Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let’s ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as “tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars” because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
We would have to go all-in on a climate based economy and lifestyle, invest heavily on clean energy, technology and degrowth. Outlaw anti-climate lobbying of any kind, and hunt the billionaires for sport
“climate based economy”?
Er, focussed
It’s not everything obviously, but mandate that all people who can do their job from home must do their job from home. This will take a bite out of cars and improve general human morale.
Eliminate carbon trading programs and just set hard limits. Went over your allocation of carbon? Guess you’re done for the quarter.
Eliminate LLCs. Bring on the accountability.
Locally with your community. None of these governments are prepared to bite the corporate tit that feeds them.
Well if we start down the Billionaire list, we can drop half of all emissions after just a few thousand names.
But the actual solution is moon base manufacturing solar reflectors and having orbital platforms beam microwave energy down to the planet.
Vote.
Edit: to be clear, vote in every election you have access to. Local voting and primaries are just important. Voting even if you don’t like any of the options is still important.
If you don’t vote then you’re part of the problem.
Depends on where you live.
In some places, voting is extremely important and can affect things majorly.
In some places, voting is completely useless because the voter has legitimately no power in a rigged system.
If a rigged vote gets 100 votes to person A and 0 votes for person B then you will think person B’s ideas aren’t valid.
If a rigged vote gets 100 for person A and 35 for person B, well person B’s ideas shouldn’t be ignored. It also shows the 90 people that didn’t vote that maybe they should vote next time.
In a rigged election, you’re not going to be delivered legitimate vote totals.
Ban planned obsolescence and make a rigorous standard that any new device is designed repairable, reliable and long lasting enough to last at least 10 years if treated right, 20+ years for vehicles and machinery…
This whole ‘you gotta get a new thing every year’ era causes sooo much unnecessary waste and pollution ☹️
This would have almost 0 impact on climate change. It wouldn’t stop new stuff being produced and bought, people still want shinier things than they had yesterday, long lasting or not. It’d be a positive change, but not for climate change.
In my opinion it is not possible to fight climate change while maintaining the same standards of life that we have now. Even if we are going to try, this will probably not be followed by many states with big population, so probably its not gonna work. From what I see, everyone is fighting climate change today by posting stuff on their social medias but when it comes to change habits, its another story.
Anyway, my idea is that we don’t have to ban things like cars and airplanes but we can use them more efficiently. We can repair more and buy less. Do we really need to change a car after 100.000 km? In my country, If you live in a big city you can use public transport most of the time, so why we don’t start to connect well also the small places?
Do we really need to buy fruits and vegetables that comes from other continents and needs to be chemically treated, transported, stocked and consequently generates pollution?
In the consumer technology Sector people usually changes their computers and phones every 3-5 years even if the hardware is still working well. The software is usually becoming more heavier over the years without adding real features (See Meta’s apps). We must accept that this is not compatible with fighting climate change because we are producing too much waste that is avoidable together with massive exploitation of resources. The majority of users are not educated to understand how our technology works at its most basic level, I think that we may start from here.
Maybe we cannot erase billionaires but we can stop adulating or hating them and giving them unnecessary notoriety.
dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
This is ridiculous, because the problem inherently requires cooperative change, and as we’ve seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
A big thing would be to start switching from ever expanding auto infrastructure to public transit systems where possible.
- Fewer vehicles that transport more people
- Can use the space that is currently occupied for parking cars better
Another big thing requires changing our diets. Some types of food are more resource intensive than others, but also we ship food all over the planet and the resources for transport also contributes. Eating food that is in season on your continent would make a big difference.
The last thing is maybe the least obvious to regular people, but maybe we don’t need to build that data center yet if we can’t power it without fossil fuel. We need to entirely stop expanding energy usage until we’ve switched over entirely to sustainables.
In summary, basically everything that needs to happen is going to affect regular people, and they’re going to have to get over it, or we’re going to make the planet completely unlivable.
and as we’ve seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
That’s still depressing as hell, on both sides. One because they’re freaking out over slightly different straws, the other because it’s such a token gesture to plastics pollution that solves nothing.
Yup. ALL single use plastics except maybe for medical need to go. I take my own containers to restaurants for leftovers and people act like I have 2 heads
Agree with you here, life needs to change. For OP I’d say - define change.
I’ve gone almost completely carbon neutral (I mean, outside of groceries and things I literally need to survive), but for my house and my daily routine, I’m happy. I’d say my life has been changed - but not much. Now if you asked my conservative family if my life changed they’d be clutching their pearls and fainting.
I have:
- Went from a 2-car household to a 1-car household, replacing the aging vehicle with an EV with an in-home charger
- My spouse can only drive to work (US based), but I now take the bus
- I currently use Lime and am getting an e-bike soon for local travel
- I’ve switched our HVAC system from gas furnace to a heat pump. I still have gas if it gets insanely cold, but last year it only turned on twice, so my usage is down about 95% from where it was before
- My water heater is still gas, but within the next year I’ll be converting it
- My electricity is 100% renewable in my area, but even if it wasn’t all of this would still be more efficient, and even then solar and batteries are still on the table.
For me these have been relatively easy changes, minor impacts to my life. If I even mention that we went down to be a one car house my conservative family freaks out - unable to even imagine it. So for them yeah life would be pretty different - but as a whole it’d be better for us.
It’s easy to blame the corporations, but we buy their products. Yes the oil and gas are the worst. You know what would change those companies though? If we all stopped buying so much oil and gas. “But what about airlines or other industries”. Again, we’re the ones who buy them. We don’t have much rail where we are but I vote with my wallet and take rail whenever I can. I avoid flying unless it’s the only option. If everyone tried to do even some of these things we’d be having a noticeable impact. (Force the corps too, they don’t get off scot-free, but damnit neither do we. We can do both)
I don’t think there’s any hope of addressing climate change as long as Europe and the USA adhere to a capitalist economic system.
But it’s time to disrupt 99% of life.
Survey humanity, produce an agreed on level of technology and lifestyle.
We probably need to limit ourselves to housing, food, internet, and safety/defense for everyone and not much else - then slow all industries based on HOW people want to live.
So getting rid of things like, plastic toys, gizmos, extravagances. Phones wouldn’t be updated as often. People would only be able to update their tech if they could meaningfully show it was necessary.
Lots of technology companies would be folded. Lots of industries would be nationalised and folded. International tourism would be greatly restricted. Just all the stuff we don’t need basically.
People would be mostly employed in the basics: Housing, food, internet. Too far beyond that and you’d have to rely on local people/groups/makers/repair companies.
So massive degrowth, nationalization, and restrictions/regulations to the market.
Most of all, corporations would no longer count as people. In fact I’d like a lot more person to person contracting. I don’t really think corporations should exist becuase they become Zombies/Golems that do a lot of destructive things.
Basically degrowth, and restructuring society around degrowth.
All other “solutions” in this thread are so funny to me. People thinking more efficient/more sustainable stuff will change anything. Solar panels and whatever still need to be produced, causing emissions. If you continue growing infinitely, you’re going to cause infinite emissions with that.
This is the one post I’ve seen here that actually tackles the main problems. Climate change can’t be stopped without degrowth, which means putting a stop to capitalism.
I’d like to add: while there would be a lot we’d have to give up, life under a degrowth economy would be good. Way better than what we have now. We’d all have more leisure time to focus on stuff that matters. Sure, we’d have fewer gadgets and toys, but we’d be able to spend more time with loved ones and engaging in creative and fulfilling hobbies.
I agree but you should emphasize the positives of degrowth otherwise everyone either gets scared or dismisses it as a non-serious solution politically. The main one being more leisure and less work.
Tax billionaires out of existence, ban fossil fuels, invest in carbon capture, ban corporate greed, switch all solutions to the slightly more expensive, green alternative
solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life
This is not possible. Barring some miracle technologies being developed, we would have to radically change our standards of living and give up our modern convenient lives to make meaningful changes.
Renewable electricity seems like it gets us most of the way there.
The remaining problems I can think of are concrete and fuel for air travel. We could probably go without concrete, although it would suck, and otherwise we just have to recapture the CO2 from the atmosphere. Direct capture and storage has proven trucky because the kilns are large, hot, and rotating, making them difficult to seal E-fuel or biofuel would have to be the solution for air travel. Maybe airships are close enough to qualify as non-disruptive, I guess.
Our standards of living should not include planned obsolescence where you gotta buy or exchange a new phone every year, stuff should be designed to last at least 10 years, if not longer…
Geoengineering: Whether through launching solar shades into space to block sunlight and cool the planet down, pump aerosols into the atmosphere, cloud seeding, or anything else. I think this is where our research should be going. I think it’s too late to avoid the worst-case-scenarios of climate change from merely cutting emissions, so more drastic measures to alleviate or even reverse the effects may be necessary. Plus it’ll help us with any future colonizing and terraforming of worlds outside of Earth.
Public transport infrastructure to reduce our reliance on cars & planes: While I don’t think hyperloops or a transatlantic tunnel are feasible, building tens of thousands of kilometres worth of overground and underground railway routes to interconnect towns and cities with high speed maglev trains is. China have the right idea.
Right to work from home: Remote working reduces our dependency on cars and frees up real estate to address the various housing crises we have.
Right to repair and outlawing planned obsolescence: Should we have to buy a new smartphone every 3 or so years because Apple or Samsung want to maximize profits? Do we care at all about the amount of electronic waste we’re producing?
Accelerate our efforts to reverse desertification and plant trillions more trees: If we can turn parts of the Sahel, Gobi Desert and the Australian outback green, that could have a very beneficial effect on the environment.
Oh hell no. Lets not fuck with nature even more. We must not play god! Geoengineering might cause more problems than its use!
I agree and it concerns me how much geoengineering bro talk there is and responding to descent with luddites and your concerns are overdone its all good.
Die off.
Not possible. In order to be effective we need a global generational commitment that is beyond our current capacity for cooperation.
China, US, India, Russia. 1, 2, 3, 4. Guess who is least likely to take part in a global agreement?
Russia and China signed on to the Paris agreement, but largely ignore it. Trump famously pulled the US out of the agreement. Twice.
India has been making the right noises about hitting goals by 2030, but I’m not sure how they’re actually progressing, not that it means much without Russia, China and the US.
We need an agreement that commits our people not just now, but for multiple generations into the future without regard to who the individual rulers of the countries are. Won’t happen.
