We have the technologies. The list goes on and on and on. We just need to employ them instead of waiting further for magical fixes.
Posting and liking memes is great, but real change comes from actions. If you are as concerned as we are about climate change, please consider joining or supporting climate activists near you.
We don’t need new technologies to overcome the issue of global warming itself; we need them to overcome the issue of human nature. People (in the population level sense, not individually) are not good at long term thinking. Solving global warming with current technologies will require a change in lifestyle from just about everyone. It’s the kind of change that will have no perceivable reward to most people. That’s why a lot of those solutions like biking, veganism, etc, will never catch on.
I am vegan btw but the amount of people who say apathetic shit like ‘one person can’t make a difference, it’s all the corporations fault, wah’ is honestly depressing. We get the society we ask for and until people start asking for something different nothing changes.
On the human level, people won’t as capitalism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, do you drive? Stop driving you can’t because you have work that’s in the next town over? Get a job that’s closer? Stop buying non seasonal goods from your local supermarket? Stop buying random shit with air miles on it.
We can all make these changes but people won’t because our monkey brains seek the fastest root to serotonin therefore government must harshly regulate at the corporate level. Build infrastructure at the civil level.
A world where everyone does the best they can to avoid and/or fight against bad systems is absolutely the ONLY POSSIBLE WORLD where positive change can happen.
How else would the world change if not through individuals choosing to do the right thing? Are really expecting the same people that have fucked us(rich/politicians) to spontaneously develop a conscience and change the world out of the goodness of their hearts?
Before you bring up guillotines, those ALSO require individuals to make personal choices and changes and take risks.
I have a super mixed reaction here. On one hand, it’s a good attitude as an individual to do what you can. OTOH, is it apathetic to realize that one billionaire’s private jet adds more pollution than a thousand vegans can offset by being parsimonious with their consumption?
To keep a livable Earth, we need high-level systemic change to move the needle on that dial, not just a few thousand people making extreme sacrifices (tradeoffs? I shouldn’t talk about being vegan as a sacrifice, lol) in lifestyle.
Edit: I’m thinking partly of celebrities booking commercial flights instead of flying private jets, but I’m also thinking about multinational corporations doing stupid things. CVS printing mile-long receipts, Amazon (or others) shipping tiny things in ginormous boxes, or hey, the expectation that every product on a retail shelf must be shrink-wrapped.
You have to think practically: When has systemic change ever happened without individuals choosing to make a change? Never!
It’s the same for voting, or boycotting or unionizing or even guillotining. The french kings head didn’t spontaneously fall off, it involved many individuals making a choice, risking their life and even dieing.
They also only ever believe that when it’s about work THEY have to do. If it’s about other people, or it’s about things that directly affects them, the tune suddenly changes.
I can’t, as an individual, end rape culture. Is that therefore an excuse to keep making rape jokes, defending rapists etc.? Obviously not, but by the logic of “people against individual change” it’s entirely logically consistent. As long as I say “rape culture bad”, I can keep supporting it. I just have to wait for magical “systemic change without individual change” to rain down from heaven.
We have seen, that people and societies are extremely adaptable to changes in lifestyle. The transformation of the Netherlands to a cycling -friendly country for example. Car free city centers. People were very opposed to them before. But once the changes were made, people were happy with them and adapted to the new options. There’s also negative examples where people adapted to new negative lifestyles such as car centric cities. Or smog, pollution, garbage landfills, or rivers that one is not allowed to swim in due to pollution. People are surprisingly adaptable to new conditions. We just have to do it.
We have the technologies. The list goes on and on and on. We just need to employ them instead of waiting further for magical fixes.
Posting and liking memes is great, but real change comes from actions. If you are as concerned as we are about climate change, please consider joining or supporting climate activists near you.
Citations 4 u:
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/07/climate-crisis-miracle-technology-wind-water-solar
(2) https://effectiveactivist.com/
Thanks!
We don’t need new technologies to overcome the issue of global warming itself; we need them to overcome the issue of human nature. People (in the population level sense, not individually) are not good at long term thinking. Solving global warming with current technologies will require a change in lifestyle from just about everyone. It’s the kind of change that will have no perceivable reward to most people. That’s why a lot of those solutions like biking, veganism, etc, will never catch on.
I am vegan btw but the amount of people who say apathetic shit like ‘one person can’t make a difference, it’s all the corporations fault, wah’ is honestly depressing. We get the society we ask for and until people start asking for something different nothing changes.
On the human level, people won’t as capitalism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, do you drive? Stop driving you can’t because you have work that’s in the next town over? Get a job that’s closer? Stop buying non seasonal goods from your local supermarket? Stop buying random shit with air miles on it.
We can all make these changes but people won’t because our monkey brains seek the fastest root to serotonin therefore government must harshly regulate at the corporate level. Build infrastructure at the civil level.
A world where everyone does the best they can to avoid and/or fight against bad systems is absolutely the ONLY POSSIBLE WORLD where positive change can happen.
How else would the world change if not through individuals choosing to do the right thing? Are really expecting the same people that have fucked us(rich/politicians) to spontaneously develop a conscience and change the world out of the goodness of their hearts?
Before you bring up guillotines, those ALSO require individuals to make personal choices and changes and take risks.
I have a super mixed reaction here. On one hand, it’s a good attitude as an individual to do what you can. OTOH, is it apathetic to realize that one billionaire’s private jet adds more pollution than a thousand vegans can offset by being parsimonious with their consumption?
To keep a livable Earth, we need high-level systemic change to move the needle on that dial, not just a few thousand people making extreme sacrifices (tradeoffs? I shouldn’t talk about being vegan as a sacrifice, lol) in lifestyle.
Edit: I’m thinking partly of celebrities booking commercial flights instead of flying private jets, but I’m also thinking about multinational corporations doing stupid things. CVS printing mile-long receipts, Amazon (or others) shipping tiny things in ginormous boxes, or hey, the expectation that every product on a retail shelf must be shrink-wrapped.
You have to think practically: When has systemic change ever happened without individuals choosing to make a change? Never!
It’s the same for voting, or boycotting or unionizing or even guillotining. The french kings head didn’t spontaneously fall off, it involved many individuals making a choice, risking their life and even dieing.
They also only ever believe that when it’s about work THEY have to do. If it’s about other people, or it’s about things that directly affects them, the tune suddenly changes.
I can’t, as an individual, end rape culture. Is that therefore an excuse to keep making rape jokes, defending rapists etc.? Obviously not, but by the logic of “people against individual change” it’s entirely logically consistent. As long as I say “rape culture bad”, I can keep supporting it. I just have to wait for magical “systemic change without individual change” to rain down from heaven.
We have seen, that people and societies are extremely adaptable to changes in lifestyle. The transformation of the Netherlands to a cycling -friendly country for example. Car free city centers. People were very opposed to them before. But once the changes were made, people were happy with them and adapted to the new options. There’s also negative examples where people adapted to new negative lifestyles such as car centric cities. Or smog, pollution, garbage landfills, or rivers that one is not allowed to swim in due to pollution. People are surprisingly adaptable to new conditions. We just have to do it.