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How do you guys cope with the fact that the world isn't getting any better? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I'll coast right through it. I'll also accept "I don't" and "very poorly" as answers

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[–] lemick24@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

What about climate change? Murder rates going down is nice, but murders impact individuals. Climate change impacts civilizations.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago

I feel like every time people say "yeah but it's overall getting better" is missing the first for the trees. Because, yeah, what about climate change? Or the general trends in global politics?

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Pretty big topic but it's improving in most regards. Things may seem bleaker but that's because oil lobbyists have changed strategies from denying climate change outright to trying to convince people that it's hopeless. This in and of itself is progress.

Here's a smattering of other facts:

global co2 emissions have more or less flattened out over the last decade or so. Co2 emissions per capita peaked in 2012 or so and have been declining. Since most population decline is coming from the rich polluting nations and most population growth from developing nations we can expect this trend to accelerate.
the USA passed one of the biggest climate bills ever in 2020 and it is somewhat hard for it to be reversed. Here's a video that I think summarizes the good and the not so good of this bill.
many countries have realistic goals to ban ice cars, while evs are far from a perfect replacement they are undeniably significantly better for climate change than ices. There are also knock on effects, as car manufacturers phase out ice production emerging markets will have a harder time getting ice cars, and as such will almost certainly develop less car dependent infrastructure. This also applies to essentially all infrastructure projects.

It is not too late, and for the first time, we are actually starting to win.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 3 points 11 months ago

A little context on point one: annual CO~2~ emissions have more or less flattened out, but that means that the growth has stopped. We're still emitting more CO~2~ per year than ever in history. (And it's hard to say how durable that trend is, since it occurred over the years during which the pandemic drastically curtailed some of the top-emitting activities.) That's a long, long, long way from net-zero.

The decrease in per-capita emissions from rich nations is consistent with the pattern observed for many pollutants. As economies gain wealth through polluting activities, the rising standard of living causes people to demand less pollution, and improving technology can meet the demand. The trick that we need to pull off here is for the wealthy nations to spread that technology as rapidly as possible to developing nations, so that they can increase their own standard of living without going through the polluting phase.