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Is it too late?

You know how you put a lobster or a crab in a pot of cold water and heat it up and then they just die without any panic. That’s the human race. Two weeks ago wild fires raged, it was in the papers the next day, now? Nothing. Until next summer, when it’s worse, and the summer after that, etc etc.
but love island and the lionesses and wagatha christie
 
The US tried to buy Greenland a couple of years ago. Was that a hedge against global warming or simple case of Trump madness?
It's partly about trade routes, I think it's something to do with ships being more able to travel through the artic nowadays. Because what we really need more of is disrupting the artic. There was a Half As Interesting youtube video on it recently
 
That’s the trouble - YOU can’t do anything as an individual. Political will and systematic change is what’s needed, and even if we put the pressure on the powers that be as consumers/citizens, I fear that will still not be enough
There are lots of things we can do as individuals. Why do people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and insist that nanny state makes rules to force us to change our behaviour? It's an absurd attitude.
 
We can do something as individuals but, unfortunately, governments and multinationals have much more power and influence over our energy sector than we do. And the billions in China and India have little power at all. Where do they get the wherewithal to purchase ground source heat pumps? Or solar panels? Etc etc.
 
We can do something as individuals but, unfortunately, governments and multinationals have much more power and influence over our energy sector than we do. And the billions in China and India have little power at all. Where do they get the wherewithal to purchase ground source heat pumps? Or solar panels? Etc etc.
Yes, but as individuals we can all add momentum to a chain reaction. For example, if you use an e-cargo bike for the school run or a big supermarket shop or taking a friend to the pub, car drivers will notice. You will overtake some of them and get a better parking spot. Some will copy you. E-cargo bikes then multiply, and their mere presence builds the case for bike friendly infrastructure, secure parking and so on, so local and central government react. Consumption of petrol and diesel in your area declines. This strengthens the hand of your government when they go to a climate conference to persuade the likes of China and India to do more. This is one of dozens of ways the individual can influence societal change. If you refuse to do these things until China and India or your own government make the first move.....it's just barmy. And hostile to your fellow humans and their descendants.
 
Yes, but as individuals we can all add momentum to a chain reaction. For example, if you use an e-cargo bike for the school run or a big supermarket shop or taking a friend to the pub, car drivers will notice. You will overtake some of them and get a better parking spot. Some will copy you. E-cargo bikes then multiply, and their mere presence builds the case for bike friendly infrastructure, secure parking and so on, so local and central government react. Consumption of petrol and diesel in your area declines. This strengthens the hand of your government when they go to a climate conference to persuade the likes of China and India to do more. This is one of dozens of ways the individual can influence societal change. If you refuse to do these things until China and India or your own government make the first move.....it's just barmy. And hostile to your fellow humans and their descendants.
I agree with you. Don't let the bastards grind you down. But being realistic, we have to persuade/cajole/force the powers that be to change their ways.
 
There are lots of things we can do as individuals. Why do people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and insist that nanny state makes rules to force us to change our behaviour? It's an absurd attitude.
Unfortunately, it’s corporations that need to make the biggest efforts and they certainly need to be forced to do so. But, yes, people do need to be forced to change their behaviour. Persuasive argument’s not gonna work, is it?
 
Yes, but as individuals we can all add momentum to a chain reaction. For example, if you use an e-cargo bike for the school run or a big supermarket shop or taking a friend to the pub, car drivers will notice. You will overtake some of them and get a better parking spot. Some will copy you. E-cargo bikes then multiply, and their mere presence builds the case for bike friendly infrastructure, secure parking and so on, so local and central government react. Consumption of petrol and diesel in your area declines. This strengthens the hand of your government when they go to a climate conference to persuade the likes of China and India to do more. This is one of dozens of ways the individual can influence societal change. If you refuse to do these things until China and India or your own government make the first move.....it's just barmy. And hostile to your fellow humans and their descendants.
It’s not barmy at all. You are just not thinking hard enough. You seem to think people are fully informed and educated enough to make the logical decision of consuming less and not fed propaganda by the corporations and their lapdog media. How naive
 
So you, an individual, are saying that you can't do anything worthwhile.
Not without systematic change as well which IMO either will happen via tragedy (the deaths of millions of people from heat/flooding to the point where even the rich are affected) and/or by force (law). We cannot wait for people to make their own minds up ffs.
 
You can still do something as an individual. It's nonsensical to say you can't do anything unless there is systematic change. Stop being an idiot.
 
You can still do something as an individual. It's nonsensical to say you can't do anything unless there is systematic change. Stop being an idiot.
Yes, but it is nothing without systematic change. Do you really think everything will change just because more people ride their bikes?
 
You can still do something as an individual. It's nonsensical to say you can't do anything unless there is systematic change. Stop being an idiot.
Big Oil Is Trying to Make Climate Change Your Problem to Solve. Don’t Let Them
May 14, 2021
A new Harvard study highlights a decades-long trend — how industry creates systemic problems and then blames consumers for it
Of course, consumers aren’t entirely blameless, particularly the world’s wealthiest individuals, but the idea that oil is a purely demand-side industry is ridiculous. In the 1980s, for example, when the oil crisis was finally over (oil prices had risen by 300 percent at one point) oil companies were very worried about the fact that Americans had gotten good at saving energy, so good that demand seemed to have permanently dipped.
Did they reduce supply accordingly? No, they looked for ways to drive demand back up, tinkering with production and lobbying for policies that would incentivize increased fossil fuel use. More recently, as companies have grappled with a natural gas glut, they have not stopped fracking, but merely found a new revenue stream — plastic.
 
Big Oil Is Trying to Make Climate Change Your Problem to Solve. Don’t Let Them
May 14, 2021
A new Harvard study highlights a decades-long trend — how industry creates systemic problems and then blames consumers for it
Yeah, I know all that, most people do, and it's come up at urban before. It's nonsensical and immoral and perverse to use that to justify doing nothing to change your behaviour.

This is a very simple point I'm making here. There is no logical argument against it. And as I've already explained, one person's change in behaviour, which is trivial on its own, can become a popular trend and mushroom into a historic societal change.

This is one of the fundamental mechanisms of society. If you refuse to allow that it may operate with emissions and consumption, maybe you should ask yourself whether your fears of climate disaster have engendered paranoia?

There's a great deal of paranoia about. It's not surprising, given the multiple horrifying threats we face. Paranoia, unlike some other conditions, can be very tricky to recognise. Sufferers often reject any help and go untreated for life. It's a symptom of psychosis, which sounds scary, but it's not Anthony Perkins with a knife, it's just a problem perceiving some aspects of reality accurately, and it's treatable with medication and CBT.
 
You need to read what you’ve linked to and maybe change your wording. You are describing using necessary measures to ameliorate a global emergency that threatens human existence and has destroyed and will destroy many species and ecosystems as paranoia. Get fucked with that
 

People have become weak and decadent
and distracted by trivialities.

They need a strong leader who will make the important decisions for them.

It is imperative that a critical mass of support be secured so that we are not dragged down by the weak, entranced and distracted masses who will only vote for the own inevitable degradation and destruction, and we will be dragged down with them.

We must be resolute and unflinching in what we have to do.

It was something like that, anyway. I have a memory like a sieve these days.
 
You need to read what you’ve linked to and maybe change your wording. You are describing using necessary measures to ameliorate a global emergency that threatens human existence and has destroyed and will destroy many species and ecosystems as paranoia. Get fucked with that
You really have lost the plot and joined the tyre-kicking club. I suggest mutual ignore
 
You really have lost the plot and joined the tyre-kicking club. I suggest mutual ignore
I don't want to ignore such wrongheadedness. explain yourself. tyre-kicking? incorrect use of the word paranoia to describe stating the need for necessary measures to slow down a now-guaranteed partial apocalypse? Do better at explaining your thinking please. How is it paranoid? We know something awful is going to happen to the Earth and it’s not because everyone is out to get you. It’s because we’ve trashed the planet. Paranoia doesn’t come into it at all.
 
Indeed, I think one of the points Robinson was trying to make is that it will take some kind of catastrophe for the world to take this seriously.

The first chapter is one of the bleakest pieces of fiction I have read, but the rest of the book isn't. It's more of. polemic than a true novel, although, like a lot of Robinson's work a main story line is barely alluded to and you have to fill it in yourself - see also Red Moon. [Spolier]
I liked his Mars trilogy. I'll check out the one you've mentioned.

In answer to the OP; personally, I think it's been left too late to stave off warming to a reasonable level and things in the intermediate term are going to get very unpleasant.

However, recent environmental extreme events, the covid pandemic and the Ukraine war are starting to focus minds in ways that haven't happened since the world was made aware of the dangers of CFCs. So a potential positive takeaway is the acceleration away from fossil fuels brought on by recent events. Also, in the field of renewable energy generation and storage, there are massive strides being made both in efficiency and in lowering reliance on toxic heavy metals and rare-earth metals etc.

Whilst things are, to put it mildly, less than ideal, we're not quite at the 'abandon all hope' stage yet.
 
What was it about CFCs that made people sit up and listen? The potential destruction of the ozone layer as an environmental catastrophe is just as nebulous and hard-to-imagine as other man-made existential threats, yet we did something about it, and pretty quickly, but we still seem unable to imagine even more serious and immediate threats to our existence.
Was it just because there were easily adopted alternatives to CFCs? Nothing like the plethora of renewable energy sources that mostly don’t work on the scale they need to yet.
 
Indeed, I think one of the points Robinson was trying to make is that it will take some kind of catastrophe for the world to take this seriously.

The first chapter is one of the bleakest pieces of fiction I have read, but the rest of the book isn't. It's more of. polemic than a true novel, although, like a lot of Robinson's work a main story line is barely alluded to and you have to fill it in yourself - see also Red Moon. [Spolier]
When I worked in change management I was taught a change principal that...

People resist change until crisis.

An alcoholic won't admit they have a problem until their husband walks out in them.
The man who doesn't eat healthy until their heart attack.
The CEO who won't do online shopping until they've lost most of their customer base.

Often it's too late to change. Customers never return. A second heart attack finishes him off.

The problem we have is we've already had lots of crisis and people were actively employed to convince us it wasn't happening for the sake of profits.
A false narrative was sold to too many people.
Even those who now realise the crisis is real are still hoping some future fairy dust (undiscovered technology) will solve it for them with magic targets but no actions.

I don't hold out much hope for us.
 
What was it about CFCs that made people sit up and listen? The potential destruction of the ozone layer as an environmental catastrophe is just as nebulous and hard-to-imagine as other man-made existential threats, yet we did something about it, and pretty quickly, but we still seem unable to imagine even more serious and immediate threats to our existence.
Was it just because there were easily adopted alternatives to CFCs? Nothing like the plethora of renewable energy sources that mostly don’t work on the scale they need to yet.
The issue with CFCs and ozone depletion boiled down to one simple argument: Fix it now or by 2100 everything's gone. This article goes into some detail regarding the efforts and successful outcome of the Montreal protocol: what happened to the ozone hole?

Environmental scientists and campaigners lament the lack of equivalent coordination and sense of urgency surrounding CO2 emissions as there was with CFCs. Governments across the world had the opportunity to ride the momentum and come up with a comprehensive strategy for CO2 reduction, but then the dead hand of the fossil fuel industry and their paid propagandists injected confusion and inertia into the process and, well, here we are.
 
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