Biden literally just cancelled oil and gas leases less than a week ago. I agree he hasn't done enough, but there is some validity to the old statement that perfection is often the enemy of good.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Our left wing party is still opening new coal and gas mines so be thankful for whatever progress you get I say.
perfection is often the enemy of good.
I whole heartedly agree. Things don't change overnight. We can't rebuild hundreds of cities to eliminate car dependency by next Wednesday.
What we can change rapidly is behavior. It isn't hard to convince someone to eat less beef when alternatives are cheaper. It isn't hard to convince people that buying one nice 30 dollar shirt that looks better, feels better, and lasts for many years is cheaper than 2 20 dollar shirts that fade and unravel at the seems in a year.
We can't expect everyone to junk their canyoneros tomorrow. We can convince them to harass city officials into put bollards up on the bike lanes because more bikes is less traffic that they have to sit in.
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We just have to learn the hard way don’t we?
As an elementary school teacher, “the hard way” is the overwhelming choice of kids. I don’t think it changes that much when they grow into adults.
Or we can work to stop things that are existential crises.
The sun is a nuclear furnace. Climate change IS nuclear war!
(we should nuke the sun)
Gotta nuke something
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Of course. Climate change is happening, and will keep getting worse until all the biggest countries agree to do and actually go through with doing something substantial about it (or to fully isolate the economies of those that refuse). Nuclear war is just an idea.
It's doubtful curbing CO2 output will put a stop to it now. We're already seeing the beginnings of feedback loops kicking in, and with them runaway climate collapse.
We've got pretty clear evidence that getting emissions to zero is enough to stop the increase in average surface temperature.
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I've got some bad news... We're already there.
Not exactly. Most references to 1.5C are about the long term average hitting that level, not an individual year.
Given the trend, it's a pretty strong indicator we're there. What is long-term in the context of a change over 10-20 years, that's reaching a breakaway point?
You understand that when things are steadily moving in one direction, we'd need to overshoot the difference between the start of the reference period and the 1.5 degree figure by 100%(incorrectly assuming linear change - the reality is more exponential - far worse by the time it shows up)
For example - for a 1.5C change over 6 years, starting at 0C:
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Year 0 - real temp 0, average 0
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Year 3 - real temp 1.5, average 0.75
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Year 6 - real temp 3, average 1.5
The year to year variation is much larger than the underlying increase. We could easily see several years with the anomaly under 1.5C before
Then finally start making the companies that make a win out of it pay more taxes!! Like, CO² taxes, import/export taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue
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The next 10 or 20 years? I just read an article that hit it already and will likely do it consistently over the next several years. The next 10-20 will likely few closer to a 3.6°F (2°C) rise.
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Didn’t we just hit 1.5C today?
We're still some years from hitting an ongoing sustained average of 1.5°C above what it was in the late 1800s. That's what people mostly talking about when they say 1.5°C
This year will be above 1.5°C. Which means we did reach that.
What you're talking about is the average of yearly average temperatures. But it's not what we're looking at. We've never seen earth average temperature above +1.5. And averages don't move much. I don't care if next year will "only" be +1.49...
Climate change is scary, but scarier than nuclear war? I dunno, man.
IMHO this mostly tells us that Biden is talking about climate policy with the people around him. That's enough to be a big deal.
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Nuclear war is quick.
Climate change is slow.
Gimme the quick flash over the boiling frog deal Everytime.
If you're lucky enough to be one of the minimal handful who actually die in the quick flash. More likely you'll be one of the multitudes poisoned by radioactive fallout or starved by nuclear winter.
It's not better.
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The scariness multiplied by the probability of it happening maybe...
IDK, climate-fueled illnesses — tied to hotter temperatures, and swifter passage of pathogens and toxins. Continuing pandemics would be no treat.
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Putin might save us all when he orders some confused kid to turn those keys.
May I remind you global thermonuclear war is bad for the environment?
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Ive seen fuck all investment in solar where I'm at. Id really like to contribute labor to it, but there's nothing.
A lot has been happening in the southwest US, including Texas.
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