The transition from The Fossil Fuel Age to the Renewables Age continues apace. It’s worth noting solar, wind and batteries have years more price falls ahead. In the 2030s, country after country will have near 100% renewables powered grids.
World on brink of climate breakthrough as fossil fuels ‘run out of road’, UN chief says
This mentality is incredibly irritating. There is no silver bullet of any sort that is going to solve our many environmental issues. The actual solution is going to be an accumulation of thousands of small “meaningless” actions. So quit with the nihilistic bullishit.
Correct. Several billion people, all say “nah, this bit I do changes nothing”. Too many to ignore, too stupid to change.
The “actual solution” is several large economy-wide industry-scale structural changes to manufacturing and transportation. That’s what we’ve seen in every country that successfully reduced their carbon emissions.
The very fact that you came in with “thousands” rather than “tens of millions” illustrates that you simply do not want to accept the scale at hand. The average global citizen produces 4 tonnes of carbon/year. The average American produces 16. The Bezos wedding put (conservatively estimated) 1,000 tonnes into the atmosphere, over the span of a long weekend.
You’re asking people to piss out the World Trade Center fire and getting angry when anyone suggests that maybe we need a large professional fire department to handle this kind of job.
You missed my point completely. It’s not specifically about carbon emissions, it’s about all the environmental issues, and the personal responsibility we all have to do what we can to solve it. There are thousands of little things that individuals can do. Each of those people doing a thing on their own adds up. I get annoyed when comments like yours discourage those little actions. If all 8 billion people on the planet would do little things like recycle properly, things like the Pacific garbage patch wouldn’t exist.
There’s also the factor of peer pressure the more one recycles the more encouraged everyone else is to do the same.
2.6M pounds of Houston recyclables tossed in landfill: Records reveal city broke its own recycling rules hundreds of times.
Of the estimated 2.6 million pounds of recyclables dumped where they didn’t belong, 1.1 million pounds—or 41 percent—were dumped after March 1, when the city’s new, state-of-the-art recycling center started processing recyclables.
shrug
If a tens of thousands of people do the right thing at the individual level and then a dozen people do the wrong thing out of expediency and profit, and there’s no mechanism for firing and replacing the irresponsible managers, then the efforts of the many are squandered to the profit of the few.
You’re leaving out a crucial component. The societal shift to a plant-based diet.
I don’t care how “small” my climate actions are, I’m going to keep doing them as it’s my personal responsibility and to show others there is a better way of doing things. We need to stop expecting silverbullets to every problem we face in life as that stunts our growth.
A lot of people say “don’t do anything better because the rich ride private jets!” however that makes their behaviour more permissible since if we can’t be clean ourselves how the hell are we going to convince enough people to hold them accountable at some point for their climate recklessness. We need to ingrain the values of sustainability in people.
That’s a consequence of economy-wide, industrial-scale change. Greater cultivation and distribution of fresh greens, gords, beans, etc. Fewer subsidies and natural resources diverted to feedstock and livestock. When a major component of our greenhouse gas emissions comes from alfalfa exported to feed Saudi livestock on the other side of the planet, you need hundreds of Californians to turn vegan in order to net the benefit of one Saudi aristocrat.
I’m not saying “Don’t do anything”. I’m saying “Don’t be the sin-eater for other people’s crimes”.
If you want to shift the planet away from meat, you can’t just settle on opening up a can of beans. You need to petition to stop dumping half your state’s water reserve into growing macadamia nuts for Mark Zuckerberg’s Texas cattle ranching hobby.
Which can inspired by one person whether they be a friend or family member. People need to be provided with good examples around them to do better. Incremental change is what leads to societal change.
This isn’t a Disney movie
It’s isn’t all doom either.
Humans are a very “follow the leader” kind of species. If our leaders (political, technological or cultural) don’t care about the environment, as in only talk but no action, the general population will also care a lot less. That’s how it works.
That’s why we need newer leaders who arise to the challenges of today sidestepping the nonsense of fascism and neoliberalism.