Well I am genuinely fucking terrified and I panic most days internally while trying to keep my family fed.
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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The challenge of doing more than just subsisting is a big part of why it's hard to change the system we have.
Ah yes. If we all had a boat load of cash to just install solar panels and buy other shit to make things more green... But oh wait. We don't have that kind of cash in today's economy...
... because all that money is already allocated to the oil industry and the weapons it needs to keep going. If only there was some solution.
Also the problem isn't actually solar panels but grid storage, which itself would be significantly less of a problem if we didn't keep dumping money in to cars and car-centric infrastructure.
Most people don't realize that divesting from cars wouldn't take a massive investment but would actually be much cheaper. Parking minimums and suburbs are completely unsustainable. Building bike infrastructure is cheaper than maintaining car infrastructure, and it allows for increased density that increases property values and increases local tax revenue. Cars are massively subsidized, from direct subsidies to the auto and oil industries, to infrastructure like free parking, to all billions in Oil wars. We could literally just stop doing things that hurt us and come out ahead.
It's like we're smoking and making up excuses about how we can't afford to quit.
I live in mandatory car land. The older I get, the more I hate driving and dealing with insurance, traffic, registration, maintenance, fuel, and inspections.
Money spent generally = emissions.
It is cheaper to be greener in many cases. Pork/chicken/turkey/rice+beans are cheaper than beef. Gas sippers are cheaper than canyoneros and monster trucks. Bicycles, transit, and shoes are cheaper than cars. Reasonable housing is cheaper than a McMansion.
I know it's been stupid warm here in my part of Canada. Normal average high for this time of year is -2c (28f), tomorrow's high is supposed to be 11c (51f), and it's been way above average for the last few weeks. Normally we have a fair bit of snow by now, but it's all melted again already.
Same in the southwest US. It was WET the last two days. And normally that would mean snow this time of year. And nothing... just waterlogged cold mud
These articles that conflate a 2ºC higher daily average with the disastrous consequences of a 2ºC higher yearly average make me nervous. Most people aren't going to get the distinction when it's not being spelled out, and I question whether noting every day it goes over the average is even a useful metric to begin with compared to the yearly average.
If we keep having articles like this a few days a year I worry people are going to get numb to it when they don't see immediate consequences.
But the article did actually explain the difference between crossing this threshold for a day and the average moving up over time. It's like the third sentence. This is further down in the article:
“I think while we should not read too much into a single day above 2C (or 1.5C for that matter) it’s a startling sign nonetheless of the level of extreme global temperatures we are experiencing in 2023,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with Stripe and Berkeley Earth, said in a message to The Washington Post.
Climate change is a complex problem that we can only see play out over time. This a newsworthy headline because it is a new milestone -- it's the first time that recorded temps hit 2 degrees above average for a full day. Just because it's not the single most important milestone that announces the apocalypse, doesn't mean it's not significant and newsworthy or "alarmist" in any way to report it. It lets us see the trend as it plays out in real time.
The article literally correctly explained the significance of this event and quoted a scientist telling people not to panic, what's the problem?
I thought making it plural made it clear already, but I wasn't just talking about this one article.
I'm also not sure where you got 2 degrees above average for a month? The article is about a single day.
Typo, I'm prone to them early in the morning.
TBH though if you look at the state of climate journalism and think it's alarmist, you're just a climate denier at this point. Anyways, if you're annoyed about climate alarmism, shouldn't you find a climate alarmist article to complain on instead of a reasonable, well-reported article on the matter?
I'm not having a conversation about shit I didn't say.
While the leading cause is industrialization, I'm sure all the bombs we set off inside our atmosphere aren't helping either.
It's essentially all down to greenhouse gases:
The biggest source by far is the burning of fossil fuels.
Ukraine is bombing Russian oil infrastructure and that would be helping. Yemen supported by Iran also bombed a Saudi refinery a few years ago.
Fear accompanies the possibility of death; calm shepherds death's certainty.