Well we couldn't stop capitalism from killing us and now it's killing us.
Maybe what comes after has a chance to not invent a species killing ideology.
Well we couldn't stop capitalism from killing us and now it's killing us.
Maybe what comes after has a chance to not invent a species killing ideology.
Damn. Our current trajectory already would've made life very difficult in 100 years, this news moves up the potential extinction part to be far closer than I'd anticipated, which means if we can't cast off capitalism soon, it will destroy our species and most other life on earth very rapidly.
We desperately need to build up decentralized grassroots working class movements globally as quickly as possible, enabling the use of our most powerful weapon: the General Strike.
The governments propping up fossil fuels would be brought to their knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor, allowing us to demand real changes, such as an end of fossil fuels, the abolishment of centralized state governments, and the end of capitalism.
The general strike was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would've had a successful revolution on their hands.
There are some concrete steps all of us can take toward enacting a general strike to make it more viable and bearable for us all. (the titles below expand if you click them).
Learn First Aid! ⛑️
Enacting a general strike will result in violence being used against us even as we attempt to avert global destruction. It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt.
Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.
But you'll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.
Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.
Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks ✊
If you haven't already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.
These are groups using direct action to solve each other's problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We've been building a list of resources in !inperson@slrpnk.net to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.
This isn't only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don't want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.
Join a Union to help prepare for a General Strike! 💪
If you aren't in a union (or even if you are, it's worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you'll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!). Unions are essential to effectively enacting a general strike, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike).
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally, and they are in bed with fossil fuels. If your country isn't listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they'll help you set up a new local branch.
Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
We'll start it off with some General Advice:
For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you'll need to scroll down. I'd add it here, but it won't fit in this comment).
I'd also highly recommend Full Spectrum Resistance to anyone who wants further info on how to resist (audiobook version here).
I took a quick skim. By toxic atmosphere, they mean as in probable health hazard, not as in directly killing people immediately.
Indoor co2 levels can easily hit 1000+ ppm co2, especially if your dwelling is well sealed, as many energy efficient dwellings are. Submarines keep co2 at the thousands ppm for extended periods and were the impetus for co2 studies on how much humans can take.
I don't think a major concern of rising atmospheric co2 is the direct threat to health caused by elevated co2 levels. I, personally, would be angered if someone told me that high co2 levels were dangerous to human health and then I read this.
So maybe in 100years of you can pay for it you can buy your home O²enrichment
This great news! Not just not have we an increasingly unstable climate causing unprecedented heatwaves, droughts, floods, snow, now we have steady increases atmospheric CO2 will cause direct health impacts and if it goes on then we will need to mutate to cope with it. That they can measure the increase in atmospheric CO2, by proxy, in the blood is pretty frightening.
You can see the change here:

more general info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_atmosphere_of_Earth
To make it even more scary, it is accelerating. It has increased 75 ppm in 30 years and it was 40 ppm in the first 30 years.
I mean, just the fact that we increased the ppm by ~100, or 1/3rd what it was, in just 60 years is terrifying. Let alone that it's accelerating. And CO2 isn't even the worst climate change gas. And there are many positive feedback loops getting exacerbated by the effects...
Good times
I see this sentiment quite often, is it field-specific? Cause in physics and chemistry, starting at 0 is really not required...
In this case, the zero value is really not relevant (since no-one would ever have it anyway). It would just hide the signifcant drift over time. A good scaling here would be based on some clinically relevant interval I guess.
I agree that showing the zero level may be useful here, but... I cannot find a scientific source that shows it differently, so it's not intentionally misleading at least. The bigger issue IMO is that it doesn't show enough historic context (ice core data). The original article has it, or nature.org or co2science.org (though it doesn't show the latest measurements).
Isn't this the opposite of truncated? They drill down each year's cycle and show like 80 years of cycles.
Not for your kids.
Tonnes of CO2e, averages:
1.60 a roundtrip transatlantic flight
2.40 one year of car use
58.60 one year, for every child you have
My GF's daughter is trying to get pregnant. It's very difficult for me not to scream "No!" I wish a grim future weren't true, but, it most certainly is going to continue to get worse. In short order, it will be exponentially noticeable.
They do mention that CO2 levels are typically higher indoors and that Americans spend 87% of their time indoors, but it would have been interesting to see a prediction for how much sooner this would become a problem inside.
Modern houses are actually quite a problem for this. A well insulated house also tend to be quite well sealed. I've seen my bedroom pass 5000ppm. I suspect a lot of people are working in 1000ppm environments or higher for long periods.
For those interested, IKEA recently released a air quality sensor that does CO2 for a very low price. ALPSTUGA
What do you even do about CO2 in that scenario. I can monitor it and collect data, but addressing it feels like a losing battle, especially in winter.
My plan is to replace the bathroom extractor with a heat exchanger. It takes outside air, warms it using the exhaust air, then dumps it into the bedrooms.
The living areas are easier. Opening a window for 10 minutes isn't an issue when you're awake and moving about.
You can also get vent replacement versions. They flip flop between venting out, and pulling in, storing heat in a heatsink as appropriate.
The apartment I used to live in was so good for this ventilation thing, even with all the windows closed. The air conditioner was installed permanently in the wall and had a gap around it that let enough wind through to rattle my vertical blinds across the room. Never had to worry about high co2 during those trapped-inside Midwest winters! :p
Joking aside, I covered that thing with plastic and layers of blankets. Current house isn’t much better in that regard, the air leaks are just from everywhere, because it’s ancient. Costs a fortune to heat, so I keep it cold all winter. But at least I don’t have too much to worry about with co2 buildup.
I feel you. I lived in a converted stable once. The place leaked air like a sieve.
I also discovered the oil fired boiler had 20m+ of unlagged pipes between it and our radiators, running through an unused stable. It took 2 full tanks/winter to just keep it above freezing. It should have been 1/2 a tank to keep it nice and warm.
One reason the window directly over my head in bed stays open all Winter.
I don't want it too cold when sleeping, and heating a room with an open window is wasteful and expensive.
I'm personally planning on installing an air to air heat exchanger. Even a cheap one can get 75% recovery. Add in some air sensors to make it smart and it's fairly fire and forget.
Ironic that the climate change deniers were usually the ones that claimed (falsely) that wearing masks caused this
This is not what I needed to start my Saturday morning with
Given that the entire evolution period for humans has seen a stable and relatively low atmospheric CO2 level (< 300 ppm), it’s possible that our physiology is finely tuned for a range of CO2 that will not be much greater than this level. As the atmospheric CO2 levels rise, already at 420 ppm, the increasing levels of bicarbonate, and decreasing levels of calcium and phosphorus in our blood represent permanent and growing changes in human blood chemistry. These changes can be explained by CO2 retention and overload in the body. The extra CO2 being inhaled isn’t expelled via increased ventilation, as ventilation rate is controlled by pH which has likely remained stable due to acid-base regulation. CO2 storage in the body then becomes a major issue presenting a risk to population health and an existential threat for many species especially given that the rise in atmospheric CO2 may be a phenomenon that has significant momentum. Realistically, to mitigate this approaching threat, the alarm needs to be raised immediately. Unfortunately, currently there is little awareness or inclination for action on this issue.
Brother I am so ready to be melted from inside out by my blood fuvk this shit
"Well, I guess it's time to wrap up this experiment called human beings up. It was a good run."
"Climate change will likely wipe out most of what we recognize as life..."
"...well, I guess its time to wrap up all of life then... please hug me."
"No."
It's not that bad. We are not able to wipe out all recognizable life. The whole freaking planet was frozen over once, and life recovered. Give it some million years and new species will evolve to fill the empty niches. Just don't bet on primates being around to tell the tale.
We're here as stewards to this planet and all of her life. We've failed at it all in our quest for money, power, and greed. I for one don't feel bad for us one bit. I do feel bad so many innocents will have to suffer, but we did nothing to stop this and it's what we deserve.
We're here as stewards to this planet and all of her life.
No, you are not. Just stop touching things and all is good.
And when you see an animal suffering and in need you just keep walking and pay it no mind?
Yeah. First rule in nature-related professions is generally to not touch. Careless touching can get the animal to be outcast or you to spread a sickness. And in the end, it's only to satisfy human kind instinct or morals anyway.
But "touching" was meant metaphorically. Our understanding of the larger picture in nature is only starting to surface. And general consciousness is still far behind the influence we have on the world as a species.
We have already created a garden world in europe (because it's the old continent) and have done a lot of damage in the process, the last few millennia, including "good practice" of managing woods creating only problems.
In short: do not touch nature, unless you know exactly what you do. And we especially don't need to "manage" it.
Ah, this helps put into perspective why the West is so cooked and we're sleepwalking into WWIII, lack of empathy and total apathy. I guess this is what we deserve.
lack of empathy and total apathy. I guess this is what we deserve.
A good thing is to learn to differentiate between 'emotional/gut reactions' and 'empathy'. A simple example can help: who do you think is the most helpful person (aka, showing empathy) in that hypothetical situation: two witnesses faced with a tragic car accident involving a little kid being badly hurt.
Ah, this helps put into perspective why the West
Are you being serious?
The comment you just replied to is one of of the most well grounded and sound I've read in way too long. Your... 'reaction' to it only demonstrates how badly we need to hear it a lot more often. A lot.
Also, a warm 'hello' from the West, wherever you living your perfect and faultless existence.
Ha, certainly I was being a bit hyperbolic. Still, I will help any animal wounded and not actively being pursued by a predator. You can denigrate me for that if you'd like, but I can't stand to see any life suffer.
You can denigrate for that if you’d like,
I'm not the one telling people they're bad persons because they show no sign of what you call 'empathy' and then explain it was just 'being a bit hyperbolic'.
Have a nice day.
Wholly beside the point.
Not really. It's all human nature. Some have empathy and others don't.
Which is beside my point. And acting on empathy while creating damage is egoistic.
Damage by your standard. Saving a life by mine.
i thought we needed to be closer to 800- 1000 pom for this to be a significant problem but that might have been me confusing studies on cognition with this ?
it would be nice if it sent us sterile.
i thought we needed to be closer to 800- 1000 pom
600ppm is the place where it start affecting human cognition from what i recall. there was a dude in the reddit back in the day called MrVisible that was obsessed with this and had a whole sub about it . i thing it was called r/doomsdaycult or something like that.
EDIT: i just went to find that old sub and reddit banned it of course . maybe a reddit archive will have it.
On a related note, it turns out that CO2 emissions also impair cognition. So, by the time the crisis peaks everybody is going to be too cognitively impaired to actually do anything about it.
https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/2020/04/21/continued-co2-emissions-will-impair-cognition
We're too cognitively impaired to do anything about it right now.
But AI will fix it for us ...
Well fuck.
We examined the impact of indoor plants on air quality parameters in office environments, focusing on relative humidity, indoor air temperature, and CO2 concentration. Our findings demonstrated that, while indoor plants significantly increase relative humidity, they had a negligible effect on indoor air temperature and CO2 concentration in the offices we sampled. This suggests that while plants can enhance comfort in dry indoor environments, their role in regulating temperature and CO2 levels is limited.
I guess I’d need to invest in a CO2 scrubber.
apparently there is this https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/genetically-modified-houseplant-cleans-indoor-air
I have no idea what the cost, efficacy, or availability of this product is. https://hydrocell.fi/en/air-cleaners-carbon-dioxide-filters-and-dac-appliances/uniqfresh-air-cleaners/
The only maintenance required is changing of the activated-carbon filter every six months, and replacement of the HEPA filter every five years. In normal use, the carbon dioxide filter cassette has a lifetime of at least 15 years.
Scuba-gear will be the fashion. Subscribe to FreshAer(TM) for a discount on breathing-tanks.
Finally corporations will be able to start selling subscriptions for air to breathe! A bright future for shareholders the world over.
To quote the actual abstract, not just the headline,
There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure to these increasing atmospheric CO2 levels can negatively impact the normal physiology of organisms. However, directly assessing this in humans is very difficult.
It does not say that they for sure know that atmospheric CO2 levels are going to be toxic within 50 years. It only says that, based on one examination of indirect proxies, it seems like that might be the case. Something which definitely should be studied further, because even the possibility of global atmospheric toxicity is worrying, but not something to jump to conclusions on, because doing so is bad science.
Their study result makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach too, I just want to keep a level head and not jump to "welp I guess we'll all be paying billionaires for clean oxygen tanks in 50 years".
If this really does turn out to be a problem we're heading towards, it's also premature to conclude that it won't get fixed. I know that if I learn that this is for real, I'm certainly going to be telling everyone I know about it and looking for ways to spur useful action.
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving species. Shame about all of the others that are dying with us.
"it’s possible that our physiology is finely tuned for a range of CO2 that will not be much greater than this level.". Also possible we will adapt or have to wear masks. Or will all die out.. or a giant dinosaur 🦖 happens because of radiation ...or nukes... Aliens.... Jesus returns...
I don't like this, but not surprised. We keep smoking (polluting) and we keep cutting away our lungs (removing nature).
Yeah. If you have kids after today, you’re a selfish cunt.
Right we should just give up as a species and only let the billionaires breed, thats a great solution
"I'm willing to create a life and send it off into a world that will with 100% certainty be harder and more marked with privation and disaster than my own just to feel like I cheated death." doesn't sound like too great a solution, either.
How about taking care of the millions of children that are already alive that no one wants?
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