Great article! It gets more depressing with every paragraph, so it's realistic.
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Honestly getting very numb to this constant stream of negativity.
I want so bad to do right for this planet and the future of all living things, but my 9 solar panels and a hybrid car will not change the impending doom that is upon the planet...
In all fairness it's getting kind of funny. How we aren't absolutely slaughtering those responsible is beyond me. People got their heads cut of for far less.
They won't, but talking with your neighbors, building consensus, and changing the rules of society might.
Yes. The answer I expect. Has it worked until now?
Politics tends to not work and not work and suddenly work once you have sufficient power.
In the US:
- There were occasional quiet warnings of the problem to politicians starting in the 1950s.
- In the 1980s we got to the point of being able to get testimony in front of congress, but didn't have a single vote for action
- In the 1990s, we had only a handful of politicians who would be willing to vote for any kind of meaningful action
- In the 2000s we had legislation pass the house, but die in Senate because there were only ~40/100 votes in favor there
- In 2021 we actually got carrots-only legislation passed into law
We're not where we need to be yet, but it's clear that you can actually get something that way.
I'm not American myself. But have you watched the movie "don't look up" ? It's about a huge world wide threat, in the form of a comet, that will kill everyone. Politics (in an absurdist way) make it impossible to do something against the threat.
It's a worldwide problem. People actively lobbying against climate laws are criminals and should be treated like it. People need to be educated and activated to fight it. That hasn't happened yet. The damage is done.
You see. Temperature and climate aren't the things that'll kill us. We can adapt to almost anything as long as we agree to do it together. Even if its not "economically viable". We have reached space and built towers higher than the clouds, for crying out loud.
But ecosystems in general will not adapt, at all. So realise that, if we succeed to change the course of this climate change, the ecosystems that are collapsing already will not magically fix themselves. In fact, they'll still probably collapse. We are part of these systems too.
I would love to be positive about the small victories, but we are going to see some very hard to process changes in the coming years. It will get worse before anything will get better.
It's still in the "concept of a plan" phase