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alycremie · 2 months

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Guys I know Climate Change is super scary in the news. I know it's terrifying and seems like the end of the world. And it could be! But it isn't going to be.

I want to take this time to remind all of you how far we've come in the past twenty-ish years since "An Inconvenient Truth"

Fossil Fuels

We use less fossil fuels now proportionally than we did in 2009. Coal used to be 50% of the United States's energy production, but now is down to less than a quarter, and is expected to continue to drop in the upcoming years. This is including in traditionally anti-renewable areas that rely on coal heavily, like Wyoming's shift to wind and solar and Kentucky and West Virginia's shift to hydroelectric.

Most remaining coal plants are either shutting down or using filtration systems to reduce the carbon, methane, and heavy metals put into the air. Coal mines are shutting down - the era of King Coal is over.

Yes, many states are shifting to natural gas, but the carbon density of natural gas is lower than both oil and coal. Extraction of it is less dangerous. It's not better than renewables, but is a great alternative for developing countries that don't have the money for renewables - at least for the time being.

Oil and diesel are gradually being phased out as well. Desires to be economically independent from oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have driven policy makers away from it. Areas like Alaska that rely heavily on diesel for heating are switching to renewable energy and less energy intensive heat pumps.

Fossil fuel companies are continuing to do their lobby thing, but it doesn't matter. Climate change isn't even the driving factor right now - it should be, but the increasing cost of fossil fuel extraction is slowly breaking the industry. In the US, it's just not as profitable as it was thirty years ago.

Nuclear

Nuclear energy is fast-growing. While it's somewhat stagnated in the US, countries like France, Russia, South Korea, Germany, and Japan are relying on increasing amounts of nuclear energy - in France's case, almost 4/5ths of their electricity comes from nuclear energy.

We've found ways to make the Uranium and Thorium last longer in the reactor, and in fact, nuclear power plants are among the safest in the world. The only emission is water vapor - not including the construction - and we have hundreds or thousands of years left of nuclear energy at our current consumption, even more if we can find out how to harness ocean Uranium and seafloor Thorium or harness nuclear fusion.

Nuclear power plants produce absurd amounts of electricity - a single 6 gigawatt power plant (high end, but do exist) could singlehandedly provide the entire electric requirements of New York City - think of what several of them across the country could do. They generate power incredibly reliably.

Nuclear disasters like Fukushima and Chernobyl are far behind us. Fukushima was entirely preventable - they knew about the lack of safety regulations and did not fix them - and Chernobyl was 40 years ago. Technology has come a long way since then.

Hydroelectric

Hydroelectric dams that kill fish are out - tidal turbines and fish ladders are in. Fish ladders provide ways for fish to escape and not get caught in the turbine, though the reduced quality of life both up and downstream is an issue.

Enter tidal energy! Yes, really!

A startup in Scotland, MeyGen has proven that two-way off-shore turbines can provide significant amounts of electricity. Just four turbines were enough to provide electricity to over 4,000 homes. Tidal barrages have been used on bridges and coasts to generate hydroelectric energy from the incoming ocean waves.

There are no significant emissions beyond construction, AND the turbines and barrages *do not kill fish or sea creatures*. The turbines, at worst, caused dolphins and seals to simply avoid the area the turbines were in. They work when the ocean is flowing either direction, and can be put nearly anywhere - think about the power the Gulf Stream would generate!

Solar

Solar energy is fast-growing - and this part is my favourite. Homes are being designed with solar heating in mind. Not just in the panels, no - window placements, albedo, and materials have allowed homes to be heated by the sun in winter, but shielded from it in summer. A properly solar optimized home can cut on 75% of electricity use!

Solar panels are up to 46% efficiency now, which is insane. In parts of the western US, up to 8.6 kWh per m^2 of solar panels can be generated. For perspective, a single home uses about 30 kWh per day - a number that is decreasing. A home would only need about 43 square feet of solar panels to power their home, and lord knows roofs have more space than that.

Roofs are being designed to reflect heat, to reduce the heat island effects of big cities. Green spaces are being built for shade and cooling through transpiration. They've even invented a paint that reflects so much heat that it can cool your home by several degrees.

They've even invented thin-film solar panels that you can use as windows. Yeah! Solar panels YOU CAN USE AS WINDOWS! So skyscrapers that are covered in windows on all sides - think about the power generation. An office building doubling as a power plant. It's incredible.

Wind

Wind turbines don't kill that many birds. They used to, but they don't anymore - at least in most areas. The myth comes from the old 1960s turbines that were low to the ground and spun fast like a fan, so birds had trouble seeing where the blades were. The high up turbines nowadays are really only a problem for high-flying birds of prey, but even that's still being worked on. Wind energy is becoming increasingly efficient and producing more power than ever before.

Geothermal

Geothermal energy is going crazy. Iceland uses it to heat their homes and keep their streets ice-free instead of using snowplows in Reykjavik. There are systems in production now that would be able to generate power year-round using the heat of the earth.

By using a special liquid with a lower boiling point than water, electricity can be generated easily and without any kind of toxic waste that would normally result from groundwater energy production.

Geothermal plants can also be used for temperature regulation - the ground stays a relatively constant temperature. Say it's 65 degrees Fahrenheit in an area. In summer, you can pump that heat underground instead of into the air, which contributes to heat islands. In winter, when it's colder, you can extract the heat back out again. Heat and cooling are the single biggest energy sink in the US and in most parts of the world, and it's about to become completely clean.

Energy Consumption and The Grid

While CO2 emissions are increasing, that's mostly due to population increase. The emissions per capita has actually gone down - the average person produces almost 20 tons fewer of CO2 emissions than in 1990, and that number is going to continue to drop.

As we shift more towards renewable energy and working from home, those emissions per capita are going to drop more and more. People buy more local now. They use electric cars. Their household appliances have spiked in efficiency. LED bulbs produce significantly less emissions than the incandescent bulb, and the number of LED bulbs across the world is rapidly increasing.

The Grid is changing. Normally, the reason power generation produces so much CO2 is that power plants can't shut down - they have to produce at all hours of the day to remain economical. They produce more in the evenings when electricity demand is higher, and less in the early morning when it is lower.

The new electric grid would have energy storage. If a home or a power source, such as solar, produced too much energy, it would be sent back into the grid and stored for spikes in demand later - the system would become more efficient, and overproduction of electricity would no longer mean wasting it.

Conservation and Restoration

We can un-desertify farmland. We've figured out how to bring back rivers and streams that have dried up from overfarming in sub-saharan Africa. We can plant trees, we can enrich the soil, we can undo the damage that we've caused.

We can bring back coral. We can increase the albedo of the Arctic and Antarctic. We can re-introduce extinct animals and bring balance to the ecosystem again. We've massively reduced poaching and needless hunting of endangered animals. We know how to make sustainable, permaculture farming practices.

We have everything we need to fix the ecosystems we've damaged or destroyed - and people are already doing it.

Why it's actually gonna be okay

Guys, we're past the worst of it. Maybe not the worst of the effects of climate change, but certainly the worst of the emissions. We are going to have a clean future. Young people support environmental regulations the most, and there are enough passionate young minds that it's going to get done.

I know I talked most about the US here, but it's changes all across the world. I focused on the US because it has the highest per capita emissions of any country on Earth. Don't be fooled though - everyone is going green.

Meat is being eaten less than ever before. Fewer people drive cars. Fewer people waste and throw things away. Don't let the scary news of private jets and mega-corporations disillusion you. GOOD CHANGES ARE HAPPENING!

Enough of the doomer apocalypse viewpoint of climate change. There is a hopeful future for all of us. Let's achieve it together!

#climate change #climate crisis #hopeful ending #future #climate doomerism #my silly little posts #renewable power #renewable future #solarpunk

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bokchoybabybitch · 5 days

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happy earth day you beautiful humans!

on this sunniest and warmest of the april 22nds, thank you climate change, id like to rant a lil bit about how important local action is for environmental change

first of all, climate doomerism is scientifically inaccurate. things are bad, and they will get worse, that’s absolutely proven and true. but the social trend of believing that the world is already doomed and nothing can be done to save it is demonstrably false.

in fact, that’s been traced to a propaganda media campaign that’s being funded directly by some of the biggest and most powerful non renewable energy corporations in the world! their thinking is likely that if everyone believes the world can’t be saved, then there’s no point in forcing the corporations to change their ways for the better, and they can keep making record profits at the expense of the natural world.

so no matter what anyone tells you, the world can be saved, and humans can save it!

and be extra wary of anyone who says something to the effect of “we need to get overpopulation under control” or “humans are an invasive species”

chances are, if they’re saying the problem is overpopulation and not wasteful consumption, then their “solution” will probably involve removing Indigenous people from their land!

and the idea that humans are an invasive species ignores the tens of thousands of years that human society has existed in harmony with nature all over the world!

all this to say, one individual person isn’t likely going to change the world on their own. and usually when one person has an impact that large, it’s at least 50/50 positive/negative, if not more negative.

but what one individual can do is change their community, their town, wherever they’re from. if you take good care of a garden just for the sake of doing some good, it might not matter to every other garden in the world, but those plants you grew will be healthy and alive, and that matters a whole lot to them

and if everyone does their little part for their little garden, or forest, or park, or any little bit of good you can bring out, then the whole world changes for the better!

be informed, be brave, and go touch some grass today ❤️

also enjoy these cake pops my mother made :)

#earth #earth day #climate change #climate crisis #environmentalism #environmental activism #environmental action #doomerism #invasive species #hope #cake pop #cake pops #climate doomerism

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gubgam · 1 year

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: ) I hate when this happens I hate when this happens

#science #botany #restoration #natural resource management #natural sciences #Ecology #climate doomerism #vs scientists #we are not the same!!!

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jennifer-hamilton-wb · 10 months

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I’m becoming really climate apathetic. Like, this year southern Taiwan faces yet another drought. we didn’t have droughts only 6 years ago or so, but now the normal rainy season is no more. and I can’t bring myself to care. this year it’s a drought, next year will be the same. I can’t shower, can’t easily get potable water, face food shortages and price increases, but so what, it’s not gonna get any better. Every year is the hottest on record, such that it dosen’t phase me. horrible climate disasters but i’m becoming numb because this is just how things are I guess.

#apathy #climate change #climate doomerism #hopelessness #fucking kill the rich #I support ecoterrorism but not in a Ted Kazynski way in a targeted sabotage way #I don't support just going around killing people #we need to make it unprofitable to operate with non-enviromental means #jen rants

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greenfutures · 2 years

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Britmonkey shows us that, like we did with the hole in the ozone layer, we’re actually making ENORMOUS strides to fix carbon emissions.

Renewables have grown past initial predictions by five-digit percentages and are providing an ROI of over 400%. It’s not just good for the environment, it’s good business!

It’s just that good news doesn’t make for clickbaity headlines.

#climate doomerism #reasons to be optimistic #renewables

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reasonsforhope · 9 months

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Something to remember when the climate anxiety and doomerism are coming for you:

We went from inventing flight to landing on the moon in just 66 years

I wouldn't count us out of the climate change fight just yet

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quasarkisses · 8 months

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If we discovered a secret core on the moon made of oil, no government on the planet would stop companies from going up there and stealing all the uber-rare moon juice.

Two days after work on the NewMoon oil field was complete, the best of earth's scientists would release a detailed paper explaining how this will explode the moon and put up a website counting down until the day the moon explodes, and the news would be a debate on how space jobs can expand the economy and help the middle class and How You Can Reduce Your Oil Use to Save the Moon!

And as we got closer to #Moongate the moon would start rumbling and bits of it would start crashing into the earth and people would write thinkpieces about how international commerce can adapt without tides, and articles about how to build #Moongate survival bunkers, and poems about the moon watching humans through history and children who will never know the moon.

Nothing would be done. The counter would hit zero. The moon would explode. The planet would be buffeted by debris for days and the smoke would cause another Year Without A Summer and human lives would be lost and thousands of species would go extinct. Anyone who tried to take real action to save the moon would be arrested or shot.

We would lose our moon. For profit.

#blah blah blah #we live in a dystopia #dystopia #doomerism #climate collapse #i don't know how to fix this. i don't have an answer. i don't know how we could save the moon

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justalittlesolarpunk · 10 months

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I’m so done with doomers I swear. ‘Oh it’s too late, we can’t do anything’. Not true!! Yes, the climate has already and continues to change, and those problems are largely locked in. But there’s always something we can do to mitigate, to prevent, to adapt, to prepare. Giving up is doing the fossil CEOs work for them! Also, POC please correct me if I’m wrong but doomism always comes across to me as…kinda racist?? I’ve never met a doomer who wasn’t a white person from the Global North, misanthropically proselytising about how nothing can save us and how we probably don’t even deserve saving. And I’m just like ok?? So you’re just going to abandon low-lying islanders to their fate? You’re going to act like indigenous societies are as responsible for this crisis as you are? Congrats, you suck.

#solarpunk #hopepunk #environmentalism #climate justice #social justice #optimism #doomers #global north #I just feel like it’s an excuse not to have to take any action y’know #these are usually the kind of people who go all ecofash about population control as well #racism

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gnome-punk · 11 months

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From Lexi Drumonde's video on Hopepunk.

#hopepunk #hope punk #solar punk #solarpunk #futurism #misinformation #clean energy #renewable energy #nihilsm #nihilizm #climate and environment #climate hope #climate action #climate doom #doomerism

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slowtovvn · 9 months

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As natural disasters become more common, my advice to you is to plan. Have an emergency plan. Have emergency supplies. Have an emergency escape route. Flash floods, forest fires, hurricanes, everything is going to be worse and happen more frequently.

As someone who's been in a flashflood and read plenty of first-hand accounts from recent disasters, the number one shock is abandonment. The state will not help you. If 911 even answers your call they'll tell you there's nothing they can do. There will be no cops or firefighters. If youre lucky the Red Cross will show up a few weeks afterwards and offer you a few hundred bucks. But when the disaster is occurring, you are on your own and you need a plan.

Be ready to help yourself and your neighbors. Stay safe.

#climate change #not to be a doomer #just be prepared #i remember the shock of the first flood #they didnt even care #the 2nd one we didnt even bother calling for help #hearing accounts from the Hawaii fires is really haunting me #my post

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headspace-hotel · 3 months

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Just spent a couple hours digging into this book. I'm not even sure what has worse environmental impacts, the paper the book is made of or the opinions printed within.

Is "post-colonial" literary theory a joke? It's distressing that a book printed in 2021 by a reputable academic press can be so painfully Eurocentric, and I mean PAINFULLY. The philosophical and literary frameworks drawn upon in most chapters are like what some British guy in 1802 would come up with. In most of the chapters, every framework, terminology, and example is inseparably fused to Latin, Greek, and/or Christian philosophers, myths and texts, even down to the specific turns of phrase. You would think only Europeans had history or ideas until the 20th century.

Don't get me wrong, non-european and even specifically anti-colonial sources are used, and I don't think all the writers are white people, but...that's what's so weird and off-putting about it, most of the book as a whole utterly fails to absorb anything from non-European and in particular anti-colonial points of view. The chapters will quote those points of view but not incorporate them or really give their ideas the time of day, just go right back to acting like Plato and Aristotle and Romantic poets are the gold standard for defining what it means to be human.

In brief, the book is trying to examine how literature can shed light on the climate crisis, which is funny because it completely fails to demonstrate that literature is good or helpful for the climate crisis. Like that is for sure one major issue with it, it shows that people *have* written stuff about climate change, but it sure doesn't convince you that this stuff is good.

Most of the works quoted are rather doomerist, and a lot of the narrative works specifically are apocalypse tales where most of Earth's population dies. The most coherent function the authors can propose that literature fulfills is to essentially help people understand how bad things are. One of the essays even argues that poetry and other creative work that simply appreciates nature is basically outdated, because:

“One could no longer imagine wandering lonely as a cloud, because clouds now jostle in our imaginations with an awareness of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants” (Mandy Bloomfield, pg. 72)

Skill issue, Mandy.

The menace of doomerism in fiction and poetry is addressed, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo, on page 127 when he references,

the literary non-fiction of a growing number of authors who explicitly assert, some might even say embrace, the equation between fatalistic apocalyptic narrative and enlightenment…they are authoritative in their rejection of any hope and in their representation of mitigatory action as the cliched moving of deckchairs on a sinking ship

He quotes an essay “Elegy for a country’s seasons” by Zadie Smith, who says: “The fatalists have the luxury of focusing on an eschatological apocalyptic narrative and on the nostalgia of elegy, as well as of escape from uncertainty and responsibility to act." Which is spot-on and accurate, but these observations aren't recognized as a menace to positive action, nor is the parallel to Christian thought that eagerly looks forward to Earth's destruction as a cathartic release from its pain made fully explicit and analyzed. Most of the creative works referenced and quoted in the book ARE this exact type of fatalistic, elegiac performance of mourning.

I basically quit reading after Chapter 11, "Animals," by Eileen Crist, which begins:

The humanization of the world began unfolding when agricultural humans separated themselves from wild nature, and started to tame landscapes, subjugate and domesticate animals and plants, treat wild animals as enemies of flocks and fields, engineer freshwater ecologies, and open their psyches to the meme of the ‘the human’ as world conquerer, ruler and owner.

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's dripping Eurocentrism; these ideas are NOT universal, and it's adding nothing to the world to write them because they fall perfectly in line with what the European colonizing culture already believes, complete with the lingering ghost of a reference to the Fall of Man and banishment from the Garden of Eden. It keeps going:

“Over time, the new human elaborated a view of the animal that ruptured from the totemic, shamanic and relational past.”

Okay so now she's introducing the idea of progression from shamanic nature-worshipping religions of our primitive past...hmm I'm sure this isn't going anywhere bad

“While humanity has largely rejected the colonizing project with respect to fellow humans, the occupation of non-human nature constitutes civilization’s last bastion of ‘normal’ colonialism. A new humanity is bound sooner or later to recognize and overthrow a colonialism of ‘nature,’ embracing a universal norm of interspecies justice.” (pg. 206)

OKAY????

Not only denying that colonialism still exists, but also saying that humans' relationship with nature constitutes colonialism??

Embracing limitations means scaling down the human presence on demographic and economic fronts…(pg.207)

ope, there's the "we have to reduce the human population"

Embracing limitations further mandates pulling back from vast expanses of the natural world, thus letting the lavishness of wild (free) nature rule Earth again” (pg. 207)

aaaaaaand there's the "we have to remove humans from wild nature so it can be freeeeeee"

don't get me wrong like I am a random white person with no particular expertise in anti-colonialist thought but I think this is an easy one. I'm pretty sure if your view of nature is that colonialism involving subjugating humans doesn't exist any more and actually humans existing in and altering nature is the real colonialism so we should remove humans from vast tracts of earth, your opinion is just bad.

Anyways y'all know I have an axe to grind against doomerism so it was probably obvious where this was going but good grief.

#climate #climate doomerism

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nuokis · 6 months

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not to be dramatic but this has finally opened my eyes to the true hypocrisy and straight up evil of the collective west. i realise a statement like that can only from a place of privilege but god damn. intellectually i knew it was bad but maybe there was this naive part of me that still wanted to have faith in democracy and human goodness overpowering corrupt systems and whatnot. there’s no fixing this circus.

#i will not succumb to doomerism i will not succumb to doomerism i will n #it baffles me how anyone can exist in this political climate and remain a moderate #palestine

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whereserpentswalk · 8 months

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So, are you getting Pokémon Global Warming or Pokémon Nuclear Winter?

#pokemon #pokeblr #global warming #climate change #climate crisis #hell world #doomerism #nuclear war #nuclear weapons #apocalypse

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hopalongfairywren · 1 year

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Sorry for the repeated enviromental posting over the past few days its the only way i'm able to climb my way out of complete climate doomspiralling and sobbing to myself about unrealistic worst case scenarios. Back to the fandom blogging for a bit I can't afford another breakdown and spiral. I literally can't. I need hope at least just for tomorrow.

#the existensial dread will still be around for quite a while #but i blocked several doomerist yt channels and r/collaspe and i feel better after doing actual research #tw climate change #tw climate doomerism #tw doomscrolling #catastrophism #climate change #climate justice #ecology #biodiversity #humanity #climate hope

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submalevolentgrace · 1 year

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..."The [March 2023 IPCC] report is clear what is at stake – everything: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

“The choices and actions implemented in this decade [ie by 2030] will have impacts now and for thousands of years,” it says. The climate crisis is already taking away lives and livelihoods across the world, and the report says the future effects will be even worse than was thought: “For any given future warming level, many climate-related risks are higher than [previously] assessed.”...

“Continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components, and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” it says. To follow the path of least suffering – limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C – greenhouse gas emissions must peak “at the latest before 2025”, the report says, followed by “deep global reductions”. Yet in 2022, global emissions rose again to set a new record.

The 1.5C goal appears virtually out of reach, the IPCC says: “In the near-term, global warming is more likely than not to reach 1.5C even under a very low emission scenario.” A huge ramping up of work to protect people will therefore be needed. For example, “extreme sea level events” expected once a century today will strike at least once a year by 2100 in half of all monitored locations."...

"The report presents the choice humanity faces in stark terms, made all the more chilling by the fact this is the compromise language agreed by all the world nations – many would go further if speaking alone. But it also presents the signposts to the path the world should and could take to secure that liveable future."...

"The report does not shy away from the daunting scale of the choices we need to make: “The systemic change required to achieve rapid and deep emissions reductions and transformative adaptation to climate change is unprecedented in terms of scale [and] near-term actions involve high up-front investments.”

The money is key but, the report says, “there is sufficient global capital to close the global investment gaps” if barriers to the redirection of financial flows are overcome. Furthermore, it says, the costs of climate action are clearly lower than the damages climate chaos will cause.

But there is also a gaping climate policy gap, between what is in place and what is needed: “Without a strengthening of policies, global warming of 3.2C is projected by 2100.” That is the “highway to hell”."

#climate #climate collapse #we have less than three years to turn it all around suddenly #so unless we see some sudden immediate action like THIS WEEK #stop fucking calling me a doomer #im just being pragmatic at this point #we are fucked and we need to prepare

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