this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 139 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

I’m 42 and I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t obvious that we needed to phase out fossil fuels. Global warming was already known. The 70’s oil crises had even convinced conservative politicians that “energy independence” was an important goal even if they couldn’t grasp the concept of an energy transition. The Exxon Valdez spill happened when I was in elementary school. (We did a “science experiment” where we put canola oil and water in containers and used different materials to remove the oil.)

Fossil fuels have been obviously awful for at least 5 decades. Imagine how much less CO2 would be in the air if in 1985, we got on the good timeline instead of the “Biff becomes president” timeline.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Let’s go even further back. We had a lot of environmental activism in the 1970s. We got the clean air act, the clean water act, started recycling efforts for at least bottles and cans, and paper. Solar panels were a hot topic and President Carter installed some at the White House. My parents were part of a trend toward all electric houses fed by nuclear (what a disaster that was). Cars got a lot more efficient.

We had a great start. Then Carter lost his second term, and Republicans went ham on our future

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (17 children)

Have you ever considered that first world nations are just going to use whatever energy source is the cheapest until it is no longer the cheapest?

[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I live below sea level and have a degree in economics. I have definitely considered the fact that I’m paying for the negative externalities of fossil fuels each time my flood insurance rates go up.

For the record, my house is raised above sea level and I have solar panels. No one has to chime in with “just move” overly simplistic arguments. We’re better prepared than most Americans since we already deal with it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fucking mermaids on Lemmy now smh

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (18 children)

Then we'd be doing fission. Fossil fuels aren't required to pay for their externalities the way nuclear is, not to mention that the fossil companies have spent decades lobbying and campaigning to keep from having to be responsible for their own bullshit, as well as campaigning to make other forms of energy seem / be less viable (either through PR messaging or regulatory capture).

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Dude if Bush jr didn't steal the elections backed up by the republican supreme court, we'd have Mr Fusion in every device

[–] [email protected] 105 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No we didn’t. This dog and pony show was put on so everyone can take in profits while signaling to the public that they are “working on it” and “we'll get em next year” so we don’t storm the castle.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

Bingo. Look who all was involved in this thing and who was hosting it for fuck sake.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 11 months ago (7 children)

K, I guess we can revisit this topic in a decade when the house is actually on fire and we need to abandon it. So, that's good I guess.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

40 years ago i had a t-shirt that said the world was running out of time...

Time won't help any more

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (24 children)

I mean, we aren't totally screwed. Just climate will get worse and worse until we stop burning fossil fuels. It will eventually stabilize at whatever amount of carbon we end up at when we stop. It's just, how bad will it get in the meantime.

Won't stop us from mass migration, and deaths on an order of magnitude that makes covid look like a blip, and also mass extinction of a large majority of the species on earth. But, we can pull through (I think, maybe)...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Earth isn’t screwed. Humanity is.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (16 children)

Is it supposed to be comforting knowing that a mostly lifeless husk of a planet will exist after we kill off basically every known species? There's such a thing as too much optimism you know. It's OK to let the unnecessary death of everything you've ever seen be the point of the conversation.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Cop28: an over the top parody of Don't Look Up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have to try again to watch it. The premise was already hitting you over the head from the beginning but the movie was too badly done to watch through. I really should though

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I had the opposite reaction. I thought the movie captured essence of the subject material so exceptionally that I don't want to see it again, it would just make me depressed. There's some truth to satire but in this case the satire ended up being too close to the truth. I think COVID did this movie a solid. Without COVID I probably would've dismissed the movie as too unrealistically over the top. But with COVID literally keeping me home there were just too many parallels for me to dismiss the movie as "it would never happen, we're better than that". Ugh, just thinking about it is getting me down.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

It was so on point in a lot of things, it wasn't satire, it was basically a documentary. I love that movie. And also hate it. For the same reasons as you do.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago (2 children)

We're all gonna die from climate collapse soon, aren't we?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

If you're able to post on Lemmy, your country is probably going to be fine for a hundred years or more. Already impoverished places on the other hand are unfortunately going to be hit the hardest in 50 or fewer.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, no. Some of us will die from the wars started due to climate collapse.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

And some of us will die from the after effects, as agriculture, trade, and civilization break down

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (1 children)

All these fossil fuel addicts don't realize that their home-countries won't support human life anymore in a few decades. And they have so much money, that pivoting their investments to renewables would be no problem, even profitable for them and their offspring some financial experts might say. But they won't because the wells aren't dry yet.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The rulers of today have already bought nice chunks of London, Paris, New York. They'll be fine.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ive lost hope in humanity changing and actually solving climate change a long time ago.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

I don't believe we ever did, no.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

There's a small chance something devastating won't happen before big changes happen to try and reverse climate change but odds are a lot of shit is gonna happen that's gonna lead to a lot of people dying. Not end of the world shit, but a lot of people are gonna suffer because of greed and lack of improving the world

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"We came tantalizingly close to preventing your house from burning down!"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

… by publicly announcing that “we must eventually stop pouring gasoline on it!”

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Sadly it affected profits.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

We can not put an end to scorching the earth, because a Sheik wants to build a 170-kilometre-long and 200 meter wide city in the desert.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Doesn't matter because it would've been non-binding and they would have failed to do it even if it was.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Tantalizingly close to a deal that would inevitably fall apart anyway...

See:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/15/governments-falling-short-paris-climate-pledges-study

"Every one of the world’s leading economies, including all the countries that make up the G20, is failing to meet commitments made in the landmark Paris agreement in order to stave off climate catastrophe, a damning new analysis has found.

Less than two months before crucial United Nations climate talks take place in Scotland, none of the largest greenhouse gas emitting countries have made sufficient plans to lower pollution to meet what they agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Don't let this stop you. Wind and solar is cheap - often the biggest barrier is NIMBY not allowing construction, so demand your local/national political climate stop that. Allow solar by right on any roof. Allow wind turbines by right on all ag land. Encourage your utilities to put in storage systems to use that renewable energy "when the wind doesn't blow". Encourage good programs to buy renewable power over fossil power (everyone should pay for their share of the power lines and storage batteries - this is a large part of the cost of power)

Electric cars are already becoming popular. There are many things that you can do to encourage that. Better yet, your can encourage great transport in your city (most cities don't have great transit!)

There are many areas already running their grid on a majority renewable power. We know this works.

The above measures won't get rid of all fossil fuels, but they get rid of the vast majority. They work with today's technology as well, and are affordable without subsidies!. No need to invest anything new/more. Just ensure that laws don't get in the way.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

beep beep. freeze some embryos and program bots to thaw in a thousand years. books on tape ftw

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Just make sure no one named Ted Faro gets anywhere near the project.

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