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What can I do about climate change?

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Re: What can I do about climate change?

#101

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

pdimitar wrote: post #6

This article's quality is higher than many others on the same topic and that's a pleasant surprise. That being said, I can't help being reminded about German language lessons I had ~10 years ago where the teacher was preaching that we must all ditch electric kettles for the sake of the planet. I asked her how is this going to help -- even if 100_00 people do it today -- if corporations are happy to let toxic waste se…

There's a fallacy with this type of thinking. It's something to the effect that "the big bad wolf is causing the trouble, therefore, I'm powerless to do anything" The reason corporations do what they do is because they are providing a service to millions of customers at the lowest cost and the highest profits for them. We, consumers, like to shift all the blame to someone else, it lets us continue as we have without guilt. We need to feel we are powerless so we don't feel bad about not doing anything about the problem. The fix can come from the producers or the consumers or both. Saying that consumers are powerless just continues the inaction until the fix is forced onto all of us by nature.

Reducing power consumption and reducing the number of items we buy and eventually throw away is a start. Pushing politicians to make the hard choices is also part of the fix. But saying someone else has all the power, therefore, I can't do anything or I saying I can only do a little therefore I won't bother is not.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#102

Post by Radim »

thunderbong wrote: post #15
KnightOfWords wrote: post #3

This graphic give a pretty good summary of the relative impact: https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire...

This is really a very good infographic - The biggest way we can impact climate change as individuals is to have fewer children. Yet, in most discussions I've seen, we talk about hybrid cars and vegetarian diet!

Mandatory link to "Idiocracy" and holding back on having children (it seemed like a joke back then!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9nVLXMhPc

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#103

Post by petecox »

belorn wrote: post #85
KitDuncan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I went vegan 3 years ago and in those 3 years, quite a few of my very close friends went vegan or vegetarian as well. It really does give me a lot of hope. Even my parents started eating meat a lot less, basically only for big events and startet using oat milk for their coffee!

> startet using oat milk for their coffee Are you and they using honey or white sugar from farmed sugarcanes? For the environment sake I wish that vegan diet would include honey as it has a big net-positive effect on the environment compared to farmed sugarcanes by not causing eutrophication or water pollution, and helps with pollination both for wild forests and agriculture.

I'd have suggested planting more sugar maples as a carbon sink but climate change is impacting the production of maple syrup:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/t...

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#104

Post by pdimitar »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #101
pdimitar wrote: post #6

This article's quality is higher than many others on the same topic and that's a pleasant surprise. That being said, I can't help being reminded about German language lessons I had ~10 years ago where the teacher was preaching that we must all ditch electric kettles for the sake of the planet. I asked her how is this going to help -- even if 100_00 people do it today -- if corporations are happy to let toxic waste se…

There's a fallacy with this type of thinking. It's something to the effect that "the big bad wolf is causing the trouble, therefore, I'm powerless to do anything" The reason corporations do what they do is because they are providing a service to millions of customers at the lowest cost and the highest profits for them. We, consumers, like to shift all the blame to someone else, it lets us continue as we have without…

I, and many others, can definitely do a lot -- but other people have done the math and concluded that we don't amount for anything but a blip in statistics. There is a link in this thread giving the same perspective as well.

I'd like the world to start attacking the source of issues top-to-bottom and not bottom-to-top.

Can the citizens help? Absolutely. Will they amount for much unless corporations start taking action? No.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#105

Post by pdimitar »

shoo wrote: post #63
pdimitar wrote: post #6

This article's quality is higher than many others on the same topic and that's a pleasant surprise. That being said, I can't help being reminded about German language lessons I had ~10 years ago where the teacher was preaching that we must all ditch electric kettles for the sake of the planet. I asked her how is this going to help -- even if 100_00 people do it today -- if corporations are happy to let toxic waste se…

> Have no illusions. To achieve our goal of getting off fossil fuels, these reductions in demand and increases in supply must be big. Don’t be distracted by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little. We must do a lot. What’s required are big changes in demand and in supply. David MacKay https://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml

Awesome read, thank you.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#106

Post by yread »

pdimitar wrote: post #90
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political action is much more than just voting and it's been the major source of social changes in the last 200 years.

Not where I live, but I am aware that's not representative for the entire world. I am happy for the places where it works. Not sarcastic.

Uh, you live in a place without weekends, women's voting rights or laws against child labour?

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#107

Post by Pica_soO »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #101
pdimitar wrote: post #6

This article's quality is higher than many others on the same topic and that's a pleasant surprise. That being said, I can't help being reminded about German language lessons I had ~10 years ago where the teacher was preaching that we must all ditch electric kettles for the sake of the planet. I asked her how is this going to help -- even if 100_00 people do it today -- if corporations are happy to let toxic waste se…

There's a fallacy with this type of thinking. It's something to the effect that "the big bad wolf is causing the trouble, therefore, I'm powerless to do anything" The reason corporations do what they do is because they are providing a service to millions of customers at the lowest cost and the highest profits for them. We, consumers, like to shift all the blame to someone else, it lets us continue as we have without…

Divided and Conquered this political view has .

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#108

Post by pdimitar »

yread wrote: post #88
pdimitar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main argument against them was along the veins of that it draws big amounts of wattage in an initial burst and that we must use "slower" and thus allegedly more sustainable tech. Which is ridiculuous because every electrician will tell you that your home-grade fuses and the switchboard of your house/block handle such loads quite well without much additional strain on... anything, really. I quickly wrote her off a…

Well, you could make a point that if everyone has powerful appliances at home then the network has to be robust enough to handle quick changes in power needed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup So, in a sense, boiling water with gas has less externalities. EDIT: You can of course also argue, if we can't have powerful appliances why bother with electricity at all. I'm just saying it's not an issue that can b…

The TV pickup problem, while valid, unjustly shifts the blame.

The regular citizens have put the work to buy the TV device, and continue to put the work daily so they can pay the power and cable bills.

What else would you have them do? They work hard and maybe the TV is their way to unwind. Why, again, is the citizens' fault for putting the work needed to buy their entertainment device and then making them feel guilty for using it?

I pay electrical bills. In my eyes I do my part of the bargain, the rest is their problem -- that's what we pay for, to get a stable service while they sort out the details. A fair business transaction.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#109

Post by D_Alex »

pdimitar wrote: post #50
joelthelion wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article mentions, individuals can do something about corporate pollution: - Buy less stuff. Corporations produce waste because we buy their stuff . Get the stuff you still buy from more environmentally-friendly companies, if possible. - Political action. Corporations need to be regulated and that can only happen through political action. Lobbies may have a lot of power, but in the end, it's the citizens who vo…

> Buy less stuff. This is becoming harder and harder with time. Believe me, I would love to buy my kitchen stove, washing machine, refrigerator, aspirator, air conditioner and vacuum cleaner from a local manufacturer. But there are none. How many household brands do really exist and how many are actually known and bought by almost everyone? Additionally, even if you are an idealist who wants to be the change they wan…

>Never in my life, not once, have I seen citizens voting actually change anything of significance in a country

Do you mean in the US?

Examples that spring to mind in other countries are: gay marriage equality (Australia), independence (East Timor, plus probably others... Scotland and New Caledonia rejected independence by plebiscite), conscription (Austria), abortion (Ireland), migrant intake (Hungary) etc... and of course Brexit.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#110

Post by roenxi »

js8 wrote: post #87
roenxi wrote: post #66

> Nicholas’s study concluded that having fewer children is the best way to reduce your contribution to climate change Environmentalism as a philosophy isn't all that coherent, and this suggestion in point 8 really encapsulates the heart of my problems with it. If we are saving the planet "for" someone else, who are they? If we are saving the planet for ourselves, do minor actions of deprivation make sense? The extrem…

The resolve to this apparent paradox is easy. You can like the civilization on this planet yet not care one iota about the gene pool (of course you have to care about it to the extent needed to reproduce humans, on which the civilization relies for the foreseeable future, but no more than that). Let me give you an analogy. Is teaching meaningless? I mean, why do it, when you're not going to be around when people you…

> Is teaching meaningless? I mean, why do it, when you're not going to be around when people you teach will run things.

You might be underestimating how much personal benefit a selfish materialist can wring out of teaching people things.

I, for example, love teaching people basically anything I know. To the point where I'm probably unhelpful. There have been numerous instances where there is a skill gap between me and someone else that I have closed and benefited greatly from closing. Usually this is in academic and workplace settings, but I suspect most parents would also see this dynamic. It also works socially when they return the favour and find some interesting idea for me in return at a later time.

If they don't follow my advice, that is often even better for me in the medium-long term because it suggests my advice is bad and I get an opportunity to correct my mistakes and misconceptions.

One of the most fortunate outcomes of the modern era is the more you want to maximise your own material success, the more advantage you can get from maximising the ability and resources available to those around you. I've been led to believe that a sample of most serious leadership groups will pick up an unusually high concentration of clever sociopaths - I suspect at least some of them will be excellent leaders because they figured this little factoid out.

The scenario is extremely different from someone asking me to give up driving because someone else will hypothetically benefit. As an interesting anecdata, I gave up driving because of economic and safety concerns, which are far more convincing to me personally.

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