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!
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.
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…
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.
attack the capitalist system.
Wow thanks for this insightful answer
And the free market value system, because it doesn’t value externalities.
With combat.
Stop burning fossil fuels. There is no way that doesn’t include that.
How we gonna melt steel, copper, titanium, tungsten, etc?
Sadly, fossil fuels aren’t going away anytime soon. ☹️
There are ways to melt those without burning fossil fuels. Whether the alternatives are easy, affordable, or can run at a useful rate is debatable
Iceland refines a lot of metal and I think they’re close, or at, 100% renewable.
Yup, Iceland has such cheap geothermal and hydro energy that they just use electric furnaces to smelt aluminum.
Arc furnaces are standard already.
The thing you really need a reducing agent for is smelting, and for that hydrogen is already used at smaller scales.
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.
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. 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 society should have to rely on 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.
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.
Yeah, but that’s a fantasy, people will not do that. OP is specifically asking for something more realistic.
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.
Security would go a long way. Not national security but life security. For example I own a bunch of tools and I sorta wish I did not. If I was guaranteed access to something like a tool library that had everything I might need to buy from home depot of such I would not carry any. Heck it could be home depot where when you buy the paint you get the rollers and brushes and equipment to clean it up with your purchase and you return it when your done. Heck could return the leftover paint. Also internet replaces a lot of things. My wife and I are committed to not buying physical things so we using streaming services and buy digital copies of stuff. We get books in pdf now and use games and such to get away from toys and such.
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.
Many many would not get the new shiny. In my lifetime my vehicles have had few appreciable improvements. Mostly around safety like air bags and view cameras. I could care less about the radio and if I did its easy enough to upgrade that part.
Make less shit, factories would slow down, less resources used, less pollution emitted, less energy used, and as a result, there would be at least some positive impact on climate change.
Granted it might be minimal, even negligible, but it would make some difference.
The idea of personal action vs. corporate/government action is a false choice. The government can force the corpos to stop burning the planet, but that will mean significant lifestyle changes for everybody.
It also means getting our shit together about immigration/ migration/ refugees. And not just in the US, but globally. A humanitarian catastrophe is assured otherwise.
I’m not optimistic.
Genuinely there needs to be a fee that companies must pay for the pollution they create, with it written into law that they can’t palm the cost off on their customers.
We need to move shipping away from the ‘barely more refined than crude oil’ fuels they use
We need to ensure protection of the oceans by making it so that outflowing waste from industry never reaches the watercourse in the first place.
Single use plastics need to be removed from the supply chain (alternatively changed at the production level so they’re made from plant cellulose or a material that doesn’t break down into PFOAS or microplastics)
We also need to block petrochemical companies from lobbying or interfering with politics, and prevent them from funding smear campaigns against renewable energy sources
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
My jurisdiction has EPR now. I’m pretty curious to see how that goes.
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)
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
Eat the rich. I remember when the Twitter account that posted where Musk’s private jet is all the time and holy shit, he travelled a lot.
Like, multiple times a week where this machine that fucks up the environment is used to transport a single person.
Or the disgusting mega yacht that Zuckerberg uses.
During my whole life I’m not gonna destroy the environment like every single one of leeches on society does in a month.
Engineer a virus to send back in time to slow down CO2 emissions
wait a minute…
andromeda strain
Aren’t we at the point of no return?
Passed it a while ago. That doesn’t mean we can’t slow down.
Humanity will evolve to deal with the changes, maybe. Maybe not.
Honestly, if capitalism stopped tomorrow, and we all did community planting. Were restricted on car usage, and did carbon capture techniques that were proven to work… All en mass, globally, I suspect we could change things.
The problem is Capitalism and freemarket “progress”. The endless carbon fuelled march to no where (in the name of money). A lot could be done without that humming away like nothing is wrong, but politicians want to protect Free Market Capitalism and aren’t laying down reasonable restrictions.
There are no carbon capture and storage technologies proven to work at a meaningful scale.
Geoengineering is probably the only way to counteract things now.
But that involves fucking around with the bottom of our food chain in the oceans so there’s obviously a good deal of reluctance to start down that path.
It’s not an on/off switch. Everything we can do will lessen the impact even if it can’t be stopped.
But as others mention, real impact comes from governments and international cooperation, not individual actions. Hence why voting is so important.
This is extremely important: we are not at the point of no return.
Climate change can be stopped, even now. It will take lots of work, but it’s possible.
ClimateAdam, who has a PhD in climate science from Oxford, made a video about this. It’s 5 years old, but he’s still making videos with similar points today. It’s my understanding this is still the predominant view amongst climate scientists. The main reason I think this is that there aren’t many calling for geoengineering, which if we were at the point of no return would be something we’d have to explore.
The reason this is so important is because as climate change denial becomes more and more infeasible, it will get replaced primarily with climate change defeatism. The sooner we start pushing back on this, the better.
“Point of no return” is a simplistic concept. It depends on the your threshold for how bad it gets. Most climate scientists would agree that we’re just at or about to pass the 1.5°C target. But they would also agree that ever extra fraction of a degree matters. It’s not a question of “when are we fucked?” Its a question of “how quickly can we act to minimise severity of change?”
Source: am climate scientist, have been to a major climate conference in the last few months, and talk to other climate scientists regularly.
I am not a climate scientist and have not been to conferences but im a reasonably intelligent human who has five decades of experience on this planet and I can see we are already fucked in that things have changed in how the planet works. I see the storms (not just the news making ones but how unoften light rain has become around me and how often general storms have become), I see the flooding, I see the change in the seasons, etc. To me its now when are we fucked because again we already see that we are. To me its how roughly we want the fucking to be ultimately and can we bring it back down to a more tender and loving level.
To me its how roughly we want the fucking to be ultimately and can we bring it back down to a more tender and loving level.
More or less, yeah
No reasonable scientist is going to call for geoengineering unless they could be sure they are not making it worse. We are certainly in a point of no return in that we will not get back to 0 but until we are actually falling apart we won’t know for sure if we can’t survive at +3 or +5.
There’s always damage control that can be done
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.
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.
