Can we talk about the elephant in the room?

[NeptunaOfTheMermaidBattleSquadron]

I feel like as a society we need to start talking about the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change.

All these green measures being put on individuals are surely being wiped out because of all the bombing. Everywhere. All this war and conflict. No one is looking at the impact on the climate. Everything we're doing seems so trivial and pointless because in the same breath we're sending weapons (often called international aid) thousands of miles.

Then there's the manufacturing for it. The weapons testing. All the jet fuel to send the RAF USAF etc all around the world on bombing sprees. The supplies we're sending all over the place, weapons, medicine, rations... it's mind-boggling to think of the sheer scale of this.

And while we're acknowledging and working on fast fashion, home heating, electricity generation, over use of plastics, overpopulation, traceability etc, we're not even talking about or questioning all these bombs exploding everywhere!

We typically think of MAD as nuclear apocalypse, but surely people refusing to actually engage with each other to the point of forcing the world into something with the carbon footprint of a war (never mind several of them) is the climate change version of MAD. We can't reverse it.

I feel like politicians and diplomats just aren't trying hard enough with this because war is so profitable.

Why aren't just stop oil and all those other activists out there trying to protest the most avoidable thing we're doing with the biggest carbon footprint and pressuring governments to go back to diplomacy instead of treating their people as expendable?

IDK what the answer is but we seriously need to get a handle on this and stop using bombs to make points (they're not very good at it anyway) because of this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68110310

Sorry I just needed a bit of a rant. AIBU that they need to try harder to avoid armed conflicts and solve things like adults for the sake of the planet because the stakes are so much higher than one territory or issue? I haven't had much sleep this week so please explain why IABU if you think I am.

Personally the earth has always been in cycles of warming and cooling

Totally agree

But that's the thing. Some people will shame Taylor Swift and some people will boycott her, but many more will not. Leo Di Caprio is just a humunous hypocrite but as you say, Greta Thunberg still hangs round with him, giving him credibility. We should all do things, but not enough people will unless there is absolutely no choice.

Ah. There is always one. Yes. You are right. But there is unequivocal evidence that we have sped that up at an alarming rate and if we don’t stop then most of the planet will become unable to support life.

I wish you were right. I really do. But you are missing out decades of global, multi disciplinary and multimodal research and the few scientists left who disagree have links with the oil industry.

I’ll go with the in-depth reports written based on decades of global research I think. depressing as that may be.

The more that do, the more that will. It’s about critical mass. We were getting there before the pandemic. What’s that saying about if you ever think you are too small to make a difference then you’ve never been in a bedroom with a mosquito.

We all need to be mosquitoes- keep buzzing. Keep biting. Keep being a pain in the ass so we can’t be ignored. Write to our MPs regularly. Sign petitions. Write to companies. Talk to people.

As well as lowering our individual footprint.

Yes you are right.

The only thing we're defending are our arms manufacturing and exports.

The idea that we're opposing dictatorships is particularly laughable while domestically we're removing; the rights to protest, to strike, to seek asylum, to legal aid etc.

Weakening our environmental protections, food safety, access to healthcare, trashing our education system, trying to lessen the power of the courts over parliament etc.

We're not the good guys.

Celebrities & the Elite rant - Part 2

The other thing that gets on my tits are all these rich pricks & their rockets. Yes, I mean Elon Musk & Richard Branson, et al. I can't believe that doesn't contribute to pollution in vast quantities.

Any one seen Elysium - that Matt Damon movie where LA (and the earth) is a total shit hole and Jodie Foster and the Super Rich live on that luxurious space hotel with state of the art medical advancements and care (the NHS long perished and abandoned)?

Is that what they are aspiring to?

i can respect your point, thing is a large % may agree but then people also believe the earth was the centre of the universe and galieo tried to suggest it was not yet was considered a hertic for the beliefs and we know who was right,
that said we may have turned the temp up so to speak i guess it will be big tech that saves the earth and not some protestors with orange banners

unsync · Today 19:11
Overpopulation is the problem no one talks about. There are too many humans, using too many resources and destroying the planet to get more…

Yes, you’re right, but in China and Korea (and Japan?) their governments are panicking about the falling birth rate and trying to persuade women to have more children.
Surely a falling population is a good thing.

ohdearddddd

I can’t quite believe we haven’t had a revolution the way people have been treated.

what form do you think this revolution would take?

Ah. The fingers crossed for a technological saviour. Again, I wish that was likely but it’s a fairy tale we tell ourselves to help us to sleep at night.

It’s not my opinion. It’s science. Yes, that shifts and changes with new findings but this is as certain as it ever gets and the predictions have been right.

I so so wish I could join you in your ‘it will be fine’ camp. It must be so much nicer there. But it’s just not reality. You have been misinformed.

Ha ha. Good question. No idea. I just can’t quite believe we are putting up with it all really.

Money won’t buy them protection from what’s to come. They think it can but it can’t. Even if they are ok, what kind of life is it knowing you, in part, caused the awful
suffering you are seeing?

worse case, abandon earth and colonize other planets and make earth 2.0

thats assuming they dont belive other reasons for the climate, and then most have their bunkers

I completely agree and read this just as an item about climate change came on the TV! They were saying how many football pitches are being flooded by severe weather and by 2050 a 1/4 of football pitches will be flooded.

😂😂😂 good one. That gave me a good chortle. Thanks.

We could ration air miles?

I think the ultra rich are getting ready to colonise space. They know they’re fecked up the earth. That’s why Elon musk is so interested in space exploration.

I guess you could predict the answer to that question by looking at Mark Zuckerberg after he has apologised to the parents of children who have killed themselves due to his poor regulation of his site. He just went home, looked at his share price and decided he didn't give a shit after all.

You are right OP. Apparently 400 million tonnes of CO2 emmitted as a result of iraq war 2003 -2019. It is one of the highest. However global deforestation is leaving 5 - 10 billion tonnes of CO2 in atmosphere that would not be there if the trees were.
As for all those who say its pointless doing anything while China are carrying on. Average carbon footprint for a person in Britain is much higher than china Britan is 13 tonnes per capita, whereas in China it is only 8 tonnes.
How Bad are Bananas by Mike Berners-Lee

Wars are bad, and we should try to stop them for all kinds of reasons. But their CO2 output is a couple of places to the right of the decimal point compared to the fossil fuel consumption of the four billion or so people in the world who now have lifestyles that include a fridge, hot running water, air conditioning, and a motor vehicle of some kind.

We can tell that basically by looking at the price of oil. If the CO2 being emitted by bombs and shells going off in Ukraine or Gaza actually represented a big increase in global CO2, we would see the price of oil going sky-high because all of those explosives are manufactured using chemical processes that depend on oil. The C in CO2 has to come from somewhere.

So by all means campaign to stop whichever wars you feel most strongly about, but if your primary reason for doing so is the CO2 being emitted by those wars then your time might be better spent campaigning for CO2 to be reduced in other, more effective ways.

Absolutely agree. Nobody would ever say it is futile because any effort would stop if they did. But if you analyse the facts, production rates, what they would need to reduce to, and the likely timescales, we are really now reliant on some other solution.

Don't get me wrong, I still do as much as I reasonably can, but that isn't as much as I could do. I take the train when possible, but I still drive a car. I still go on flights for work and for pleasure, I still use things which contain harmful substance because I can't afford not to do any of those things.

I've given up letting it make my blood boil as that will have me in the grave earlier than the temperature rising.

And climate change as a concept is social control and a money making extravaganza for big business, globally

Much better off ignoring it all