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Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

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Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#131

Post by vincentpants »

masijo wrote: post #43
vincentpants wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR isn’t the source of our anxiety, it’s people that don’t listen or take this seriously that do, like you actually. If you’re not actively trying to fix this, then you are part of the problem.

How are you trying to fix it? Serious question, no bad intentions meant.

Co-founded our local Hackspace, the first Mini Makerfaire, pushed for many municipal computer parsable open data initiatives. Lobbied for additional bike lanes and bike parking in our downtown corridor. Optimizing resource management for North American manufacturing (pending & hopeful). Giving talks about how there will be no techno salvation as long as we live under the Leibensweise formed by a civilization driven by resource extraction (capitalism). Sending supplies to protestors at Fairy Creek, and above all am currently making bread and eating it. And it’s so far from enough. What are you doing?

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#134

Post by throwaway5752 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #87

I'm glad that social media wasn't around when I was growing up. If the media had the same chance to clickbait me into panic in my day, I'd have been genuinely scared to death about the ozone layer being depleted or acid rain making the planet unlivable by now, yet here we are. It's easy to panic about hot-button issues such as climate change when the media clickbaits you into endless doom and gloom and refuses to rep…

I don't use social media, HN notwithstanding, and it is plainly obvious to me from just looking out the window that climate change is substantial and accelerating. It is the most urgent and dangerous issue facing the planet.

I agree social media is awful, but it does not follow that climate change isn't cause to panic.

If anything, half of Americans are nowhere near panicked enough about climate change as the result of social media.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#135

Post by pstuart »

brutusborn wrote: post #89
pstuart wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thought that came to mind was "ok boomer". Edit: yeah, not positive but a knee-jerk reaction to the grandparent comment that essentially said "I got mine, Jack -- sucks to be you".

I don't understand; why would you post this? Do you think this will help the situation?

Why? Anger and frustration. Probably shouldn't have but the grandparent comment practically invited it.

There's so much we can do to mitigate the damage but that won't happen through complacency.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#136

Post by beervirus »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #42

The economics of solar are good news. Hopefully we've hit an inflection point where coal power is no longer economical [1] [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90583426/the-price-of-solar-elec...

Turns out it’s easy to make cheap solar cells if you have access to unlimited free labor from Chinese prison camps.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#137

Post by mc32 »

nimih wrote: post #103
mc32 wrote: post #22

I'm sure people are frustrated, but I wonder what the consensus, if you could fine one, would be. What exactly are they expecting governments to change? Policy, power generation, transportation, what? And will they accept the necessary or resultant policies and changes? The above are "easy" if you have a totalitarian regime where what the autocrats say go, goes: China, Saudi Arabia, etc., most other countries are mor…

> I'm sure people are frustrated, but I wonder what the consensus, if you could fine one, would be. Probably despair that they've been failed by my generation, my parent's generation and (since they're to a large extent the ones still in power, at least in the US), my grandparent's generation. Since, as you point out, change takes time in democracies, and even longer internationally, it was our collective jobs to avo…

Let's say people in the 70s knew climate change was happening. That it was the prevailing consensus and had the necessary evidence.

What were governments supposed to do? What technology were they going to leverage? did we have computers, modelling, alternatives?

Cars with ICE could have become more efficient, yes. But where else could we have cut the fat? Fewer people via worldwide contraception, to stem demand? More public transit? Much of carbon output is not on the consumer side, but on the industry side of things.

The antinuke activists killed green energy which would have make coal and other dirty power obsolete. That would have been a nice chunk.

I don't think we had the technology back then to do much about it. We could have slowed it down a bit, but not stop it.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#138

Post by nimvlaj30 »

ruined wrote: post #51
nimvlaj30 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God grant me the serenity > to accept the things I cannot change; > courage to change the things I can; > and wisdom to know the difference. Civilisation as we know it, and perhaps even humanity is in the process of ending. The ending is inevitable, whether it is now or nearer to the heat death of the universe. If you can personally try and affect change, then you should do it. But more likely, you are a slave to t…

if this is your attitude then at least get out of the way

Damn nice hate. OP was saying how he is losing sleep over climate change.

The requirements involved with contributing to slowing (or stopping) climate change do not include worrying about it. If you are losing sleep, you would benefit from changing your attitude towards it.

Civilisational decline is a constant. It is coming. Accept it now, and work to delay it if you can make a meaningful change. If not, don't lose sleep over it.

I'm doing what I can to invest in future green tech and trying to limit my consumption. I am NOT losing sleep over the fact that we probably don't have much more of a future as a race.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#139

Post by lotsofpulp »

ceejayoz wrote: post #46
gorwell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns reduced carbon emissions. https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record... https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3089/local-lockdowns-brought-f... As for dog whistling, only dogs hear those and conspiracy theorists think they do.

An unprecedented global economic shutdown dropped emissions by 7%. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3 It's not the way out, nor has it been proposed by anyone serious to be.

People drastically decreasing consumption (i.e. moving less mass less distance) is the only way out in a realistic timeframe, if even possible now.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#140

Post by junon »

MattGaiser wrote: post #17
junon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I dislike smoking or obesity, those aren't the main causes of climate change. If we eliminated both of those entirely, today, we'd still have a crisis. That being said, I'll absolutely agree with the sentiment that "humans will always be human". We're not going to collectively try to fix this until it's too late. That's the saddest part.

His point is more that humans can’t easily change, even if they know the solution.

Yes, hence my second paragraph.
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