting shaken up. do you know where we are right now? we are in a societal realignment. a reordering. the magnetic poles are moving and so is everything else.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

i'm not totally pessimistic but even if by some miracle everything swings one way towards the left and the dems manage not to go around in circles watering down every bit of legislation that's worth a damn.. that we're still in for a wild wild ride with climate as it is right now and it feels like it's starting to gather momentum and a head of steam to really spawn some chaos. 

lol. yes, the best people we have are fallible humans who will do imperfect work. the best legislation we can realistically hope for will suck in some ways, while being good other ways. this is the best path available to us. this is the way. yes, we are behind schedule and it won't be enough. yes, we are heading into a fucked up storm of human history.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

i don't put a lot of faith in billionaires to levy positive change or have the greater good in their hearts when they're taking on whatever project they're in a twist about. they're often self serving and just dumping money into their own foundations instead of paying taxes.  it's quite often counter productive or takes on a problem that could be solved by other means. 

i mean you can't really debate with me about a book you haven't read. gates's book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is an invaluable resource. every staffer in congress should have a copy. he does a good job of analyzing the situation and providing a distillation of the significant information.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

congress making long term climate legislation that actually matters is a pipe dream maybe. it's becoming more and more clear that doing the right things on climate change will take a lot of courage to throw out the rule book and throw some industries under the bus. which means throwing some big donors under the bus. not to mention all the asshole billionaires like the koch brothers who are not going to go quietly. 

i mean technically a lot of climate legislation already passed is designed to be long term, even if it may need to be renewed, because that's how legislation works. but i know what you mean, you mean the real legislation that we need for the long term solution. we will incrementally increase and improve the climate legislation, and it is a zig zag line of progress. president desantis or christie would set us back 4 or 8 years yet again. that's why the path to a solution just clearly seems to me to be raise awareness about politics in america and climate so that the gop can be cleansed by purging as it needs and the left can hold power for long enough to instill a sane climate policy regime. there have been, interestingly, overtures from the right on capital hill! they are starting to test narratives to change posture on climate. changing talking points to the best way to address climate, rather than pretending climate doesn't exist. we already see congress members on the right sometimes slow roll their evil, showing some modicum of conscience. hopefully they'll allow themselves to continue suffering losses, reform, and let the left do what it needs to do. it will be the special interests that want the party to hold power, more than the members of the party, themselves. that is already the state of things. the congressional right looks like a lot of sociopath lawyers on painkillers sweating over how their drug deals are threatening the integrity of society itself. anyway, yeah, it's a question of do we manage to make that happen, or do we wait until the volcanos are going off.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

there's things that would curb some of the greenhouse gasses that wouldn't require cutting the arms and legs off capitalism and the free market economy but to really make a difference and save those most at risk it's looking like we're going to have to tear up highways and build highspeed rail and change american culture from rolling coal big trucks to actual community and giving a shit about random strangers

the situation is so complex, that why gates's book is so important. you're right. but there are just so many things that need to happen.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

one way or another there will be people in the streets before anything changes one way or another and if things are going to change for the better there will be people fighting against it every step of the way. 

yeah it will be a while before we are on the real path to a solution on this. i really wonder what things will look like, in the later half of this century. not hard to imagine droughts, fires, superstorms, floods, tornados, food shortage, water shortage, economic depression, earthquakes, volcanos, political instability and war. people may need to see some shit, first.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

edit: one way to think about it.. when obama got in office in the midst of a total economic collapse they did a bunch of things that likely saved the economy.. however, they never prosecuted anyone. they didn't send anyone to jail. why?  the justice dept had done it in the past many times. the savings and loan scandals of the 80s.... the justice dept charged people with fraud and all kinds of things and sent people to jail. they held people accountable for all the things they did.. and not just peons but people high up the food the chain. there's books about and one of the lawyer tax account dudes who worked with the prosecutors spoke up during the obama years and very loudly asked "WTF?? this is fraud and we should be sneding people to jail amd making real reforms".

and dems had all 3 branches of government and could've done what they wanted to do but they didn't.

this is a common misconception. when you barely hold power, it's not true that you can do whatever you want to do. it means that your primary fear is losing the power that you tenuously hold, so you must choose your battles, constantly, and conservatively spend political capital. this is substantiated by looking at how obama's terms went - he needed to pinch pennies on his political capital, the whole way. 

of course i agree that DOJ leniency toward the powerful is bad and should be remedied. 

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

another example is healthcare.. which i tell ya.. i'm grateful for what we got because w/o it i'd be super fucked.. but when it started.. when they started w/the idea of what they wanted it was "universal healthcare/medicare for all/single payer source" type of system.. then they spent forever watering down every aspect of it and what we got was the ACA.. a mandate for people to buy coverage, a medicaid expansion, subsidies so people can better afford healthcare and insurers unable to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.. and all those things are big deals.. but it's not anything close to universal coverage and single payor source system.  it's basically funneling money to private insurers.

again, they were scraping by for votes to get what they got. notable that this is an example of how more dems would make things noticeably better. single payer getting edited out is an example.

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

and again.. it's a step forward and big step at that.. but it's a watered down version of what everyone hoped for. so, the dems getting control and doing something meaningful to fight climate change.. well, i wouldn't expect it to go much differently.. the bar will be high and they'll come in somewhere in the middle... and that's even optimistic and depends on serious efforts and the dems somehow ending up in charge and being able to beat the inevitable court cases that end up in the supreme court... which will what it is for decades. 

i'm not saying the dems are a perfect remedy for everything... if this were a boat then i'd be saying steer it that way. out of the available paths, i think the move is a hard push for the left to have firm control for a while. and it's a significant coincidence that this is also the true proportion of voters to parties - the dems get more voters, by popular vote. the gop is a minority party cheating their way to competitive power and they should be put in their place.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, ignatius said:

so, imo the thing that needs to happen is a general strike, people in the streets and desperate action... here in the usa that means it's not going to happen until the average person has their world turned upside down... and by then will it be too late?

maybe it will turn out that you were right. i think we are doing permanent harm, for the future, already, in terms of the destabilization that will continue to unravel. the question is how bad do we make it.

Edited September 2, 2023 by trying to be less rude

[auxien]

there’s essentially nothing we can do unless we first stop doing what we have been doing. the containment of current practices is key to/preceding any possible solutions.

[ignatius]

14 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

eh, the climate project... is more than 10 years... i would like to think it's a 30-50 year project. that is the optimistic hope, that, by 2050, we will be seriously transforming the energy infrastructure of the planet, and by 2070 we will have completed it. now that i've written that, and you've read it, i think we both know that the force of human stupidity will prevent that best case scenario, which we are already badly behind schedule for meeting. unfortunately, the climate project is a 100 year project. the question we have, at this point in time, is how bad will it get, once we're further into it. i wonder if people in the future are reading this or not.

both sidesism is a narrative tactic that's widely deployed, imo. the numbers don't show an equality, when you look at donations from the oil sector. i have to push back on statements that equate the two major US parties. i also have to push back on statements like "the system is broken" because i find it inaccurate, unhelpful and actually counterproductive. also there, i suspect narratives are deployed to distract peoeple's attention and energy away from effective channels and toward ineffective channels talking about how the whole system is no good. it sure is fucked up right now, of course we can agree on that. i know better than most exactly what kind of a monster we have on our hands. i just don't see any path that makes sense aside from utilizing the mechanisms of the system, which seem perfectly adequate. while there are malfunctions, i think that's kind of how these things go. governments are grotesque, lovecraftian beasts. inaction is actually part of the objective. the system is designed to default to doing nothing. it's actually taoist. when both parties can't agree, nothing happens. only the shit that everyone agrees on gets through. it's funny when a few pieces of legislation actually get bipartisan support, these days. they're like "yeah of course we need to do something about ufos." balances of power can shift. things are getting shaken up. do you know where we are right now? we are in a societal realignment. a reordering. the magnetic poles are moving and so is everything else.

lol. yes, the best people we have are fallible humans who will do imperfect work. the best legislation we can realistically hope for will suck in some ways, while being good other ways. this is the best path available to us. this is the way. yes, we are behind schedule and it won't be enough. yes, we are heading into a fucked up storm of human history.

i mean you can't really debate with me about a book you haven't read. gates's book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is an invaluable resource. every staffer in congress should have a copy. he does a good job of analyzing the situation and providing a distillation of the significant information.

 

i mean technically a lot of climate legislation already passed is designed to be long term, even if it may need to be renewed, because that's how legislation works. but i know what you mean, you mean the real legislation that we need for the long term solution. we will incrementally increase and improve the climate legislation, and it is a zig zag line of progress. president desantis or christie would set us back 4 or 8 years yet again. that's why the path to a solution just clearly seems to me to be raise awareness about politics in america and climate so that the gop can be cleansed by purging as it needs and the left can hold power for long enough to instill a sane climate policy regime. there have been, interestingly, overtures from the right on capital hill! they are starting to test narratives to change posture on climate. changing talking points to the best way to address climate, rather than pretending climate doesn't exist. we already see congress members on the right sometimes slow roll their evil, showing some modicum of conscience. hopefully they'll allow themselves to continue suffering losses, reform, and let the left do what it needs to do. it will be the special interests that want the party to hold power, more than the members of the party, themselves. that is already the state of things. the congressional right looks like a lot of sociopath lawyers on painkillers sweating over how their drug deals are threatening the integrity of society itself. anyway, yeah, it's a question of do we manage to make that happen, or do we wait until the volcanos are going off.

 

the situation is so complex, that why gates's book is so important. you're right. but there are just so many things that need to happen.

yeah it will be a while before we are on the real path to a solution on this. i really wonder what things will look like, in the later half of this century. not hard to imagine droughts, fires, superstorms, floods, tornados, food shortage, water shortage, economic depression, earthquakes, volcanos, political instability and war. people may need to see some shit, first.

this is a common misconception. when you barely hold power, it's not true that you can do whatever you want to do. it means that your primary fear is losing the power that you tenuously hold, so you must choose your battles, constantly, and conservatively spend political capital. this is substantiated by looking at how obama's terms went - he needed to pinch pennies on his political capital, the whole way. 

of course i agree that DOJ leniency toward the powerful is bad and should be remedied. 

again, they were scraping by for votes to get what they got. notable that this is an example of how more dems would make things noticeably better. single payer getting edited out is an example.

i'm not saying the dems are a perfect remedy for everything... if this were a boat then i'd be saying steer it that way. out of the available paths, i think the move is a hard push for the left to have firm control for a while. and it's a significant coincidence that this is also the true proportion of voters to parties - the dems get more voters, by popular vote. the gop is a minority party cheating their way to competitive power and they should be put in their place.

 

maybe it will turn out that you were right. i think we are doing permanent harm, for the future, already, in terms of the destabilization that will continue to unravel. the question is how bad do we make it.

Yes. Republicans are shameless and soulless fuckwads of an exponentially worse type of person than the dems but the dems do a lot of dirt too. They take a lot of money from the same people.  Regarding healthcare during Obama admin, it was the dems stepping on their own dicks that watered down the ACA. They take a lot of cash from the healthcare industry/insurance companies. Also, the dems can’t get on the same page when they have the opportunity. They’re too oblivious to seize the moment. Republicans all get in line and vote through every shitty bill and policy when they have power. They don’t waste any time. They understand the game and the democrats frequently do not. 

so saying “things need to tilt left some and that’s all it will take” is optimistic at best. A 30 to 50 year plan is too slow. We’re already on track for major changes. The mainstream science and data that we get is already looking too rosy. The estimates appear to have been conservative when it comes to the pace of change. At least that’s what’s starting to show up in some of these talks etc.  we don’t know exactly what will happen and when but they have a pretty good idea about some things. 
anyway! Bill gates. Ugh. Not gonna read his book. Have heard him talk about lots of climate stuff and I liked his thoughts on modern nuclear power systems. It’s funny that his company was building one of those reactors in china as a pilot unit then it got mothballed due to trump’s tariffs and trade bullshit that made sharing certain technologies and materials illegal. So it goes. 
 

as for the state of things here in the USA and another angle on control of the system… check this out. 
 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by ignatius

[may be rude]

19 hours ago, auxien said:

there’s essentially nothing we can do unless we first stop doing what we have been doing. the containment of current practices is key to/preceding any possible solutions.

we are reliant on the power that fossil fuel gave us. zipping around town is a nuts ability that we take for granted. finding a replacement is extremely difficult. fossil fuel is just an efficient way of producing power.

 

but there's plenty we can do now. please don't voice these paralysis narratives that paid posters are whispering in people's ears

[may be rude]

7 hours ago, ignatius said:

Yes. Republicans are shameless and soulless fuckwads of an exponentially worse type of person than the dems but the dems do a lot of dirt too. They take a lot of money from the same people.

i'll never say every dem is great. it's a bunch of humans. politicians tend to be lawyers first. that's the politician vibe: lawyer. if people don't like the politician vibe, i mean i think maybe we need to accept that that's the way it is. some of these lawyers are more prone to rationalizing bad decisions. i addressed the proportionality of donations from the oil sector, which is starkly weighted toward the republicans.

7 hours ago, ignatius said:

Regarding healthcare during Obama admin, it was the dems stepping on their own dicks that watered down the ACA. They take a lot of cash from the healthcare industry/insurance companies.

i addressed above the scraping of votes on ACA. but you make a good point about the factor of industry donations. certainly that's something those legislators were thinking about, regarding their votes. i'd be all for someone unfucking the mess of healthcare in america.

7 hours ago, ignatius said:

Also, the dems can’t get on the same page when they have the opportunity. They’re too oblivious to seize the moment. Republicans all get in line and vote through every shitty bill and policy when they have power. They don’t waste any time. They understand the game and the democrats frequently do not. 

yeah, this is definitely a relevant dynamic. the federal level elected republicans, i believe, operate largely by deceit. so, by the nature of that, they must align their stories. hence the block solidarity. that also helps explain their intense focus on strategic advantage. like i mentioned above, they're a minority power managing to game the system in their favor. their whole game is calculating the most advantageous strategy play, because they are playing for power, not for serving the people. i view this as a consequence of the nature of the parties. the dems are more of an actual party of representatives of the people, however imperfect. so, yes, as a big tent party, it is difficult to get everyone aligned. and, by the nature of it, they are not focused on power strategy as a chief priority. dems are commonly criticized for this, and some awareness of the problem has penetrated their leadership and they seem aware of the disadvantage. i don't think it makes sense to expect them to have the strategic power focus of the gop. we need to be aware of the dynamic and yes also criticize them to keep them vigilant to mitigate the disadvantage.

again, i just view this as the army we have. these bunch of goof balls are the ones who we need to give as much support as possible, if we want to make as much progress on climate as possible.

7 hours ago, ignatius said:

so saying “things need to tilt left some and that’s all it will take” is optimistic at best. A 30 to 50 year plan is too slow. We’re already on track for major changes. The mainstream science and data that we get is already looking too rosy. The estimates appear to have been conservative when it comes to the pace of change. At least that’s what’s starting to show up in some of these talks etc.  we don’t know exactly what will happen and when but they have a pretty good idea about some things. 

speaking just about carbon dioxide, we output 50 billion tons per year, and we need to get that to neutral. it's a major project. i'm not even talking about methane and nitrous dioxide. this is by far the most challenging thing humanity has ever attempted to do. replacing fossil fuel with renewables is... there are no words that describe how extensive of an undertaking it is. the earth has never had a species undertaking what needs to happen. that's what makes the situation look so scary., how impossibly hard it is to avoid the bad scenarios. and we're not even trying. we need innovations we don't have. that's why people look at 2050 as a target for changing course. we need to change how we make cement, plastic, steel. we need to totally redo grids. we need to get cold fusion working. we need to invent carbon capture. but yeah we need to get started immediately.

and yeah the reality has followed the worst side of projections from the past, consistently. like, off-the-charts, on the worst-case-scenario side of the range of climate forecasts from past decades.   

7 hours ago, ignatius said:

anyway! Bill gates. Ugh. Not gonna read his book. Have heard him talk about lots of climate stuff and I liked his thoughts on modern nuclear power systems. It’s funny that his company was building one of those reactors in china as a pilot unit then it got mothballed due to trump’s tariffs and trade bullshit that made sharing certain technologies and materials illegal. So it goes. 

his approach to the situation is by the numbers. like, with carbon, it's 50 billion tons per year being outputted. he breaks that down into what the big pieces are, what the alternatives are, etc, including example calculations for comparisons. he identifies gaps in technology, and provides language for discussing the relevant dynamics, such as the "green premium" which is the cost offset of moving away from fossil fuels. the green premium of a specific technology or plan serves as the key metric for analysis, for each specific case, and tells you how realistic and close or far we are from various solutions.

there's also methane and nitrous oxide, which he also covers. he discusses things like the seasonal and day/nighttime intermittency of renewables like wind and solar, and the limits and cost of batteries. nuclear really comes out looking strong, out of all the current technology alternatives. like, right now, cold fusion looks like maybe one of the most important things going on in the world. 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by trying to be less rude

[auxien]

30 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

we are reliant on the power that fossil fuel gave us. zipping around town is a nuts ability that we take for granted. finding a replacement is extremely difficult. fossil fuel is just an efficient way of producing power.

ummmmmmmmm, yeah. 

30 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

but there's plenty we can do now.

all the middling things we can/are doing are a good, but they won't be near enough to make any significant changes quickly enough. we've been talking about solar panels in America since at least Jimmy fucking Carter put them on the White House, and by and large they're a good. same for all kinds of wind power that's grown, etc. but unless we stop dredging up oil, stop billions of people driving/flying everywhere constantly, stop expanding our population, there's not enough solar panels/wind power/other 'green' tech that's going to save us. 

39 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

please don't voice these paralysis narratives that paid posters are whispering in people's ears

it's not a paralysis narrative, it's the truth. solar panels and electric cars and whatever else is going to be nothing in the long term. we should still be actively doing all we can in that direction, but it's going to amount to not much/nothing. in 100 years, do you really think the population of 10+billion are going to be all like 'wow, i'm sure glad in the 2020s that 0.5% more of Americans used solar panels and a total of 6% of the American population used electric cars!* that was really the trigger that got things rolling to save the world and allow for our current utopia!" if there's any narrative it's that the changes need to be exponentially more sweeping and implemented immediately, without fail or reason or recourse. this would would lead to suffering/harsh changes/likely lots of deaths in the knock on effects, but it's better than the alternative which is to keep the status quo but 'oh, i'll buy the eco-friendly 7% recycled plastic ziploc bags instead'

and i'll say whatever i want, but thanks for suggesting otherwise. there's no conspiracy infiltrating watmm ffs.

but i'm not talking about realistic solutions to the problems, i'm just talking in the broadest sense that putting bandaids over a growing wound are useless. you have to stop the source of the wound, of the bleeding, which is population growth/hypermodernization of that ever-expanding population within a finite amount of planet. i don't expect to see this happen. we'll see just decline, suffering, and death (of humans, yes, but more broadly in the ecosystems we all rely on indirectly/directly) in our lifetimes.

 

*i totally made those numbers up

[may be rude]

24 minutes ago, auxien said:

1 hour ago, trying to be less rude said:

but there's plenty we can do now.

all the middling things we can/are doing are a good, but they won't be near enough to make any significant changes quickly enough. we've been talking about solar panels in America since at least Jimmy fucking Carter put them on the White House, and by and large they're a good. same for all kinds of wind power that's grown, etc. but unless we stop dredging up oil, stop billions of people driving/flying everywhere constantly, stop expanding our population, there's not enough solar panels/wind power/other 'green' tech that's going to save us. 

a greater sense of responsibility for waste among individuals i think will be an unavoidable social norm of the future.

establishing alternatives has major obstacles. stopping use of fossil fuel requires establishing alternatives, first. wind and solar don't simply stand in, it's not that simple. major legislation is necessary, in order to solve the problems in a managed way. it's going to have to fall under some agency. and we can't have republicans like trump coming and gutting the EPA like he did. the necessary solution consists of the public awareness moving and consequently public policy moving. that's why i'm out here. posting on watmm is something you can do.

24 minutes ago, auxien said:

1 hour ago, trying to be less rude said:

please don't voice these paralysis narratives that paid posters are whispering in people's ears

it's not a paralysis narrative, it's the truth. solar panels and electric cars and whatever else is going to be nothing in the long term. we should still be actively doing all we can in that direction, but it's going to amount to not much/nothing. in 100 years, do you really think the population of 10+billion are going to be all like 'wow, i'm sure glad in the 2020s that 0.5% more of Americans used solar panels and a total of 6% of the American population used electric cars!* that was really the trigger that got things rolling to save the world and allow for our current utopia!" if there's any narrative it's that the changes need to be exponentially more sweeping and implemented immediately, without fail or reason or recourse. this would would lead to suffering/harsh changes/likely lots of deaths in the knock on effects, but it's better than the alternative which is to keep the status quo but 'oh, i'll buy the eco-friendly 7% recycled plastic ziploc bags instead'

your statement was so simplistic it was nonsensical. the situation is not as simple as "there's nothing we can do until we contain existing practices." yet there you are telling people there's nothing to do. why are you doing that?

the best things people can do now are raise awareness and organize for political action. it's possible to achieve impact in election results, and election results make a difference. right now we're bottlenecked by policy. proportionality of solutions is important and it's one of the central things of gates's book that i link above.

24 minutes ago, auxien said:

and i'll say whatever i want, but thanks for suggesting otherwise. there's no conspiracy infiltrating watmm ffs.

kind of seems like a deliberate strawman, which i don't appreciate. 

 

24 minutes ago, auxien said:

but i'm not talking about realistic solutions to the problems, i'm just talking in the broadest sense that putting bandaids over a growing wound are useless. you have to stop the source of the wound, of the bleeding, which is population growth/hypermodernization of that ever-expanding population within a finite amount of planet. i don't expect to see this happen. we'll see just decline, suffering, and death (of humans, yes, but more broadly in the ecosystems we all rely on indirectly/directly) in our lifetimes.

the solution is societal and sociological. it's a really hard problem and we need people working on it, not telling people there's nothing to do

the problem exists because people aren't doing enough

Edited September 3, 2023 by trying to be less rude

[ignatius]

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

fossil fuel is just an efficient way of producing power.

but it really isn't efficient use of power. it's very wasteful. from the extraction point onwards a large amount of energy is used up just to get gas for cars. it's horribly inefficient. 

anyway.. i'm glad you have some optimism about this. i have a hard time having trust/faith in this system and the people who run it.. .

but here's some optimism if anyone wants it.. i guess. 

but ye know.. don't get carried away.. because electrification of cars just outsources pollution with help of child slavery etc.

and well.. 

and more thoughts.. 

 

ymmv. good luck. 

 

[auxien]

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

a greater sense of responsibility for waste among individuals i think will be an unavoidable social norm of the future.

i hope so. iirc, it's only gotten worse over the last 40-50 years tho, and expecting a u-turn seems not impossible with generational change, but nonetheless highly unlikely to any reasonable degree. i hope i'm wrong.

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

establishing alternatives has major obstacles. stopping use of fossil fuel requires establishing alternatives, first.

we have alternatives. the world held a billion or so people before the industrial revolution/vast use of fossil fuels. no reason we can't return to that way of life tomorrow, except my desire to drive into town for Starbucks.

the world nearly shut down for some months during the peak of the COVID panic in early/mid 2020. it can be done in the modern era, at times, in ways, with demonstrable effects.

we also have the already vastly safe and reliable alternatives available in almost every corner of the inhabited planet: solar/wind/geothermal/nuclear. none of these are perfect, but if regulations forced them into widespread use immediately, ASAP, the changes that would come would be huge. nothing we're doing is anywhere near that....we've got what, the slow waning of coal over the last ~50 years? i mean yeah, cool, but it's not nearly enough. shut all but the minimal needs down, now. FORCE the inhabitants and corporations to adapt.

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

major legislation is necessary, in order to solve the problems in a managed way.

national legislation means is logical, reasonable, and the only realistic way. i'm not talking about realism. i'm talking about what NEEDS to happen. the slow plodding of gov regulatory changes is great in some ways for some things, but planetary ecological collapse is sorta a bigger fuckin deal, yeah?

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

the best things people can do now are raise awareness and organize for political action. it's possible to achieve impact in election results, and election results make a difference.

yeah, but marginal at best. we've seen this happening slowly for decades and we're still just plodding along. at this rate we might shrink fossil fuel usage the USA down to like, idk, maybe half or so of its current use over the next ~50 years? just guessing, there's probably studies...my point is, i don't think that we've really got that many decades of an ever-increasing destruction of the environment to wait. 

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

kind of seems like a deliberate strawman, which i don't appreciate. 

let's not bother with this pseudo-intellectual bullshit, eh? i'm not parroting anything or anyone. 

3 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

the solution is societal and sociological. it's a really hard problem and we need people working on it, not telling people there's nothing to do

i never, ever, ever said there's nothing to do. read my statement(s) again my good sir.

Edited September 3, 2023 by auxien

[zero]

2 hours ago, auxien said:

no reason we can't return to that way of life tomorrow, except my desire to drive into town for Starbucks.

the Starbucks of the world would all have to be eliminated first, then the people will be forced to change their lifestyles. if all our technologies suddenly went away, then you'd see shit change pretty damn fast. but changing our lifestyles, reverting back toward the direction of how humans originally existed off the land, we know will never happen en masse voluntarily. it would take a massive wide-scale societal shift to accept this, and humans are known to be pretty stubborn about things like this lol.

so in other words, why can't we all just be like the BoC brothers living peacefully in a commune somewhere in the Pentland hills. I think those dudes have it all figured out haha.

 

 

[prdctvsm]

 

[cichlisuite]

On 9/1/2023 at 8:41 PM, zero said:

remember what Thommy Yorke said while speaking through his speech synthesizer - "pragmatism not idealism." I agree in theory with all you said. but remember these are all ideals, and it's very hard to turn ideals into reality for the majority of people on the planet. IMO citizens living their lives aren't the biggest factor contributing to the environmental problem here. it is the big companies doing the worst damage, in the name of the almighty dollar. 

but if we're talking citizens, I know "we have to start somewhere." but it seems that the "start" part is the toughest thing to get off the ground in regard to practical solutions toward climate change. for example, recycling gained massive popularity in the 1980's with average citizens as a way to help the planet. has it helped? climate change continues to get worse. recycling is an easy way to "do" something to make ourselves feel better. but is it really helping? I think most of recycling got debunked along the way. plastics don't actually get recycled, etc. and it is way too small a dent in the big picture any way... and then there's the whole eco-friendly organic food movement, which is only for people who can afford it. for all those scraping by trying to survive, they eat anything they can get. to grow their own food requires knowledge + capital, and where does that realistically come from? who is going to show them how to do it? this used to be passed down generationally, but that time has now passed us by, since the majority of humans in western countries are no longer living off the land. 

I guess my point is small steps with easy to understand "instructions," are what it takes to get people changing their lifestyles. throwing climate change bad news in their faces through media, as is currently done, will only make them yawn and ignore... again, the biggest problem is for profit industries wrecking the environment. yes those companies are powered by citizens. and the citizens need income to live in the world. to stop for profit industry, we'd have to change the current structure of modern society completely, and uh, yeah...that for sure is an easy thing to do lol.

 

i do realize that we can't all go back to living in villages and be craftsmen, nor should we expect that from anyone, frankly. i believe in a certain amount of freedom and liberty, but i also think that certain regulators must always be in place. i also strongly believe more emphasis should be given in individual education into "things that matter" on a personal, nuclear family level.

what i was trying to get at, is a bit of a paradigm shift... of course all major polluters are corporations, but so is a general excess of consumerism; you can't have smoke without the fire. if people gradually stopped buying into that excess, the footprint of major industry would be much smaller. of course there are immediate needs that can only be solved by mass production and global logistics, etc. but not everything! we tend to build tools and systems and organisations that fit all the issues and challenges, but it's not necessarily so. as if one shoe should fit all the feet. not everything can be solved by centralized supply-demand and businesses competing for the same percentage. some models work great for some problems, but work increasingly bad for other (to the point where the individual net gain does not in any way justify the overall expansion and pollution).

i think the corpo think tanks have struck the perfect balance of educating the consumer to be just the right amount of dumb to not see the big picture, and claim "why can't i be the one to benefit from the global excess and sit on my arse all day (or when i come home from work)". It's a good balance of entitled egoism, comfort, and manufactured stupidity. therefore, a gradual swing into more pragmatic, less excessive society can only be done on the lowest levels, emerging as a new 'trend' if you like that, once gains enough weight, cannot be ignored. new problems will then arise, for instance the pushback from the corporations (mostly by influencing legislature).

why do you think wealthy fuckers are buying all the farmland nowadays?

 

[zero]

3 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

why do you think wealthy fuckers are buying all the farmland nowadays?

so they can eventually build more shit. maybe build their pie-in-the-sky future dome cities. dig, scrape, drill, burn the land, in order to produce more and more shit! that's what these delusional humans sitting at the top of the world order think is the right way. always making plans for the future. never being content with what they already have. this is a world driven by ego fucking maniacs. as long for profit industry exists, we'll never be able to stop further ecological damage to the planet.

 

[ignatius]

3 hours ago, zero said:

so they can eventually build more shit. maybe build their pie-in-the-sky future dome cities. dig, scrape, drill, burn the land, in order to produce more and more shit! that's what these delusional humans sitting at the top of the world order think is the right way. always making plans for the future. never being content with what they already have. this is a world driven by ego fucking maniacs. as long for profit industry exists, we'll never be able to stop further ecological damage to the planet.

 

bill gates has bought a lot of farm land. read something about that a while ago. i forget the details.

[cichlisuite]

13 hours ago, zero said:

so they can eventually build more shit. maybe build their pie-in-the-sky future dome cities. dig, scrape, drill, burn the land, in order to produce more and more shit! that's what these delusional humans sitting at the top of the world order think is the right way. always making plans for the future. never being content with what they already have. this is a world driven by ego fucking maniacs. as long for profit industry exists, we'll never be able to stop further ecological damage to the planet.

 

no. so they can secure fertile soil. buy it up so no one else can, and sit on it until the time is ripe. they have access to lots of information before it comes down to citizens, which allows them to make decisions for the next couple of decades. these people operate with a lot more information about the future than we do.

[Fade Rhombus]

On 10/23/2012 at 7:55 PM, autopilot said:

This article is from July so sorry if it is a repost.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719?link=mostpopular5

 

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719/1000x600/main.jpg

Its nonsense.
Yes there is global warming, but only because we're coming out of an unnatural mini-ice age. It's not a crisis. Greenland was green when they discovered it, and remains have been found of tropical plants in Scandinavia. 

When they show us the "fear charts", they show us just the last upturn in a chart where there were much warmer periods than this. They don't show the whole chart, and just focus on the last 50 years..........because they realise the economy is stagnating and the green new deal etc....is all about expansion and growth, with new industries for the greedy and the avaricious to make bank on. Its all lies and deception.

[ignatius]

yes, there were northern temperate forests... that's not a refutation of climate change/global warming. i found this episode of NOVA to be really interesting.  might require a VPN for some people but is free to stream. 

Following a trail of fossils found in all the wrong places–beech trees in Antarctica, redwoods and hippo-like mammals in the Arctic–NOVA uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-thick ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life.

https://watch.opb.org/video/polar-extremes-mfaum5/

 

[zero]

18 hours ago, ignatius said:

bill gates has bought a lot of farm land. read something about that a while ago. i forget the details.

I see. wasn't aware about this. google search led me to find this article - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a42543527/why-is-bill-gates-buying-so-much-farmland/

[Fade Rhombus]

Sunspot activity accounts for a lot of what happens in our climate. Sunspots appear in a cycle, just like everything else. Sometimes those cycles phase with each other and you get superclusters. This is another thing we aren't being told.  These parasites use fear to get more of our taxes. These things ebb and flow. It's natural. The earth regulates it's temperature the same way our bodies do. 
For decades they told us we were facing an ice age ( even though we're just emerging from one now ), then it was the ozone layer, then it was BSE, then it was the milennium bug, then it was the mayans and their invisible planet and that propaganda movie "2012" that scared people half to death.

This is nothing but greedy avaricious parasites doing the same thing, all over again. In 10 years, it'll be something else. A decade after that, it'll be something else again. It's just new stratagems for utilizing fear. 

[ignatius]

7 minutes ago, Fade Rhombus said:

This is nothing but greedy avaricious parasites

you mean the oil companies?  which parasites are sucking up all our tax dollars?

[auxien]

#propaganda #Woody #youdshouldbescaredhalftodeathafterwatchingthis #paymoretaxes #itsnatural

[Fade Rhombus]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

you mean the oil companies?  which parasites are sucking up all our tax dollars?

the ones who stand to make money from the shift towards an entirely new industry in renewables that we don't "crucially" need.  They told us 20 years ago that we only had 10 years before things were screwed. Even prince charles was spluttering about it. The politicians are up to their necks in it, taking backhanders, and profiting from their positions. Corruption is never new but Washington right now, is rife with it.  Then there's the WEF's statements  ( in particular Klaus ) and the coincidental timing of everythingA!, but that's a whole other tier of BS.

The whole thing boils down to one thing. Avarice. 

[zero]

1 hour ago, Fade Rhombus said:

It's natural. 

except it's not. humans are doing it. you, me, or anyone living in an air conditioned or heated structure are all contributing to climate change. the way the majority of people on the planet are living is far from natural. 

I suggest you click on this link:

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/mythbusters?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7bay1oSUgQMV_jjUAR2ChgwyEAAYAiAAEgLux_D_BwE

Quote

FACT: Climate change is caused by human activity

Natural changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions have caused ancient shifts in the Earth’s temperatures and weather patterns, but over the last 200 years, these natural causes have not significantly affected global temperatures. Today, it’s human activities that are causing climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. (IPCC)

Burning fossil fuels creates a blanket of pollution trapping the sun’s heat on Earth and raising global temperatures. (Global warming then leads to other changes like droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, intense storms and declining biodiversity.)

The more of this pollution, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), accumulates in the atmosphere, the more of the sun’s heat gets trapped, the warmer it gets on Earth. There is a strong relationship between cumulative CO2 emissions and the increase in global surface temperature. (IPCC)

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing at an unprecedented rate since the Industrial Revolution, when manual labor began to be replaced by machinery fueled by coal, oil and gas. Today, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 50% higher than in 1750, far exceeding the natural changes over at least the past 800,000 years. (IPCC)

 

[Satans Little Helper]

I always tend to return to this talk by Stephen Schneider in discussions like these. As he does a great deal explaining all the complexities of climate science and its results. The arguments for and against. 

The talk is ancient at this point (13 years old!). But in terms of content and the various arguments addressed still relevant, imo. Whether that is a good thing or bad, I'll leave to you. Personally, I think its strength is in explaining the Bayesian reasoning behind what he calls systems science. This is especially relevant for the people criticizing climate science because of its lack of "falsification".

It's also quite humbling in the sense that as a viewer it's obvious I don't have the expertise or experience to really have an argument on climate science.

Also note the amount of "we don't know"s. And the amount of risk management.

BTW, Stephen Schneider also played a key role in the early IPCC reports. (he died in 2010)