This month is the planet's hottest on record by far – and hottest in around 120,000 years, scientists say | CNN
This month is the planet's hottest on record by far -- and hottest in around 120,000 years, scientists say | CNN
I’m sure this will spur society to prioritise the future viability of our species survival and the state of the environment over short term quarterly profits right? … right?
Nope, they'll just crank the AC even higher and get back to watching some "neckflis".
Better copy this comment in preparation to paste next year when we hit the hottest year again. May just create a bot myself to do so. I mean one of these days humanity will take it serious right????
Most companies do not optimize to exist long term. Another, longer lasting, entity needs to take charge of this. Like humanity itself, except it needs some organization, reflecting legitimate consenus. The problem is that it needs to be enforcable, and world govenment with punitive powers is not an unproblematic idea.
I think one big problem is that Earth has become too small, but this fact and it's implications did not quite get absorbed. People act on in instinctively by favoring space exploration, but it's pursued by most adventurous ones, and not in unproblematic ways.
This month is the planet's hottest on record so far.
This feels like people opining about mass shootings.
Yes it's a problem. No one cares enough to vote differently in order to change it, so there's nothing we can do but fend for ourselves.
I feel I've seen this title-comment combination before.
I mean yeah, we can’t measure future temperatures.
We know it will get hotter, but still.
See you next year guys for a new record!
My son is 8 years old. Every summer when he is drenched in sweat, I tell him to enjoy his coolest summer.
I hope things turn around.
I, too, agree with the scientists that we're all well and truly fucked.
120k years ago was about the end of the Eemian interglacial period, which was a significantly warm period.
How do they estimate temps so long ago? What data do they use?
They have various methods. One of the common ones is analyzing ice core samples. The ice sheets are accumulated over the years so each layer on ice sheets is from a certain historical period (much like tree trunks.) By analyzing the chemical status of the ice core on each layer, they can extract data, such as temperature, about a certain period.
I wonder what next year will be like
"The hottest on record"
There is currently war in Europe, how bad is itfor climate change?
I can not object to fact that the war not good, but the impact on emissions is not so simple. There was a decrease in all kinds of activities in Ukraine, reducing consumption. Also a lot less fossil fuels are burned, and solar power is found to be more resilent to attacks due to it's distributed nature. However, I suspect, overall it is still bad for the climate change.
I can feel it
the best things as an individual you can do to fight climate change:
Actually the best things you can do are
1: join a climate lobbying group (I joined this non-partisan group : https://citizensclimatelobby.org/)
2: contact your congressperson and tell them you support carbon tax and dividend
3: contact your congressperson and tell them you support raising taxes to subsidize green investment and end fossil fuel subsidies
4: vote. Locally and federally and often. Here's why local matters: https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/i-team/it-reminds-me-of-the-hunger-games-rural-residents-complain-about-solar-farm-where-cincinnati-buys-power
Any "you stuff" is way after the above in terms of efficacy.
Your first suggestion is not possible for a significant percentage of people, from a US perspective. The infrastructure is not there for public transport. Walking to your job everyday is a foolish suggestion, for anyone not within a reasonable mileage of their home.
Just vote and protest.
No matter how much corporations and governments want us to believe that we're at fault, our contribution to the problem is negligent in comparison with oil companies and huge manufacturers. You can't tell someone not to have kids without even mentioning the real problem out there.
I'm 18 and will never want kids for moral reasons, it's cruel to bring children into a world that is doomed. If I were to want kids I'd adopt.
Yup. Adoption is the only way I'd have a kid, but I can barely look after myself, so it wouldn't be fair to a kid to put that on them.
How about stopping other individual from doing some things? Else this strategy is self-defeating, those survive who will not follow it. Writing a comment about it actually counts for conviencing others, but should this fact be one of the points?
It's sad how quick you're being downvoted. The attitude online is such a defeatist, we can't do anything vibe. Give them an enemy to blame and they'll happily grumble about how powerless they are and how unfair it all is, tacitly giving themselves excuses not to change their own behaviours.
Having done a LOT of vegan activism over the years, there's one thing that always sticks out. People don't think they have any power to do anything about injustices. Not just animal injustices, but anything. At all. People will just roll over and take it up the arse pipe. Regardless how badly they're being treated, and what is being done to them. People are so defeatist. It's sad. as individuals, we have a lot of power when done collectively.
The narrative that the average joe is to blame for this shit is so infuriating to me. Myself and 50,000 other people could start walking everywhere and it very likely wouldn’t come close to offsetting the emissions of Amazon’s fleet of trucks.
Yes individual consumption matters, but there’s a very small group of individuals called billionaires that contribute 1000x more than you or I ever could. BP invented the idea of the individual carbon footprint.
The average person is the reason Amazon exists, so... That's still on the average person.
This is what people miss in this false dichotomy. Businesses only exist because demand exists. Countries need to start passing unpopular things like Carbon Taxes to seal the deal against climate change by hitting consumer demand and raising prices
Oddly enough, without changing buying habits or consumer demand, I think the Amazon truck is a superior option.
The trick, as you said, is to change consumer behavior and people balk at doing that, especially when it will cost more and income inequality hits harder than ever. Tax the rich, level the playing field, and the rest gets much easier.
I'm not demanding products which harm the environment made using methods which harm the environment. Businesses make the choice to produce those things instead of carbon-neutral environmentally friendly products, so they are more at fault than the individual who buys the thing. It's extremely difficult for an individual to be able to uncover the environmental implications of everything you buy and do. The only real solution is to pass laws which properly account for the harmful externalities in the production cost, such as carbon tax. That will steer both businesses and consumers towards more sustainable decisions.
Be real mate. Thats not how it works.
Suppliers create the demand.
People werent demanding smartphones before smartphones got invented.
Most new things are shunned by most people until they slowly gain popularity and then the demand starts to exist.
You are stating the hypothesis of capitalism whilst ignoring the conclusion.
If you want to kill BP, stop buying oil. The Amazon fleet is about 70,000 vehicles and they're transitioning to electric right now.
Consumers drive markets. Mega corporations aren't polluting for the fun of it. They do it because it's a byproduct of them taking our money. Stop giving them money and they stop polluting. Why else would they stop?
"Voting with your dollar" is bullshit. Just stop buying oil? Ok, let me go to the no oil store and buy a new car that doesn't run on gas and isn't made with any plastic. Let me spend my entire 5 dollars worth of disposable income to buy a new vehicle. And then take that vehicle to the store that has 0 petroleum products. No cans lined with PFAS, no plastic bags, no plastic packaging, no products made entirely of plastic. Never fly again in your life, or take the bus. Don't you even think about eating out again. Live life as a hermit, make your own goods, provide your own services and maintinence to yourself to ensure an oil free existence. Better start soon too, the planets only getting hotter. Rinse and repeat x8,000,000,000.
Markets are driven by capital. Those with the most capital have the greatest influence. Your pittance of a wage isn't going to change a damn thing. 10% of the global population has 52% of the purchasing power. Even if the other 90% of us all united together at once, about a single thing, we still wouldn't have the purchasing power to overwhelm them. You can't reform a system that's made to perpetuate consumption and pollution. It's cheaper to pollute by design. Do you think it's a coincidence that bills meant to make polluting more expensive either don't get passed or are so rife with loopholes they're effectively useless? Pull your head out of your ass. If there was ever a time this shit show could be reformed, it's long gone.
While true that they're not polluting for fun, many corporations will try to avoid any anti-pollution measure that will lose them money. To the point where they spend billions of dollars every year to lobby governements, enviromental protection organizations, and drag out regulations with lawsuits. Because in the long run it's usually worth it for them to pollute, as long as the investors see enough profits in the short term.
> The Amazon fleet is about 70,000 vehicles and they’re transitioning to electric right now.
They are not doing this because of the goodness of their heart. They are doing it because of $$$$. Gas costs more, so it's more economical to switch to electric.
Rest assured, if there are other places where it's more economical to strip mine the environment and increase the rate of climate change, they will switch to that cheaper method in a heartbeat, if they aren't already doing so.
If it was an option, I wouldn’t buy oil. I can’t just up and buy an EV even if I wanted to (I do). Not that that’s even a completely green option. Also, 5000 EVs vs 10 times as many trucks in the whole fleet is cool, but it doesn’t make me want Amazon to burn to the ground any less.
Not to support Amazon, but those trucks on optimized delivery routes are likely better for the environment than individials each driving their own cars to box stores...
If only we had some nationalized way to deliver parcels on an optimized route…
You existing is why those companies use that energy.
I agree that it's BS to put the blame on the average person's behavior.
But the blame is on us collectively.
We use a lot of energy.
Those companies are the reason that energy isn’t produced with cleaner alternatives like nuclear, wind, or solar
Billionaires and corporations lobby governments and donate to superPACs(legal bribery) to have them promote their business interests and protect their capital.
Infinite growth is not sustainable on a finite planet. The billionaires aren’t going to save us. Buying stuff is not going to save us. Neoliberalism and Capitalism is not going to save us.
either way the average joe is gonna need to do something cuz the billionaires wont. lets just kill them
I like your solution the best. It’s what Jesus would want.
you do realise that these companies do these things because customers buy them, right? If you didn't buy stuff on amazon, there wouldn't be any amazon trucks around.
you do realize that I don’t buy stuff from Amazon and there are still Amazon trucks around right?
Try shipping vessels. I think I read that 7 of them are responsible for an incredible high percentage of all emissions or something
Sulfate emissions.
Which are bad, but are not CO2 emissions.
The entire shipping industry is a small fraction of the US's automobile emissions.
I think that billionaires are some kinde of problem but megacorps (big 9, Nestle, cocacola, fashion industry) are much worst :(
Hate to be devils advocate here, but even if billionaires contribute 1000x each, there is just one of them for 1000x1000x1000x1000x people so in total their contribution does not matter. What matters is their business choices which favor unsustainable practies for billions of people, so eventually they have a huge effect, just not directly.
While true that total consumption is less than the rest of the population, billionaires have a very large influence and people try to mimic them. If they don't set an example and still fly everywhere in a private jet, those 1000x1000x1000x1000x people will also say f it, if a billionaire can't do it, I certainly can't.
> Myself and 50,000 other people could start walking everywhere and it very likely wouldn’t come close to offsetting the emissions of Amazon’s fleet of trucks.
Not if you keep ordering shit from amazon it won't. It will prevent 50,000 people's worth of transportation emissions, though.
Don't sell yourself short. You're more responsible for the situation than you want to admit.
> there’s a very small group of individuals called billionaires that contribute 1000x more than you or I ever could.
Wrong. The top 0.1% pollute 10x as much (per capita) as the top 10% (excluding the top 0.1%). Source
> BP invented the idea of the individual carbon footprint.
If the strongest argument against an idea is "the wrong people came up with it", the idea is probably pretty good.
you don’t know me buddy. I don’t use Amazon and I pretty much only drive to and from work. good fucking luck not giving Amazon money given that AWS hosts millions of companies websites.
/e ALSO top 0.1% isn’t a small enough group to address what I’m talking about. Try top 0.01%, that’s about where you’ll find billionaires.
According to your source, the top 1% emit 50 tonnes of CO2/capita/yr. The top 0.1% emit 200 tonnes of CO2/capita/yr. That is still an insane increase the wealthier one becomes.
Not saying that one should not try to limit their emissions (we definitely should stop buying stuff from amazon/big companies, if not to limit emissions, at least to break their monopolies), but there is definitely some low hanging fruit in that top percentage (e.g. having 800 people limit emissions is going to be harder when you have the same effect by just limiting the 8 at the top).
Also you're last sentence is quite hostile, BP definitely came up with it to avoid their responsibility and pivot it to other people. The idea might not be 'bad' per se, but if you do it so to avoid your own responsibility, it is definitely bad practice (which, again, is why each of us should try to limit our carbon emissions)
This is just the same buck-passing that BP was doing.
You are personally responsible for your own contribution.
You are doubly responsible for giving money to BP or Chevron.
You have control over some things in your life. If you choose to live like the average american driving everywhere, eating meat, and inefficiently climate controlling a building that is far bigger than needed and poorly insulated, then you are choosing to emit an amount of CO2 that will contribute to several deaths.
You are also directly giving the oil, gas, and meat industries the resources to kill many more.
Just because BP passed the buck, doesn't exonerate you.
As I said above, you people don’t know me. It’s absolutely not the same as BP because I don’t make billions off of poisoning the planet. Nor have I stifled alternative energy for a hundred years.
Kill rich people.