Narrator: "They didn't."
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
76 points (96.3% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5915 readers
635 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It's on us to force them to act. Change like this isn't something that just happens because the politicians decided to suddenly defy the wealthy and powerful.
No
But maybe, maybe - tiny maybe - they act if they get told at COP29. Or COP30. Or COP31. Or a later COP.
Remove leaders and see if it makes a difference. I can barely get pil to stop using paper towels and buying everything laces in plastic. If you can't change an incredibly tiny thing. No chance you'll get the whole planet to put the planet first. Worlds fucked. Unless we are able to change reality itself. End of humanity.
Maybe try again in a few billion years.
This is why every time someone mentions climate tipping points, I try to make the argument that the only tipping point that matters happened circa 1980.
That is when Reagan (government is the problem, not the solution) and Thatcher (there is no such thing as society, only the individual) came to power and started aggressively dismantling those public institutions and programs that were necessary to keeping intact the people's power over the corporation. The program they and their cohort started has continued unabated for 40 years.
Never forget that every business, large or small, traded on a stock exchange or not, is organized as a totalitarian dictatorship, with power and wealth accruing to those at the top and their favoured few. Allowing that mentality into the halls of government has been, unsurprisingly, a destructive force, not a constructive, protective, or restorative one.
You aren't wrong
We currently see most large new oil projects in rich Western countries namely USA, Canada, UK and Norway. All of them could lower oil consumption enough, to not need to expand oil production with relative ease. Similar story for gas. At least none of them expand coal production.
Also it is not just fossil fuel producers that need to act. Also the consumption site has to do a lot of work.