A lot of people are really scared and angry because of the results of the newest climate change reports — as they should be. But I’m already seeing a lot of posts and news reports like “HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING” and bizarrely enough, the answers are never like “weed out climate change deniers from your government, impose strict new rules for the corporations that are creating most of the emissions, pour government resources into alternate forms of fuel, etc.” It’s always like “carpool to work!”
Look. Of course you should be working to reduce waste in your own life. But let’s not fucking pretend that consumers are the ones who made this mess. You know what another recent study found? Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. If the rest of us stopped ALL WASTE and fucking ascended to a higher plane of existence that no longer requires consumption of any kind, the world would still be absolutely fucked if those 100 companies keep on as they do.
I hate this personal responsibility model when it comes to conservation. By ignoring the actual source of the problem and focusing on individuals instead, guess who gets targeted? The absolute most vulnerable individuals on the planet. When people advocate personal responsibility, somehow they’re never talking about billionaires and their private jets. They’re creating straw bans that will make life more dangerous for people with disabilities. They’re shaming women for using disposable menstrual products. They’re criticizing the poor and destitute for using “wasteful” products because they’re all they can afford. They’re making vaguely eugenic statements about getting people in “third world countries” to stop ~breeding~ so much. It’s monstrous.
Stop shaming consumers for the sins of corporations and their powerful investors. Stop placing the blame at the feet of the people who already have the hardest time getting through life. Do something, and by “do something” I mean buy a reusable coffee cup on the way to fucking vote. Go to a protest. Call a representative. Demand accountability from the people who got us into this mess.
Schlagwort: environment
it’s crazy that im alive to witness major effects of climate change. like it always seemed super vague and it was always ‘the polar bears won’t have anywhere to live’ but this shit is going to fuck everything up bigtime.
Most people don’t realize how serious it is. We’ve only got 50 years worth of resources left, if we keep going the way we are, and honestly, that’s optimistic. Aside from that, we’ve already gone over the calculated “point of no return”, so even if we immediately start sucking gasses out of the atmosphere and stop all transport and agriculture, we’re going to see oceans rise, sea life die, we’re going to be crammed into smaller land areas, places like Melbourne will be underwater, and the fallout will probably send us into an ice age anyway (long story, but basically the ice melts, cold water sinks, the ocean flow responsible for thermoregulation of the planet is interrupted, cue ice age).
I can already see it now. Forget the hurricanes for a moment:
-Hay isn’t growing at the right time. Last year, no one got good hay where I live, because the weather (which has been in the same pattern during hay season for as long as I’ve been alive) was whacked out.
-None of my animals grew coats correctly, because the weather is just all wrong, and they don’t know what season they’re in.
-We’re getting new temperature records globally; basically, all weather is starting to change already
-Where I live, there are always two weeks where we see echidnas everywhere, and then we don’t see them the rest of the year. that is, until last year, when we barely saw them, spaced throughout several months.
-Let me reiterate, the animals cannot tell what season it is because climate change is altering weather patterns that have been here for as long as anyone can remember
-We also have more acidic rain due to all the gasses, which is why we’ve got so many statues and whatnot corroding even though they haven’t changed for thousands of years
-We had a tornado start to form in Melbourne. That’s unheard of.
We have the technology to slow down climate change. If we want to survive for more than 50 years, we need to act now. NOW. We need to put in place all the technologies we have, and pour money into more scientific research.
And why haven’t we? Because politicians earn money from oil companies and don’t care about the future of the planet, because they’re not going to be here in 50 years anyway.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ is a great website that debunks common myths about climate change! check it out! it has a wealth of information that’s super easy to understand and even comes in different levels in terms of learning.
i just recently sat in a climate change presentation and the physicist who gave the presentation talked about how if in the next 30 years we (not just Americans, but humans all over the world) do not cut down on carbon emissions (and this honestly boils down to policy changes that MUST be made amongst industrialists in “developed countries” but that’s a whole other conversation) climate change will ultimately become irreversible.
30 years y’all. that’s within all of our life times. and these effects are going to be pretty much the end of human civilization as we know it.
It’s time for people who will not live to see the consequences of their actions to give way to those of us who will. It’s time for those of us born in the shadow of climate change to stand up and start demanding our stake in the future be recognized as larger and more important than the greedy old men who don’t expect to be around that long.
The Light in the Sky 