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[–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

Need graph source. Who had the thermometer in 12000 BC

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Maybe if education and news media continue to degenerate they'll become too stupid to know any better.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    But if we had done something about this, gas would have gone up!

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  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (18 children)

    The scary thing is, this graph is probably far too conservative.

    Evidence is now emerging that indicates that warming has accelerated dramatically in the last 2-3 years. As in, we may see more warming in the next 10 years than we have seen in the last 50, with +3℃ happening just after 2035, and +4℃ happening by some time around 2040 to 2050.

    You know what happens around +4℃? The extinction of all megafauna - animals larger than 45kg. Like humans. The entire ⅓ of the planet between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn will experience lethally high wet bulb temperatures across all regions for at least several weeks out of every year, rendering it permanently uninhabitable for the 4+ Billion people that currently live there. India is currently flirting with that reality.

    And with that heating inertia, 2100 may see +8℃ temps, which essentially means ice-free poles year round (once things calm down), with palm trees and alligators at the North Pole. Of course, by that time chaotic weather and resource exhaustion will have killed off all remaining humans.

    And the lovely thing about “moving parts” is that they all have this little thing called inertia… the faster they move, the further they go. And +8℃ is very close to the +12-15℃ that a Venus Scenario would be triggered by.

    Past warming events have been “similar” in that they have gotten just as warm, but they took hundreds of thousands of years to get to the same place, allowing entire continent-wide ecosystems to quite literally migrate across thousands of kilometers to adapt. Our changes are happening in less than 0.01% of that time scale, giving ecosystems no time at all in which to react. So our biosphere will get slaughtered along with us, and will be unable to compensate in time.

    And with the biosphere becoming overwhelmed by rapid changes, there goes the “friction” that could do something about that “inertia”.

    And the worst part is, we still haven’t moved off of the worst-case-possible “business as usual” path. We are swan-diving into the worst possible future. Thanks to billionaires addicted to fat profit margins and who control all of the processes, we are utterly failing to generate the change needed to save ourselves, with CO2e production - purely human sources, excluding the feedback loops in nature!! - CONTINUING TO ACCELERATE.

    Fun times. I just might live long enough to see humanity go extinct.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Can you back up these claims? Not doubting, just curious/terrified to learn more.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Here, feel free to simultaneously urinate and defecate into your pants:

    All of this is evidence-based. All of this relies on facts.

    Yeah, we’re f**king hosed as a species. Our legacy at this point should be in preventing a Venus Scenario, so at least life can continue to go on in some fashion

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Not that renaming problems ever helps, but this is why I'm trying to push "anthropogenic runaway global heating" as a replacement for the weak formulation of "global warming" and the even weaker "climate change". It has the handy acronym of ARGH.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    We don’t exactly know where the tipping point towards a Venus Scenario is. We just know it’s somewhere past +12℃, and before +16℃.

    And the problem isn’t so much that we will reach that temp - we will go extinct long before that point - but rather the warming process - with all of the feedback loops that it kicks off - will push the planet into a Venus Scenario.

    So no. The planet is not fine. The “friction” of prior warming events that would slow its “inertia” - the slowly-migrating, slowly-adapting biospheres that continue to draw down CO2e - won’t have that capability this time around. It’s just all happening far too fast for them to migrate or adapt.

    We have literally “cut the brakes” with the speed and inertia of the current warming we have created. And one very real consequence may be a dead planet with a superheated atmosphere.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Maybe we kick off a nuclear winter before we go out

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Honestly, if we’re talking about mostly or completely surface blasts, and not atmospheric detonations, that might be what saves the planet.

    Nuclear winter is very much a thing by how the thrown-up dust reflects most incoming light, and with most detonations being in cities, the kicked-up dust would contain plenty of iron… which is the major limiting factor of phytoplankton, the largest single converter of CO2 to O2. All it has to do is fall out of the atmosphere and into the oceans during the spring to summer. So we need a late winter or early spring nuclear war.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    So I suppose I just have 15 more years to live huh?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I would say 10 of relative comfort, another 5-10 of increasing disasters (political, social, environmental, etc.) that tear apart civilization, and a final 5-10 of complete collapse where only small isolated communities still exist, and every day is a real struggle for survival against exceptionally hostile conditions.

    Honestly, most scientific projections of resource exhaustion and environmental degradation point to 2050 as the point beyond which “civilization” really ceases to exist.

    And honestly, I would be shocked if humanity still existed as any kind of a high-tech going concern much past that.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yet "you have to have a car to work" like ok no for one fuck you for two we have several modes of transport AND energy sources now you actually do choose actively to diarrhea out carbon on purpose and I fucking see you

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  • [–] 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Not just ignored, but vehemently dismissed as “woke” quoting the fossil fuel lobby almost verbatim. Repeatedly. Over generations and overwhelming scientific consensus.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    A majority of us voted for Al Gore, but I'm sure someone will next tell me he wouldn't have made a difference, both sides are the same, blah blah blah.

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  • [–] 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Did they ignore it? Yes but the only reason they ignored it was because...

    1. The oil industry (and other adjacent industries) did their best to make sure everybody doubted the science of climate change

    2. Governments (the U.S gov't in particular) took the oil industry's side and subsidized their ventures

    3. Libertarian think tanks (like the Heritage Foundation and ALEC) took money from Big Oil to misinform the public about climate change and its connection to fossil fuel burning.

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  • [–] 266 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Not to be that person, but my parents are completely incapable of comprehending this.

    Not intellectually, but pragmatically and philosophically. They're like 60 years old, and even if it affects them in their lifetime, they'll be "dead in 20 years".

    And on a low level, they're kind of right because most ordinary people aren't to blame for this, so shaming "parents" makes no sense.

    Shame the international petroleum conglomerates, plastic producers, shipping, etc. You know, the actual emitters in the billions of gigatons.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Parents naturally have children. Children that will very much be alive to experience the "find out" part. I am incapable of comprehending how shortsighted and self centered someone has to be to be like: Well, at least I had a nice life, good luck everybody!

    And on a low level, they're kind of right because most ordinary people aren't to blame for this, so shaming "parents" makes no sense.

    Shame the international petroleum conglomerates, plastic producers, shipping, etc. You know, the actual emitters in the billions of gigatons.

    I agree that ordinary people are only partly to blame and that we need to focus on the worst offenders. However, the indifference of large parts of previous generations surely enabled much of the current situation. Most of our parents could vote, most had a chance to drive a tiny bit of change in some kind of way. Some even held positions of power or still do. Putting some blame on them surely isn't wrong, especially if they still don't care.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Aaaaaaaaah i hate that this is what we say to that argument!! Why does it end there? Like "its the megacorporations." Oh ok then nobody is to blame.

    No. Actually The megacorporations are to blame. Attack. The megacorps are run by people (so far) but if you kill one lackey, the corp replaces them (without mourning I might add), so how can anyone attack the corp and not the people? The law? No it stops there?

    Huh, so these mega evil entities are destroying the planet? Huh. Well doesn't look like anything to me? Yet they can lobby and decide laws? Is that how good we are at fighting then?

    They are pure demonic world eaters and have lobbyed to become legal persons. To be the only entities without soul that can be considered a legal person in our legal system. If that system is broken to that degree.. well, if they are persons, then they can bleed. And die. I am not this weak at fighting for my planet

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Can't their precious AI fix it? You know, the one taking all of the fresh water for people to do simple queries?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    our handsome investors had a free market solution but then the government said no

    Some libertarian

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I think in the long term there could be a libertarian solution - the Coase Theorem says that externalities can be resolved with very low transaction costs (that don't currently exist).

    But that's something libertarians should've pitched 40 years ago. Now the only solution we know will help are time-tested Pigouvian taxes.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    but pragmatically and philosophically. They’re like 60 years old, and even if it affects them in their lifetime, they’ll be “dead in 20 years”.

    Imagine saying this as if human prosperity wasn't built on people building places for their children and grandchildren.

    Capitalism is one of very few philosophies that pretends that selfishness is good, and it would be silly not to blame people that believe in it for the consequences of that philosophy when implemented.

    Ordinary western citizens are to blame, because ordinary western citizens could have changed this merely by being morally offended and voting for something else. Most of them personally chose to support capitalism over any alternative. To not even explore the space of possibilities, but to get paid off by corporate-government partnerships that were robbing both the future and the rest of the world.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (31 children)

    Next generation is going to post this map but with higher temps

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (30 children)

    Lol why do you think we'll last long enough for another generation?

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (18 children)

    Honestly, I hate to jump on the antinatalism bandwagon but having a child now would almost certainly condemn them to an existence of scarcity and pain.

    What makes this doubly difficult is that if we had acted at the first sign of trouble, we almost certainly could have lived comfortable lives with minimal sacrifices and every year we put it off the sacrifices we would have to make in order to maintain our climate get more severe.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    We aren't putting it off. Already many countries are deploying renewable energy like it's going out of fashion, and have been for years. China, France, the UK, Spain, and India all have significant parts of their energy coming from renewables and nuclear, or are building more as we speak. Here in England our largest source of power is wind. People are already doing stuff about it, just not fast enough or universally enough. Technology for renewables and energy saving has gotten progressively better over the past several decades. Even fossil fuel technologies like cars and natural gas plants have gotten markedly more efficient meaning they produce less CO2 than they did previously, while also emitting lower levels of other pollutants too. It's even possible now to power planes with biofuels.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

    Nobody is going fast enough.

    The fastest efforts going right now are half assed solutions.

    I don't think you understand how urgently fucked we are.

    Climate scientists are scientists. They can only tell youbwhat thry know. Science inherently moves slow, moves with certainty. Kind of the best thing about it.

    But all these climate models keep getting hit with 'shit we didnt know could happen' and 'feedback effect nobody's ever seen before', even the grim ones.

    So however bad the models are, we are more fuckef than that.

    The turn radius on this thing is so slow that we may already be past the point of no return. Everything from here on might be a death rattle. Maybe, if you're young, from before you were born. We don't know how bad it is, we have sort of repeatedly proven that we can't know how bad it is, and all we know is how good it isn't.

    And babe, its not good enough to be so fucking casual about shit.

    Whatever effect you are currently feeling is the effect from our collected fuckedness 30 40 50 years ago. However fucked this summer felt? Thats the damage we had accrued and sent out when your parents were born.

    Edit: we need to be at zero cars zero meat zero fossil fuels and decarbonizing as much production as we possibly can by now. We told the timeline where we could switch over gently to fuck off and die 50 years ago. I wasnt even fucking born yet. We told the timeline where we coukd just cut the shit and practice purely technical solutions with little lifestyle change (beyond things that are mostly good for us anyway) to fuck off and die 25 years ago. We let this go untreated, and now that the body is so wracked with cancer it's effecting our range of motion, and the doctors are desperately scrambling to set up a course of radical chemo radiation starvation and cutting to the bone in the desperate hope that there's still room for luck, we have decided that okay, maybe we might feel a little under the weather, and we can finally take the doctor's advice, and treat that upstart henry ford fellow with a baby asprin. But nothing crazy is called for here!

    Am i the only one who feels insane when i have to explain this?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

    This kind of talk isn't really useful and is making the problem worse. Where are you getting all this from? You must have some good sources to make claims like this.

    There wasn't a time line 25 years ago where we could use only technological solutions as said technological solutions didn't exist. Those have only been invented since then, many still haven't been invented or are still being worked on now. Take batteries for example, it took us until the 2010s to manufacture enough lithium ion batteries with the right chemistry to even think about using them as grid storage. Said batteries still have limited lifespans and manufacturing them is costly to the environment and requires lithium which has a limited supply. We really need Sodium ion batteries but those are only ramping production now. Starting to switch over 50 years ago would have been even more impossible, not that we understood the problem fully 50 years ago. This is all revising history.

    Fyi CO2 levels have been higher in the past than they are now. None of this is actually new, it's just changing far faster than it would naturally. It's the speed that's the issue, not the actual magnitude of the change. It's a case of changing things faster than nature takes to adapt. We are still technically in an ice age after all. Pollutants like microplastics and forever chemicals are the new thing, not greenhouse gasses. No one has any idea what that might lead to in the long term.

    You feel insane because your suggesting things should have happened before they are actually possible. You are saying things that are extremely alarmist without giving evidence and without considering context.

    Edit: There was one way to decarbonize earlier than 25 years ago or maybe before. It's called Nuclear. I wonder who prevented that? Oh wait it was climate activists. Funny that.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    25 years ago

    There was some tech stuff, new-deal-with-chinese-characteristics, and specifically a very climate conscious US president was elected, but everyone just let the other guy take office.

    climate activists stopped nuclear

    No. Dipshit appropriate environmental and residual anti nuclear activists, which were tangled up wuth a bunch of other movements, stopped it. Wouldve been nice though.

    only technological solutions

    I think i said 'no changes (that wouldnt have improved our quality of life anyway)', so things like modal shifts in transportation and moving to dense walkable cities or well cared for and/or utilized rural places

    Things like solar and wind power (and yes nuclear, especially back then)

    starting 50 years ago

    Bitch have you not heard of jimmy fucking carter? Do you not remember the solar panels on the white house? Dude wasn't perfect, but he proposed both renewables and nuclear power, and i assume knew what the hell he was talking about (given his education). It would have taken some time, but if we had started then, i think we'd be in a pretty good place. I dont know much about the situation on the periphery, but i assume the USSR would have matched the americans if only for the sake of appearances.

    whataboutism, absurd bullshit

    Okay you dont seem like a serious person; i wish you luck at the fracktory.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    I don't use the term whataboutism in my post anywhere. So I don't know who you are quoting.

    The not serious person here is you, saying we are all going to die anyway instead of encouraging people to do anything. I had to look this up as I don't know anything about Carter, but it turns out the panels he was installing are for hot water. They don't generate electricity. This makes perfect sense as it took much longer than that to develop photovoltaics and get them ready for mass production. Even now modern photovoltaic panels are fairly inefficient devices.

    We already have walk-able cities in much of Europe. It's not a compete solution by itself, we still have cars. You are weirdly fixated on USA history when this is a global problem. It's not all about the USA. Stop pretending it's the only country that exists. India and China are the biggest polluters these days if I remember correctly, you should be focusing on them.

    Edit: Carter was also aiming for 20% of energy in the US to be made renewably by 2020. That wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to stop climate change.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Usa was a major turning point. Went worst direction, could have gone best. Not all i brought up.

    for hot water

    As opposed to the fairy dust and prayers they used before.

    walkable cities in

    Used to hear a lot of people i knew on that continemt talk about cities getting less walkable, more car.

    was aiming for

    Renewable. Does not include nuclear. Assuming he wanted some amount of that, given his degree in that. But if we had started, we could have accellerated in the right direction instead of the wrong one.

    telling people to not do anything

    Okay you clearly can't read.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I can read fine. You can't write. Your messages so far have been full of spelling errors, are hard to understand, and you can't even quote properly. Come on now.

    You act like I should know all about this Carter person, when they were in power long before I was born, in a country I don't even live in. It's daft. Most people on this site either wouldn't have been born or would have been small when Carter was talking about this stuff. That happened in the 1970s. If it isn't absolutely clear using renewables for everything in the 1970s wouldn't have been practical. Nuclear would have been great, but it's mainly environmentalists that put a stop to that, as they keep trying to do now. It seems most environmentalists and climate activists even now don't want nuclear, even though it's the obvious choice for certain applications like data centers and AI. The most staunch anti-nuclear people have always been environmentalists. Nuclear also wouldn't have solved any of the problems caused by cars. It doesn't even work without large grid storage or demand management, at least not using the reactor technology available back then. Those are things we are only just figuring out now for goodness sake. It could have at least replaced coal for baseload power, which is much better than nothing.

    You can't say in one breath that the planet is already doomed, and in the next say we should make major changes. It's a contradiction. If people believe we are really doomed they aren't even going to try. This should be relatively straight forward to understand. So if you want people to make a change then stop saying we are already dead.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    No you're correct, the co2 levels act slowly over time to increase temperatures so we haven't even got a tiny fraction of the total warming. The only way to deal with it is to go sharply carbon negative as soon as possible and use Geoengineering to actively cool the planet.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    geoengineering

    Maybe, but its like natural gas; going to be used as an excuse to mot fix anything else and jack off about svifi bullshit til we all die.

    Not that it couldn't alao be a useful tool in tje hands of responsible adults.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    At a certain point you have to ignore the " but someone will use it as an excuse" argument, that's been the response for decades. It can't mean that because someone could object you just have to do nothing ever.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Geoemgineering needs to be discredited so people dont buy it as an alternative to everything else, but a supplimental.

    Because it's really tempting. It promises not having to change our daily lives, if you don't listen too close

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    And that's been the statement people make every time for the last 15 years. But at a certain point there is only people that accept it and people who will never do so until they die.

    Small scale tests have to be done slowly over time, and it's best to do that now at the very least so we have a good grasp of what won't work at scale so we didn't chase means that are less practical.

    But the real point is that very few people commenting actually read the article. This was about marine cloud brightening, where they're only making clouds slightly brighter. It's the least offensive option possible that is technically a thing that everybody likes more anyway. People act like mr burns blocking the sun.

    The only one that has any real risk is the iron fertilization concept because changing the limited ingredient in an ecosystem could possibly have an effect on the system.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    you don't exist

    Shit. Can i put you in front of my therapist? Been having this argukent and it woukd be great to have someone else on my side.

    thing completely unrelated to anything i said that you just like to think about

    There are less cool obsessions, sure.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    power generation has come a long way but specially in the North America the story isn't as good, while we've made progress the amount of methane produced by our natural gas wells is not only frightening but difficult to track due to lack of accountability.

    it's my opinion if we want the sort of radical greenhouse gas reduction required to stave off the worst of climate change then we need three things:

    1. an aggressive plan to phase out coal and natural gas
    2. embrace public transportation and bikes
    3. drastically reduce the amount of red meat we eat

    I do believe it's possible I'm just also think it's really difficult to get political will for those sort of things.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    If you mean climate change we absolutely will though

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    There be other generations but I think you are wrong to be so confident. Those next generations will not have an organized society and quite possibly will not have any form of internet or a lot of technology in general.

    Shit is going to get BAD and FAST.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Eh things will get more dire but doubt it's happening anywhere fast enough for that

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    It’s already having nasty effects already? Storms are worse and more intense, more flooding that kills people… how many people have to die before you say “that was quicker than I expected”?

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    How would stuff I know have happened already in a timescale I know be unexpected to me?

    Shit would have to get worse at a rate beyond what's expected now for me to think it was quicker than expected.

    It's like doing multiplication. 1*2 = 2. Okay makes sense. 2*2 = 4 oh damn that was quicker than expected! lol

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    What are you basing that conclusion on, other than vibes?

    Seriously, have you looked at ANY of the data? Any reports or papers written by people who study it?

    The theme is consistent among them: sooner and worse than expected.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    The actual data. It doesn't say at all that we won't survive a generation.

    The theme is consistent among them: sooner and worse than expected.

    Compared to what exactly? A lot of the data just confirms the earlier data

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  • [–] 119 points 1 year ago* (12 children)

    Your parents ignored this

    I've been hearing about climate change consistently since the 1980s. Multiple iterations of liberal (and moderate conservative) politician have campaigned on a variety of (free market) mechanisms for capping or curbing carbon emissions. We even had a huge surge in R&D for green energy alternatives and electrification - first in the 70s and then again during the gas cost explosion of the 00s - that is (thank fucking god) finally paying off.

    So I won't say they "ignored this". I will say that we had a very wealthy, very influential minority entrenched within the political class that profited enormously from fossil fuel extraction and deliberately suppressed decades of prior efforts to reduce emissions, both domestically and globally.

    The Boomers weren't blind to climate change. They weren't even apathetic. They were outmatched, outplayed, and outspent. Much like with slavery in the 1800s and women's liberation in the 1900s and human rights in the 2000s, this is a fight that liberals have spent a lot of time losing. What wins they achieved felt significant in the moment, but remained dwarfed by the stubborn intractability of their wealthy, reactionary opposition.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Yep, what is everyone reading this thread doing about all of the beverage companies, data centers and fracking taking our fresh water? My guess, the same as everyone who isn't one of the above mentioned companies, nothing. One can only take care of their community.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago

    Also a degree of survivorship bias.

    Fossil fuel lobbyists coordinated with lawmakers behind the scenes and across state lines to push and shape laws that are escalating a crackdown on peaceful protests against oil and gas expansion, a new Guardian investigation reveals.

    The folks that are "doing something" end up assaulted by police, arrested, jailed, and periodically maimed or killed while engaged in active resistance. These incidents of industry-coordinated state oppression go under-reported or propagandized into "eco-terrorism" in such a way that any kind of opposition to the industry is painted as extremist and counter-productive.

    When your only legal options are "try to recycle harder and maybe buy more Greenwashed merch" and "Go full denialist, embrace fossil fuel propaganda, and roll some coal on a Prius", the outside observer is going to assume nothing is being done. Instead, real material efforts are simply being thwarted.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    No, I won't give them the out. This isn't them simply being outgunned on messaging or outmaneuvered by corporate interests.

    Theirs is a story of objective dereliction of duty.

    Previous generations leveraged the future of their descendants to improve their wealth and economic growth. Those same generations and wealthy twats are now vying for global control as right-wing governments take power.

    Yeah, there was corporate propaganda at play. That does not negate the duty of the electorate to stay informed. They could have looked into it, but they didn't because it was an inconvenient truth.

    We've had strong indication that CO2 was going to fuck us since 1896 from research by Svante Arrhenius. And if you want to go waaaaayyy back, the idea that a small percentage of atmospheric gases could absorb infrared radiation was 1859 by John Tyndall. Oh, or maybe we can start the clock at 1824 when Joseph Fourier (yes that Fourier) first proposed the idea of greenhouse gases.

    So after 200 fucking years of knowing about this, we've still done fuck all.

    So yes. Many of our parents were willfully ignorant and didn't prioritize this issue because ... The Mexicans are coming across the border and we can't have that even if we'd really like to kick off a green energy revolution. AREGGHHHH! IF ONLY IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE DAMN ILLEGALS THEY WOULD'VE SOLVED THIS!

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Previous generations leveraged the future of their descendants to improve their wealth and economic growth

    Previous generations developed the industrial infrastructure that granted historic consumer surpluses (and waste), but vanishingly few of them reaped the full benefits.

    This isn't a problem of generation, its a problem of economic planning (or lack there of). The post-WW2 dedication to a fossil fuel economy was a military decision more than a civilian one. Capturing and holding large sources of fossil fuel made up the bedrock of the Cold War.

    Blaming this decision on Meema and Pepe is ahistorical.

    We’ve had strong indication that CO2 was going to fuck us since 1896 from research by Svante Arrhenius.

    We've had evidence of anthropogenic climate change, but also ample evidence of sizeable economic benefit to petroleum products - plastics and fertilizers not being the least of it.

    We had the opportunity to engage in long term moderate and sustainable use, but squandered it in the name of short term consumer-driven profits.

    But, again, this wasn't a decision made by a mass of proles, democratically. It was dictated from corporate boards and corrupt Congressional legislatures and Pentagon war rooms.

    The knowing didn't matter, because the public was never given a real choice.

    Many of our parents were willfully ignorant and didn’t prioritize this issue

    Efforts to prioritize the issue was repeatedly thwarted through elaborate and labor intensive lobbying campaigns, gerrymanders, bribes, blackmail, and direct physical violence.

    FFS, you had the national guard deployed to brutalize pipeline protesters just a few years ago. And that's a drop in the bucket besides the sacks and pillaging of native reservations, the toppling of foreign governments, and the endless FUD broadcast globally to defame ecologists and activists.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    We had the opportunity to engage in long term moderate and sustainable use, but squandered it in the name of short term consumer-driven profits.

    But, again, this wasn't a decision made by a mass of proles, democratically. It was dictated from corporate boards and corrupt Congressional legislatures and Pentagon war rooms.

    I think, ultimately, we agree. The main difference is I don't think "but, but, they were lied to" is an effective excuse to remove blame. In a democracy, however dysfunctional, the people share responsibility for the government the people elect.

    Voter participation since the 70s is garbage. We're just now breaking the high water mark of the 60's - 65% presidential ; 50% midterm.

    I am not saying it is their fault. Just that they are at fault. I'm at fault. I could have protested, but I believed too strongly that we'd get there. I never conceived we'd go backwards. I just thought if I kept voting right, we'd get there - slowly.

    That is my shame and blame to carry. And I won't give others a pass for their inaction or choices.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The main difference is I don’t think “but, but, they were lied to” is an effective excuse

    If you're sighting data collected in 1894 but discounting the education and media necessary to propagate that information to the general public, I'm not sure how the information is expected to disseminate.

    Yeah, people were absolutely lied to - insidiously and exhaustively. That necessarily shapes their world views.

    In a democracy, however dysfunctional, the people share responsibility for the government the people elect.

    Liberal democracy is barely worthy of the term. Congress has had a single digit approval rating for decades. The president regularly is underwater in public support. The parties are privately owned and operated, periodically selecting their nominees without any democratic input. Voters are systematically gerrymandered and disenfranchised. Popular candidates are smeared, removed from ballots, denied access to debates, and outright prosecuted.

    What do you say to the 60-80% of the population with no material representation in government?

    I’m at fault

    Unless I'm talking to a CEO of an energy company or a sitting Senator, I'm not clear what you are supposed to have done differently.

    The modern moment is historically overdetermined. It's hubristic to pretend you have any control over it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Yeah, people were absolutely lied to - insidiously and exhaustively. That necessarily shapes their world views.

    Yes, but people also see the truth. The information is there. Some people choose to believe the lies because it's convenient. They don't want to look into it. They don't want to listen to scientists, and instead choose to listen to politicians and companies.

    Voters are systematically gerrymandered and disenfranchised. Popular candidates are smeared, removed from ballots, denied access to debates, and outright prosecuted.

    Where are the riots? Where were the protests as Republicans red mapped? Why did they stop? Where was the blowback when Florida didn't give felons their right to vote back? Where are the riots when Republicans vote to remove the ability of citizens to add initiatives to the ballot?

    What do you say to the 60-80% of the population with no material representation in government?

    You don't need a vote to effect meaningful political change. Women couldn't vote. Until they could - through collective action.

    Everyone chooses how to react and interface with the world. All the distortions in American democracy didn't materialize overnight.

    People formed unions despite being murdered by pinkertons. Just because the system is fighting against us, doesn't absolve us of our responsibilities.

    The modern moment is historically overdetermined. It's hubristic to pretend you have any control over it.

    Correct my misunderstanding, but this tells me you have given up and think that nothing could have been done unless those with real power suddenly became altruistic in the past 3 decades.

    And on that point, we may fundamentally disagree. I have to believe that citizens can effect change individually or collectively despite everything stacked against them. If I admit that the power differential is intractable and hopeless, then our only hope is a sudden wave of noblesse oblige to overcome people's greed, and we are truly fucked. Hubristic or not, I have to believe we have agency.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, but people also see the truth.

    People see information weighted by quality of presentation and volume of utterances. "The Truth" is not self-revelatory nor is it self-reinforcing, particularly for a lay person. There are whole philosophical treaties that break this down.

    Where are the riots? Where were the protests as Republicans red mapped? Why did they stop? Where was the blowback when Florida didn’t give felons their right to vote back? Where are the riots when Republicans vote to remove the ability of citizens to add initiatives to the ballot?

    You have to ask, you haven't bothered to look. We had a Jacksonville man arrested after he tried to run over a pack of protesters in his neighborhood in June. We had a Texas congressional candidate tackled by police in the middle of a legislative session just last week. Over 3,200 students had been arrested on campus in the spring of 2024. The riots in LA have been happening for months.

    But the fact that you seem to be willing to deny the existence of ongoing domestic protests - flare ups that have been stretching back decades in this country - sort of illustrates the problem of "the truth of climate change". You've blinded yourself to crowds of people who may well be marching through your own neighborhoods. These are massive crowds of people who get regular news coverage, not obscure 19th century climatologists who go unmentioned save in the fine print of Wikipedia articles.

    Correct my misunderstanding, but this tells me you have given up

    If I had given up, I wouldn't be blaming random Boomers on the current state of affairs. I don't believe an entire generational cohort is irredeemably stupid.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    "The Truth" is not self-revelatory nor is it self-reinforcing, particularly for a lay person.

    It is not self-revelatory, but there are objective truths. If a lay person lacks the expertise to understand, they should defer to experts - not politicians or pundits.

    Falling for propaganda is a reason, but it is not an excuse. The electorate has a responsibility to be informed.

    You have to ask, you haven't bothered to look.

    I'm incredibly proud of what has been happening in my home city of LA. That's what we fucking need everywhere. Burn cities down until things change.

    But fair point! I was being more rhetorical and less literal. But that's my miscommunication error. My question wasn't to say they don't exist or haven't happened. I asked it to highlight that it isn't enough. That for the magnitude of what is happening and its importance, the response is impotent and not proportional.

    The world is increasingly on fire (almost literally). I'm living in a downtown metropolitan area minutes from city hall and protests are not daily.

    I don't believe an entire generational cohort is irredeemably stupid.

    Nor do I. I never said that. I said I blame them for their willful ignorance and their decision not to prioritize climate change politically.

    My position is simple. More could have been done, and because of that, we share blame and responsibility - however small. This is why I also blame myself.

    Anyway, I think we've kind of hit a natural end. I appreciated our conversation, and it's given me some things to mull over.

    Thank you❤️

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    And people think I'm crazy for starting an algae farm... There is no quick fix. "Science will figure something out"

    I am part of that science, and I can barely afford to scale beyond what I consider my carbon footprint.

    narcimalgae on YouTube, although the algorithm killed it (500 to 6 views on my last video)so I may move to peertube soon.

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  • [+] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    Water holds 8 times the gasous CO2 as the atmosphere it is exposed to at a given pressure(altitude). The algae, being carbon-based, pulls the carbon from the water to grow, and releases the oxygen as a biproduct. The algae biomass can then be condensed and stored, or used as a raw agriculture material. Water, sunlight, and a small amount of fertilizer all fed by an air pump.

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    [–] 28 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    At what point on this graph is ecoterrorism justified?

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It isn't too late now. Apparently AI is a good target - eating a world's supply of electricity to further enrich the billionaires while continuing to muddy the science of climate change. Wish people were as upset about that as they are about their porn being restricted.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    AI is going to fix this by increasing the scale of the Y axis.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago

    You dont understand. The poor billionairs need their money nowwww!

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I may be nitpicking here but I think people are misinterpreting the caption.

    They aren't directly saying, "your parents ignored this and now we're fucked"

    It's saying, "IF your parents ignored this and you found out, you'd be mad"

    Implying that, "YOU should not ignore this, because what will YOUR children think of YOU?"

    A lot of people are focusing on saying "uh well my parents aren't to blame" or "they wouldn't understand" but that's not the point of the message.

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