General News Thread

[Snow]

Galactic dodechaedron brain: China and India aren't polluting because they're evil but because they're big and poor, and China is one of if not the biggest world force in sustainable energy and green tech development.

[Mcjon01]

Eg
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templat...ate_change.pdf
GHG emissions from food waste is the third largest in the world. Emitting more ghgs than India.
But only 35% of it is due to post consumer waste. That's you going to Costco buying a giant bag of spinach and thinking you'll finish it. Finding out it's disgusting after 2 weeks because you forgot about it. This is the part that you can control.
If everyone in the world literally woke up one day and stopped wasting food as in, never threw a slice of moldy bread in the trash and ate it instead. Total ghg emissions would go down 4%.

Imagine the insane amount of cultural change that needs to happen to just reduce ghg emissions by 4%. And this isn't accounting for the politics or profit aspect to make this happen.

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There really isn't a brink in this area. It's just "how bad is it gonna get."
https://www.wri.org/ipcc-infographics
Even if humanity stays under the 2 deg C its still going to be a shit show.
Anything that we do now in short of a miracle is honestly damage control.

My definition of brink is human extinction

[Snow]

Jellyfish will live on. And honestly, that is more important.

[Bloble]

Ah. This thread. This thread has awakened from its grave once more.

Back to the shadows, vile creature. Your politics posting shall not trouble us again.

[Draconic]

This isn’t politics. This is a few of us deciding that we’re going to do anything, instead of saying ‘fuck it, what can I do?’

I will admit that forumghost has a point though. People are going to have to rally themselves. Violence however is not the easy answer, McJon. He’ll, even I’m inclined to follow that line of thinking, but there are very specific circumstances where that will work. This isn’t one of them. I mean do you really expect that anyone’s going to be able to create a serious military force capable of competently destroying thousands of coal plants on the fly? I call bullshit. That’s even more far fetched than what I was suggesting.

Let me put it this way, McJon. This is the difference between me sending you a few hundred dollars when you inevitably find yourself in an area hit by the ever-increasing natural disasters, and me saying, “Well, he won’t be able to repair his whole life with only a few hundred, and I’d rather keep it anyway,” and then pretending that I don’t bear any responsibility towards you when things get much worse or, god forbid, you die, and I could have one something, anything to help you.

[Mcjon01]

I don't know how you can so consistently misinterpret my position as "it's too hard so do nothing" when I'm arguing that we've crossed a threshold wherein purposefully engaging in activities to accelerate climate change, doing nothing to stop climate change, and not doing enough to stop climate change are all equally morally indefensible and quite literally facilitating genocide.

[Snow]

How much do I have to do to be morally defensible and not quite literally facilitate genocide Mcjon01?

[Mcjon01]

You have to die from overwork for the cause, but then your rotting corpse will just release more greenhouse gases anyway and undo everything you did. Oops.

[SeiKeo]

Second, if all the other countries in the developed world embraced serious environmental regulations China would probably be pressured to do so as well. In fact, I've heard they already are taking some measures to cut emissions (since air pollution is making cities like Beijing nearly unliveable). And if not, there's always economic sanctions to consider.

every time, I think I'm trolling by calling attempts at international climate regulation neocolonial, and then, yet,

[Snow]

I'll get cremated I want my terrestrial interface to poison you all more directly.

[aldeayeah]

every time, I think I'm trolling by calling attempts at international climate regulation neocolonial, and then, yet,

What's your plan?

[SeiKeo]

What's your plan?

I want a revenue-neutral carbon tax offset against payroll tax, and for China to do its own thing

[RoydGolden]

every time, I think I'm trolling by calling attempts at international climate regulation neocolonial, and then, yet,

China is incredibly wealthy and powerful. It may be a "developing country", but it's not some third-world hovel just barely scraping by enough to survive.

And while I don't have any statistics on this, I doubt most of the benefits from increased industry are going to the poorest Chinese anyways. Not when so many people are still forced to toil in sweatshops.

[Snow]

Rising powers have to get downer and dirtier than their former colonizers ever did just to break even.

[SeiKeo]

China is incredibly wealthy and powerful. It may be a "developing country", but it's not some third-world hovel just barely scraping by enough to survive.

And while I don't have any statistics on this, I doubt most of the benefits from increased industry are going to the poorest Chinese anyways. Not when so many people are still forced to toil in sweatshops.

That doubt is precisely because you have no statistics.

[IMG]blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/files/eastasiapacific/wu-fig1.jpg[/IMG]

e: mobile, what a pain

[Draconic]

I don't know how you can so consistently misinterpret my position as "it's too hard so do nothing" when I'm arguing that we've crossed a threshold wherein purposefully engaging in activities to accelerate climate change, doing nothing to stop climate change, and not doing enough to stop climate change are all equally morally indefensible and quite literally facilitating genocide.

Shockingly, not doing enough but trying to do something at all, is still better than accelerating or doing nothing. This isn’t even nihilism, it’s just an excuse to do nothing, by saying that it’s not any worse than not doing enough.

Also, you probably pass gas at least once a day, so you know, maybe by your logic, suicide really is the answer.

Honestly, all of us are just singular human beings. No one can change the world by themselves, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make a scratch if you can’t make a dent. If, say, all of the users on the Lair chipped in and did some small things, I’ll bet we could set the end of the world back by… I dunno, an hour, maybe. I say that’s better than nothing. I want to live an hour longer, don’t you?

Alternatively, you can just go die and inter yourself in an airtight, vacuum-sealed sarcophagus and then you won’t be polluting anymore. See where I’m going with this? And if you say I’m trying to get you to kill yourself, I swear I will find you and dedicate the rest of my life to giving you one paper cut every day at exactly 5:43 pm and squeezing lemon juice on it. How I will afford to support myself doing that, I have no fucking clue, but I swear I’ll do it.

And yes, that is my extremely whacked-out way of staying positive in the face of all of your gratuitous negativity. Making threats so inane that they make me seem like I’m flimsy enough to be knocked out by smacking me with a sardine.

[Mcjon01]

Stop putting fucking words in my mouth, there are no excuses to do nothing here
I am saying that what you consider “helping” stems from a toxic myth of personal responsibility that does more harm than good insomuch as it allows people to convince themselves they’re doing their part and stop making any further efforts when they could be doing something that might actually make a difference instead, i.e., taking collective action to dismantle the neoliberal machine hellbent on killing us all

[Dullahan]

reminder that he was right about everything

[Gl❀w]

disturbing hot take

[RoydGolden]

I am saying that what you consider “helping” stems from a toxic myth of personal responsibility that does more harm than good insomuch as it allows people to convince themselves they’re doing their part and stop making any further efforts when they could be doing something that might actually make a difference instead, i.e., taking collective action to dismantle the neoliberal machine hellbent on killing us all

Couldn't the opposite be true in some cases though?

Turning off the lights when you leave a room gets you thinking of yourself as the kind of person who cares for the environment, which might lead you to support other (hopefully more truly effective) environmental causes to validate that self-image. Kind of like those psyche studies where people paid to put up a sign supporting some cause in front of their house were more likely to sincerely support (or at least sympathize with) said cause later on.