171–180 of 398 posts
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita and https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...
Notice which countries are going down. Notice which countries are going up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
who wants a "strict vegan diet" ? I see detractors who want to derail the topic using distasteful, demanding examples..
The person I'm responding to is the one who brought it up. I live in a very leftist place, and there were always those at climate events demanding "strict vegan diets" however I didn't see these people out in the general world outside of my little leftist bubble, trying to actually get their idea out there. I agree with Michael Mann that what most of the public only encounters this idea of "strict vegan diets is a re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. And individual action has switched to just holding governments and industry responsible. Which basically amounts to giving up. "Welp, just gonna buy this truck, enjoy my burgers, set the AC at 68 and fly on all vacations this year because it's nothing compared to Big Oil."
Don’t forget eating meat, the easiest thing to stop doing (people needs cars and trucks for work, they don’t need cheeseburgers). People can’t be bothered to make any changes, it’s always someone else’s problem. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/27/meat-gas...
Modern economies are addicted to growth, and asset prices are pinned to showing continued growth more than ever. As soon as any global power proposes to take a beat and re-evaluate the trajectory of innovation, they will be left behind. Global leadership is also effectively non-existent and aside from trade, no one seems to be able to really make inroads on big ticket issues. In a time where we need more collaboratio…
Something other developing nations would need growth for to achieve.
So that's kinda interesting, because degrowth is seen as this conceptual antagonist to the people letting the global south burn, but they both are letting them down - just marginally differently.
It's hard to have people use data in these types of conversations, so I'll just link two charts. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita and https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re... Notice which countries are going down. Notice which countries are going up.
Geophysically, there are 3 pillars to climate stabilization: 1. Emitting fewer greenhouse gasses. Need to do that more than ever, but we are now in overshoot so… 2. Actively remove greenhouse gasses from atmosphere. Will need to do that, but land use and dirty energy trends away from net negative. Also, it’s a 100 year project once started. 3. Shade Earth. Not regions, The whole globe. There are two ways to do that:…
This will not address the acidification of the oceans which is very bad but something is better than nothing.
Carbon capture is way too slow to work. It’s a rounding error.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue with the global warming advocates is that they seem to believe that in order to solve global warming we need to make everyone's life worse. That was already a non-starter. It's just terrible marketing. You say it's for the benefit of "decrepit old men," but the fact is that more and more of the globe is being lifted out of poverty and living more comfortably than ever before. The unfortunate fact is that gl…
Your framing, that no collective action can ever include reduction or sacrifice, implies this is an inevitable and fatal path we cannot come back from. I hope you are wrong that nothing requiring sacrifice can ever be accomplished.
We simply did not evolve as a species to make large personal individual sacrifices today in order to benefit billions of strangers decades in the future. Never going to happen.
The options here are technology saving us, or eco-totalitarian governments controlling a huge portion of the world’s population. Nothing else will work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Significant amounts of the third world are already eating de-facto vegetarian or vegan diets. Many for religious reasons (i.e. in India where the vast majority of people either eat no meat or only chicken/fish), and many others for financial reasons. Strict vegan diets would objectively massively help reduce climate change.
Religious and too poor to eat meat. Not exactly selling the idea of “strict vegan diet” to a bunch of people with enough cash for meat and incisors in their jaws. You got any examples of cultures en mass with “strict vegan diets” because lentils taste delicious?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also while developed countries are affected , developing countries like Bangladesh, India are disproportionately affected, mostly a function of geography and a lot of history (very high population etc.). Honestly once AI becomes powerful enough most of these people will literally be leftovers with nothing left to contribute to the world with civil war precursors you see in other forms today essentially the same sympt…
I find almost nothing to agree with here. Renewable energy will power places like Bangladesh towards far greater wealth and prosperity. Aside from the distastefulness of using the term "leftovers" on any group of people, I think its clear that India will become massively more powerful due to their education system, once its further enabled by cheap clean energy and AI. The US is falling into civil war over stupid cul…
Once we rip the institutions that are breeding this inequality out by their roots and replace it with better social safety nets, free medical care, reformed education systems resulting in lower inequality. Then we can tackle planting more trees, bulking out solar, onshoring manufacturing, etc. The "war" is the people who have abused the system so long that they are multi-generational "social elites" complaining that they being called out on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your framing, that no collective action can ever include reduction or sacrifice, implies this is an inevitable and fatal path we cannot come back from. I hope you are wrong that nothing requiring sacrifice can ever be accomplished.
This sacrifice involves putting millions back in poverty. I don't think you understand what I'm saying.
None of the above implies that everyone can achieve a current day Western lifestyle or that current Western lifestyles are sustainable. But average people are going to continue seeking it out, it’s just human nature. Activists who expect people to “just” give up that search are not being realistic.