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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

111–120 of 291 posts

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#111
If you want to feel some level of empowerment around this but don't feel like you have much time or direction, I'd recommend joining the Citizen's Climate Lobby. It's quite influential in the U.S., and is gaining influence globally.

I'm Canadian, and I joined a year ago. Since then I've been able to join several lobby meetings with politicians and gotten involved in many other local issues that I never would have learned about otherwise. It's quite organized, I get to see the impacts of lobbying, and I meet many other groups that I could choose to join if I am so inclined.

I've found it to be productive. If you feel helpless and are thrashing when it comes to figuring out how to make a difference, I think this is a great first step.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#112
post #90
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

You're asking people to suffering annoyances and spend lots of money when the average income has been going down for 40 years. I'm surprised you're surprised.

Living more efficiently obviously saves money.

The absurdities of what's happening is literally the Sierra Club opposing density in San Francisco. The environmentalist are literally opposing density across California. Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Marin County, under the banner of "preservation," we're going to destroy the climate.

I just, i cannot believe this is happening. They same people who would hand wash a peanut butter jar, to recycle it, are the exact same people who are literally creating suburban cities designed for burning carbon.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#113

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

I've given up hope that this will be solved. The buried lede is that, if the prophets of climate doom are correct, you need to substantially reduce your standard of living . And all those third-worlders that are trying to improve their standard of living? They need to stop doing so, yesterday, and learn to accept their impoverished standard of living. But do it cleaner! But they won't want to do that, predictably. An…

The problem would be solved if we had cleaner sources of energy. Get rid of coal and you're most of the way there. None of that requires us to change our way of living, it just makes certain rich people less wealthy.

No scientist is arguing that we need to live in poverty, please keep the straw man arguments out of this.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#114
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I equally wish that more Americans used SI -- Farenheit is about as familiar to me as Rankine; I have been bitten by the US use of 'mil' to mean thousandths of an inch whilst remaining how some en-gb engineers use it as inaccurate slang for mm. But this is a big distraction. Alas, I know that the whole reason we're in this pickle is that scientific literacy is low, and most people prefer short term gains over longer…

> I have been bitten by the US use of 'mil' to mean thousandths of an inch Huh, I live in the US and I've only ever heard that called a thou but wikipedia backs you up. I'd think a mil would be a millionth of an inch.

Comes from mille, means thousand.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#115
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait for all migrants from places that will be becoming uninhabitable.

When is this projected to happen, realistically? 100 years from now?

It is already happening. Just searching a bit…

Katrina displaced 1-1.5m immediately and about 200k never returned.

The upper estimates for 2050 is 1.2 billion displaced world wide.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#116
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. This isn't a right/left problem - both parties have let corporations get away with runaway pollution for entirely too long.

Bullshit. 100 companies are responsible for extraction. They are selling us the carbon we are actively buying.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#117
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

The same people that can't do a accurate weather forecast more than 5 days into the future are telling you the world is gonna end due to climate change ... and you blame the common man for not freaking out? I mean put your self in peoples shoes.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#118

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades. 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals. And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering. So take…

>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades

Source?

> So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there.

Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's obvious that a you can't do much by regulating your own consumption. However, telling people to do whatever they want and it doesn't matter because they're 1 in 8 billion is the wrong message to send, because if all 8 billion people follow your example that would lead to a massive increase in pollution.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#119

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

> I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average.

Depending where you live, it might not even make a difference.

I'd say the biggest contribution one can make is to aggressively vote for parties that support green power generation. Project like these [0] are stalled by lobbyist but offer a real chance to curb emissions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_%E2%80%93_New_England_T...

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#120
post #3

Canada and northern part of the US will be fine (north of the mason dixon line). Places like Albany, NY, or Minesota, or most of Canada, appart from the occasional crazy swings, are going to be more lovely places to live, with slightly milder winters. The southern part is toast, both from water level rises, and lack of fresh water. In this country, the ones that are going to be the most affected by global warming, se…

No, because climate is a chaotic system and nothing, nowhere, will be 'slightly milder'. You are mistaken. It ain't about a minor shift in baseline plus sea-level changing, though sea-level changing is still a thing. I'm IN the Northeast, not far from Albany. The crazy swings are less and less occasional and that's a trend that continues to escalate. I consider the location pretty much optimal. That's a far cry from…

Seattle is sometimes pointed to as a “climate sanctuary”. A couple of weeks ago it was 108° here in Seattle. Let me repeat that: a hundred and eight degrees. In Seattle.

Our reaction as a city: air conditioning installation is booked out for months.

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