Climate chaos and anxiety

[DarkSpeedWorks]

@Yeeper

What are the “required” changes, though? That’s what’s I’m getting at.

There are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of reputable sources for this online. Governmental changes, and individual changes.

This is a passable start:
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/10-ways-you-can-help-fight-climate-crisis

[BCtriguy1]

@DarkSpeedWorks

@BCtriguy1

@DarkSpeedWorks

@BCtriguy1

Yup, Canada has been making real policy decisions that have had negative impacts on people, which is why this is being so politicized.

I wonder, does this have negative impacts on people?:

Do these changes we are making have any meaningful impact on those fires when other, larger countries are increasing their pollution at rates multiple times more than we are reducing ours?.

OK, but then should your country (and my country) only take meaningful national climate steps when every single other country on the planet takes similar actions first??

No. But we should have a more reasonable conversation about this.

First, we need to start by addressing the fact that Canada could cease to exist tomorrow, from an emission standpoint, and it would not make a meaningfully blip on worldwide emissions. That’s just an unfortunate fact.

We do have high per capita emissions, largely because we have a long heating season, and a decent cooling season for most the country in the summer. We also have a tiny population spread over a massive country, so, transportation distances are higher, and we lack the population to invest heavily in robust transit. So, under those circumstances, we need to look at how much we can reasonably reduce our emissions by without, you know, driving everyone in to poverty. Remember, these actions are almost entirely performative from the standpoint of curbing climate change. They will cost people lots of money, degrade our standard of living, and shape the way we live our lives, but accomplish very little.

What should we do, and what should be forced upon us? And will our leaders or those dictating what we should do follow suit? Or will they continue to fly private jets to exotic locales to attend climate summits so they can pat themselves on the back while they wag their fingers at others who are actually making sacrifices?

[ike]

@BCtriguy1

First, we need to start by addressing the fact that Canada could cease to exist tomorrow, from an emission standpoint, and it would not make a meaningfully blip on worldwide emissions. That’s just an unfortunate fact.

The residents of populous countries have no greater ethical obligation than the residents of less populous countries. Does someone in India have a greater ethical obligation to vote for candidates who would reduce emissions than someone in a small country?

Instead of focusing on the size of the jurisdiction in which you are voting (city, province, country) you should focus on things like your jurisdiction’s ability to make per capita reductions and what sort of sacrifices that would entail. Canadians likely have far greater ability to reduce their emissions without undue sacrifice than do Indians.

[RandMart]

@BCtriguy1

What should we do, and what should be forced upon us?

Well … there’s that “51st State” thing some idiots are talking about, but I don’t think that would help much, if at all

[BCtriguy1]

@ike

The residents of populous countries have no greater ethical obligation than the residents of less populous countries.

Why not?
China, US and India create around half the world’s GHG. Canada creates 1.5%. While I am for making some contributions to decrease our emissions, our efforts are pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It would take a Herculean effort to reduce our emissions by, say, 10% and that would still be less than the annual increase in emissions by a country like Indonesia alone.

Policy wise, I feel like we have our government constantly telling us we aren’t doing enough as individuals, and using punishment as a tool for not changing our lifestyles fast enough, despite the cost.

At the same time, they encourage companies to offshore their manufacturing across the world to countries with atrocious or non-existent environments laws in the name of greater profits.

They refuse to responsibly extract and sell our resources to countries who then buy them from other countries with more nefarious value systems, which hurts our economy and strengthens our adversaries, and arguably is a net negative contribution to climate change.

I’ll gladly do what I reasonably can, but I really bristle at being forced in to situations to the detriment of my family in some vain attempt to save the planet, by people who aren’t practicing what they preach. There is an ugly side to the business of climate change and companies out there are making billions off our backs, and we clearly aren’t solving the issue at hand in the process. But, they can always tell us we need to do more, and more…

[DarkSpeedWorks]

More great stuff from our prez. This will solve the climate crisis! George Orwell would be proud.

Major US climate website likely to be shut down after almost all staff fired

[spockman]

We (Canada) currently have a national GDP which is steadily declining compared to the US. We could export LNG to countries that are currently using coal or dependent on Russian natural gas. Countries like Japan and Germany have actually sent their leaders asking for this. They are not environmental bad guy countries. This could reduce global carbon output and reduce environmental destruction via war. We could be Norway where they generate revenue exporting oil that is going to be used anyway and using electric cars to reduce our own footprints. Instead most people here cannot afford electric cars.

[50plus]

@spockman

Instead most people here cannot afford electric cars.

Or unfortunately live in a condo/apartment with no charging within walking distance, and there doesn’t seem to be a hurry to fix this.

[ike]

@spockman

We could be Norway where they generate revenue exporting oil that is going to be used anyway and using electric cars to reduce our own footprints. Instead most people here cannot afford electric cars.

Carbon accounting should be based on consumption, not production. If someone in, say, France drives a gas car, that carbon should be attributed to France and not to Norway (or wherever the oil originated). Same logic if Canada exports LNG to Germany: that should be attributed to Germany, not Canada.

At an individual level, what matters is the carbon (and other GHGs) that were needed to produce and transport the product to the individual. That is the carbon (etc.) cost of the individual’s consumption. Whether that carbon originated in the individual’s country or some other country is economically important, but is not the environmental driver.

Suppose city A gets its electricity from a coal-fired plant in city B. Attributing all of the plant’s carbon emissions to city B gets things wrong. It makes city B look like big carbon users, even though much of the electricity goes to A. The happenstance that the plant is in B does not get the residents of A off the hook for the electricity they use.