environment and climate rant

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Corallianassa's avatar
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Now for a different journal than normal, but I think this is very important. If your reaction is ´´oh for fucks sake I don´t care´´ then you are exactly the kind of person that should read this journal. Think about my points. If you don´t agree then by all means, engage in the comment section or whatever. 

This is more meant as a light hearted but serious talk. Forgot to make a source list but if you want a claim sourced, ask so in the comments and I will provide.  If you go complain about how this is not a rigorous academic work that explains why climate change deniers are wrong, you are retarded shithead. This is a rant. 

What I see is that many people are aware of the fact we have a problem. Most of my watchers are probably interested in nature, and informed enough to know we face this massive problem, though most of you may be actively trying to fight it. I fall mostly in the same category: changing your life is hard.  I am as guilty of the trap of thinking and talking about change as anyone else, so if you feel talked down upon in this journal, remember this is me talking down on myself as well.  
I am trying to improve that part of myself though and I hope anyone reading this may choose to do so as well.


What course are we on? Is it good?



Several movements have started in recent years. The Extinction Rebellion is gaining ground. The Fridays For Future lead by Greta Thunberg has made a plash in Europe mostly.  Green parties gained some ground in the last European election.
This is good, but it is far from enough.
While 2 million students protested for the Friday For Future initiative, what has actually happened politically? 

Basically fuck-all.  My country´s  n e o l i b e r a l  prime minister Mark Rutte´s reaction was basically: yeah ok fun protest very cute hjaha.
The UK just ``elected´´ Boris Johnson, he´s not going to help the environment in any way from what I can gather from his policies. Not gonna help the UK reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I need not mention Trump, but yeah I´m gonna mention Trump because anyone with a rudimentary awareness of international politics and climate/environmental science knows that he has not helped the US fight this issue in the slightest and only made it worse.  Brazil voted for Bolsonaro, giving green light to increased deforestation in the Amazon, increasing the already massive ecological damage being done to this area further. 

It is very very easy to point fingers and get angry at Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, but here´s the thing - these people don´t operate in a vacuum. The reality is much worse than just a few retards fucking up our environment. It´s us, everyone. 
Why do you think Bolsonaro is allowing the Amazon to be obliterated? It is not because he is some sadist who likes seeing animals die because we are razing their homes, this is done because there is demand for it. We humans eat a fuck ton of meat, almost 42 kg per person per annum. Billions of tonnes per year. Surprise surprise, this meat comes from somewhere. We want meat, Brazil can give us meat. To give us more meat because we want more meat, Brazil needs to make more farmland. Capiche? 

It has been known for a long time that our meat consumption is inherently inefficient, because animals eat a significantly greater mass of plant matter than we get out of them in consumable meat.  
Yet what I see is people everywhere pointing fingers at Bolsonaro, while they themselves make no fucking effort whatsoever to reduce their consumption of energetically expensive meat, Amazon hardwood and any other products from the Amazon.

If you eat meat I don´t like you less, not at all. Please realize though, that cutting it out as much as possible will have a positive impact, and I´n not afraid to say it is your ethical imperative to do so, bringing me to me next vague ´chapter.

Hippity hoppity this planet is not your property


No, fuck off Stirner I am not your property

But, I hear you say: it is my choice to eat meat, drive a hummer, take 3 intercontinental holiday flights per year and burn hydrocarbons like my life depends on it.
And I will say, you can choose to take this position, but I find it indefensible on any ethical and logical grounds.
A popular saying is ´´your rights end where my rights begin´´. This is a concept lefties and rightwingers will agree on, I hope. Likewise your private property ends where mine begins.
Guess what, your excessive burning of hydrocarbons and exuberant consumption IS affecting my private property and my rights. 
The WHO estimates that every year 4.2 million people die because of ambient exposure to air pollution caused by humans.  That´s almost an entire holocaust per year. Let that sink in for a minute, ruminate on this reality - your freedom is not your freedom when it is killing people. 
It may be your choice to eat meat. Granted. Now think about the native tribes that are being expelled out of the Amazon as we speak due to the encroaching of farmland. This is OUR fault. My fault as well. We all carry responsibility for this, and just ignoring this and going with bussiness as usual under the guise of personal freedom is absolutely childish.  

See? Even in a hardcore neoliberal framework where we see everything only through a lense of freedom and rights, the current state of consumption is actually not acceptable.

The Right
In this discussion, I don´t care about any other right wing policy except the policies relevant to the issue at hand, and I must say, I am disappointed.  There is nothing inherent about the right wing that would preclude giving a shit about the environment, yet there is VERY strong pattern globally that the right wing political parties are much less inclined to support policies that are needed to combat climate change and ecological damage.  This is a damn shame. It is unrealistic to expect a massive global political swing to the left, so what I hope is that conservatives and other right-wing inclined people will accept that this is a crisis we face and that it needs action.
Hugely influential people like Shapiro and Peterson pride themselves on their unparalleled use of facts and logic, yet they deny the scientific consensus, which is overwhelmingly supported by a daunting heap of evidence, about climate science and don´t even mention the large scale ecological damage and even public health dangers of the massive use of hydrocarbons.   
The same patterns holds true basically globally, and it is the greatest obstacle we face to really enact any meaningful change.
What doesn´t help is that some rich right wingers and companies with vested interests influence the discourse by funding propaganda, like what Exxon has done or for example Prager U. 

I will take the public narrative in my country as an example. The populist right party Forum Voor Democratie (FvD) has surged in popularity in the past years, winning provincial elections by a surprise margin. Luckily they didn´t win as much in the European elections, and I would be very let down if they win in our national elections which will be in March 2021. This party openly denies the scientific reality of climate change, with numerous recorded lies propagated by them. They lied about the cost and nature of a proposed government plan to reduce our emissions, the effects of which have a real effect on the public opinion on this policy, probably setting us back quite a bit on this issue. 
Knowingly lying about an issue as impactful as this is disgusting and dangerous and runs counter to everyone´s best interests except of course the rich.  Meddling of companies and rich people in politics is not only deleterious to the function of democracies, but also leads us to situations like this where doubt is sowed about impactful issues like this. 

If you are a right-winger, please just break away from this party mentality. Keep your right wing beliefs for all I care, just adapt your view on the environment based on scientific consensus. The more of the right does this, the weaker the barrier becomes to enact change. 

Why should I change, when others don´t?
...really? 

This attitude is one of the great barriers to change. Change always begins small, every bit helps. I know this feeling though - I currently work in a supermarket in the summer break before going to University. I am a stock clerk, I throw away a whole lot of cardboard and plastics every day from packaging material. Any change I make in my personal life in reducing daily plastic consumption is very small compared to the waste that goes past me on company time.  It is disheartening to see, but for me it only further galvanizes my resolve to be better.  

People often point out about how companies produce by far most pollution and waste, and while this is correct, the conclusion usually drawn from this is nonsensical. Again, just like world leaders, companies do not exist in a vacuum. Companies serve their customers and stock holders. If a company produces 100 tonnes of CO2 per year and serves 10.000 customers per year and you are one of said customers like it or not but you are responsible for 10 kg of that CO2 emission, face it. Now, how can you reduce this? It is not always easy. 

For this to change in our current system you have 3 categories of things you can do generally: 

1. VOTE. 
We stand at the start of a mass extinction. Things will go very fucking bad if we don´t stop it. How this is not the number 1 political priority of almost everyone who is aware of this is strange to me. Until right wing parties start supporting environmentally conscious policies, voting for those parties is irresponsible behaviour. Even if I´d agree with every right wing political belief, I still wouldn´t vote for them because they aren´t willing to face this problem in the slightest.
There´s also plenty of left wing parties that don´t give a crap sadly. 

2. Be part of the consumer movement that prefers sustainable products over the garbage we have now. The more people are aware of the problem the stronger the incentive will be for companies to change.  Buy sustainable products where possible. Basically, this is where any generic advise about bettering yourself comes in: taking the car less, watching what you eat and consume, reduce how much trash you produce as much as possible and dispose of it as responsibly as possibly.

3. Convincing more people. Do this in a more respectful way than I do in this journal because people are more likely to change then lol. Engage climate change deniers publically, but also think broader than climate change. If someone is unwilling to compromise on climate change, it doesn´t necessarily matter that much. Convince them of the reality of the ecological damage we are doing by others means than climate change, actually this may be more urgent than climate change by a good margin. Deforestation, pollution and overfishing are all examples. 
The more influential the person is you convince, the better. Having a discussion with Joe from across the street is nice and cool, but contracting your governmental representatives of any level is even better. 

I´m not gonna suggest more radical options because as many people as possible must get behind this.

But will someone think of the e c o n o m y



The economy should serve the people, not the other way around. If we keep putting our profit margins before the wellbeing of people and the environment, we will keep making shit worse. Chances are the countries WE live in, in the EU and US, could get away relatively lightly with climate change and ecological devastation because we´re in temperate areas and have the resources to alleviate symptoms, but our choices will disrupt the lives of hundreds of millions of people in less fortunate countries. What we´re doing is privatizing our gains (corporate people get money) and socializing our losses (other people are subjected to your toxic pollution, the climate change you cause, the plummeting fish population you eat etc.).

Economically right wing people keep pointing out how plans to deal with climate change like the Green New Deal in the USA and the climate accord in The Netherlands will cost the economy billions, if not trillions of dollars/euros. In the case of the climate accord I know that estimate was hugely inflated, probably the case with the Green New Deal as well, but my point is: it doesn´t matter. 
If the climate accord would cost us 1000 billion euros (which it won´t), it will still be worth it because we will have taken a massive step to being carbon neutral. 

And that is just the first step. We as a species must actually become carbon negative to halt this progress because of two reasons
1. Warming lags behind the CO2 and CH4 levels because part of it gets absorbed by the ocean. We´ll see the warming caused by our current emission levels in the coming decades. To stop this, we should really just reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.

2. Feedback loops have been set in progress. They will only get stronger. The permafrost in Siberia and Canada is melting, releasing gargantuan volumes of mostly methane (intense greenhouse gas but with a relatively short life in the atmosphere, after which it becomes CO2 and water vapour) and also CO2 (lower intensity greenhouse gas with very long life in the atmosphere). This will further accelerate warming, also feeding into other feedback loops like the melting icecaps lowering earth´s albedo, increasing the heat intake. 
You cannot stop these feedback loops by lowering your CO2 emissions, you can only stop this by actively fighting them.

Investing in carbon capture plants is of imperative necessity. It will cost money. Not doing it will cost many, many lives.
Estimates are that carbon capture methods will cost 35-50 euros per metric tonne. 
For the USA, that would mean carbon capturing all their CO2 would cost....0.28 trillion to 0.4 trillion dollars annually if my calculations are correct.  That is between 40 and 56 percent of the USA´s military budget, but vastly more important really. 
But alas, doing so would be scary spooky socialism so instead the USA will spend shit on muh gunz.

As for the Dutch, we emit ~9.92 tonnes of CO2 per capita per annum, so it would cost between 347 and 496 euros, or 29 to 41 euros per month. That´s not much. 


Prevention


Dialing back on emissions and shit in developed countries is imperative, but what´s better is preventing upcoming economies from even needing to dial back. Africa has lots of developing economies with still a lot of predicted population growth. By helping these countries to develop sustainably by funding sustainable energy sources and efficient farming methods to minimize ecological damage we can prevent them from becoming a massive emitter in the coming decades. 
I´d argue this is perhaps as important as reducing our own emissions.
Luckily, some African countries are doing just this. Green energy sources are becoming cheaper so it´s very tenable for them to use them.
I think developed countries should attempt to help them in this endeavor, it will be worth it. Not in money, but in general wellbeing of people and all organisms on the planet. Of course, this will also reap monetary benefits. If we allow the biosphere to go to shit, countries near the equator will suffer most. We could face massive unprecedented streams of immigration that will make the 2015-2016 refugee crisis look like a joke, I am sure the right doesn´t want this either.

Emission goals are only a part of the whole equation like what I talked about before, we should be conscious of what we consume and strive to reduce waste and land use wherever possible. It´s in my opinion even more important than the climate part of the equation, though both are deeply connected at every point.

Rewilding and wildlife

Extinction rates of animals and plants are currently very high. The global focus lies heavily on charismatic megafauna like elephants and tigers declining, but really given how we keep them in zoos and reserves and have breeding programs I don´t think they will actually go extinct. The extinction rates of less charismatic fauna like invertebrates, however, are much more concerning. Invertebrates are vital components in all ecosystems on earth, and it is of great importance that we keep a healthy species diversity globally. At this rate, we are not doing that, in fact we are fucking obliterating both terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates with a concerning pace. 

´´but extinctions are natural. The strong survive while the weak die, why should we adjust ourselves to avoid that?´´

Death is natural, but murder is still repugnant. Extinctions occur naturally, but this one is our doing and it shouldn´t be controversial to say this is Bad ™. 

How can we let the populations of plants and animals bounce back? With the lower land use by reducing meat consumption there´d already be a lot of reclaimed land for nature to return. Vertical farming has the potential to cut our agricultural land use by a lot, though it has problems and issues that warrant a whole discussion on their own. Besides reducing land use it is also important natural reserves are protected and currently functional pieces of nature are given reserve status wherever possible. Where possible it is also important that nature reserves are as well connected as we can manage. Also, oppose dangerous pesticides that harm the environment, especially important insects,  instead support disease resistant GMO´s and varied agriculture instead of monocultures (less suspectible to diseases, more resistant to environmental change, more healthy for the invertebrates and microorganisms). 


Afterthoughts

Ok, done with screaming into the void, probably won´t change a soul with this rant but I felt like it needed to be said. I´m not very positive and I have little faith that we will change as a society. Doesn´t mean I want to give up though, I intend to specialize in ecology/marine biology because I may make a slight slight difference then.  
If only I manage to convince two people to talk more about this issue, and those 2 people both convince two people, etc. we would get very far, but considering that the infinitely more influential Greta Thunberg hasn´t really caused a large scale change of tides this hope is probably in vain.  There is chance we can still fix shit though, and as long as that chance is >0% it is worth it.

I find it very weird that so many people see the news articles,  know what is wrong, feel a bit uncomfortable about it and then go on with their bussiness. And this includes me, though I am attempting to change. Change is hard. 
© 2019 - 2024 Corallianassa
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Dinopithecus's avatar
One of the ways I at least try to help is in the meat department. I try to resist the temptation to consume stuff like beef and opt for chicken instead (I've been told that switching to chicken will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce your carbon footprint). Now admittedly, sometimes I fail; last week and the week before I've had cheeseburgers for lunch and it was completely my decision (so not like my parents deciding we'll have beef for dinner). Those were days where I decided I really, really wanted some beef. But I still try, and this week I don't think I've chosen completely on my own accord to eat something with beef. I opted for chicken instead. Am I perfect? Hell no. Am I even "good"? I don't know, maybe not, but...it's something I guess.

Also, I don't drive; I lack a driver's license.