It’s April and I am sweating like crazy, it fucking sucks, but it also got me wondering what can I do? There is so much conflicting advice out there, even if I tell others about this, when they ask for a solution what do I tell?
So if all world leaders collectively agreed to put aside their differences, ditch capitalism and mobilise their entire populations to actively work to reduce emissions tomorrow we might stand a slim chance of preventing the worst case scenario…
So existential dread and weed it is.
Is that from that Paul movie?
yep.
As an individual the single most important thing you can do is vote for leaders who will make the necessary policy changes to make a difference, assuming you live in a country where this is possible. You can try to lower your own carbon footprint, and that is laudable, but the only way to change this is with strict regulation of fossil fuels and investment in renewable energy and that requires collective action.
Speaking of policy changes, IMO the best thing you can do as an individual is lobby your local government for zoning reform to increase density and walkablity. Because it’s local your influence can actually be significant, and zoning is by far the most transformative improvement we could make, dwarfing the impact of switching to EVs and whatnot.
LOL so you really think?
You really, really believe that we are going to listen when somebody claims to know “the only way”??
assassinate the top 1%.
If each of us able bodied where to go and collect scalps of the top 1% we’d have a fighting chance.
Do what you can to stop feeding the petroleum products industry. They use the money you give them to literally fuel this crisis.
- Choose an EV or hybrid for your next car
- Stop buying plastic storage containers and avoid plastics wherever you can
If you own your home, check into federal, state, and local rebates for these things:
- Replace your HVAC when it’s time with a heat pump
- Replace your water heater when it’s time with an electric or heat pump model
- If you live in a cold climate, look into electric-based heated flooring
- Look into solar panels for your roof
Adding to these good suggestions: shop at thrift stores.
And if you have time: volunteer at a thrift store.
The most effective thing you can do is try and influence local, state, and federal policies that will reduce emissions.
I’ve made several changes in my life, but I know in the grand scheme of things it won’t have any effect.
We wont.
That is reality, it doesn’t matter if the entire world turn off fossil fuel usage permanently this instant, there is allready far too much greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to reverse course, we might get to delay the inevitable a decade or so, but shit is comming.
My husband once said “we’re not killing the planet, we’re just rearranging it in a way that is not conducive to human life”. I think about that when I feel hopeless, we’re just a blip on a bigger radar, and we need to drop the main character syndrome that the world dies when we do.
Also though, scalp the 1%.
I know people here shit on individual action, but avoiding beef and driving are the two big ones
Not having kids is also huge
This is the biggest reduction to your possible carbon footprint. I’m glad I have been successful with this step.
And, please, raise a kid or three to pass that along. Just don’t produce them.
I shit in a bucket and recycle it into my own food, does that count as making a difference?
A long and rough collapse, followed by a slow rebuilding of a much smaller but much more unified global society.
Can we have a quick collapse? If the world is going to catch on fire there’s a few people I want to be sure are still alive when the consequences of their actions happen.
It’s as easy as stop reproducing.
So, ummm… Welp.
Damn.
Or reproduce more, but be selective such that our descendents are adapted to the new conditions.
Degrowth until we live within planetary bounds accomplished with cultural evolution and ending capitalism is the only thing that could actually work.
All other proposed solutions fail to address the fundamental unsustainability of our way of life and could only hope to slightly slow our demise.
As individuals, nothing. And if you do whilst countries like China, the US and Russia continue to pollute on a massive scale, you’re being taken for a fool.
It has taken about 100 years to create this problem.
We can start to solve it, maybe today, or maybe tomorrow, but it won’t go away within a single election period…
Nothing. There is literally nothing you can do.
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/
"China is the world’s largest annual greenhouse gas emitter.
In 2020, it emitted 12.3bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e), amounting to 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the CAIT database maintained by the World Resources Institute (WRI). This includes emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).
. . .
It is a “non-Annex I” party to the convention, meaning it is not obligated to contribute climate finance and was not required to make binding emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol."
Nothing changes until China changes.
How about we do that per capita, Cowboy ?
Some seem to be concerned enough by it that they might threaten secession (forming new nations that will do something about it) if their nation won’t do anything. And nations tend to hate secession.
