You missed “Climate change is real and caused by humans but it’s the responsibility of individuals to fix it.”
“It’s not the company’s fault that you didn’t recycle. Grow up!”
Why should our profits go down to save the world?
Or just “Climate change is real, but it is to late to do anything about it”.
Soon in theaters “climate change is real, caused by humans, but it’s too late now and there’s nothing we can do about it anymore”
Thank you BP
Well, I mean, companies don’t buy their own products.
Blaming it on the individual is just a strategy to delay regulation. Yes, it is lots of individuals, who buy the climate-killing products. But regulating the company does nothing else than prevent those individuals from buying the climate-killing products.
In particular, this is also in the interest of all individuals to solve via regulation, because it creates a new baseline, where companies will scale production and push down prices. If it’s up to the individual to buy eco-friendly, then eco-friendly comes at a premium price. If it’s the default, it’s going to be commodity price.
Regulation without public backing is not possible. You need people to show that it’s possible to live without burning fossil fuels or eating meat. If the government would just ban them there would be riots.
You don’t have to ban them. The strategy I usually see recommended by researchers, is a tax for companies releasing CO2-equivalents into the atmosphere (“carbon tax”) + giving that tax money to consumers.
This increases the price of products proportional to how bad they are for the climate, but on average does not decrease how much money consumers have in their wallets.
It means that people consuming lots of climate-unfriendly products need to pay more or switch to more climate-friendly alternatives. This will lead to some resistance, but on the flipside, people consuming lots of climate-friendly products will be rewarded. This tax is also usually introduced gradually, so companies and consumers can adjust to it.
They do buy each other’s a whole lot though, and they’ve been relying on subsidized, cheap oil to send it overseas to each other, and to the end consumer as well
Except they do to produce other products. Customers can’t be expected to know every step of every supply chain, but the companies already do, they just don’t care.
A company doing something bad every time they make a sale doesn’t make it the purchaser’s fault. The company is performing the bad action and is accountable for that action.
I think you mean should be accountable for that action. Clearly they are not held accountable in any meaningful sense.
Burning the fuel is the problem, and the consumer does it. The companies paid politicians to force us into it.
FTFY:
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Right now oil companies are at an inserted stage before oops which is “it’s too hard and too late to do anything about it now, we’re all doomed anyway”
Honestly I think we’re past oops and fuck and the current attitude just isn’t pictured cause it goes off the page.
“Hydrogen is the Future” - sponsored by Shell
After years of denialism and fucking up our planet these cunts want to sell us the solution to the problem they caused so that we stay dependent on their supply chain and pipelines.
The one case I have seen for hydrogen, that might be useful, is that when things like solar energy generation, create and overload of power, it can be used to create hydrogen, then the hydrogen can be stored, and used for a variety of ways to power things, in a largely eco-friendly, way. Otherwise… yeah.
Losses stack up for hydrogen. It’s kinda of a bad battery and storage is dangerous. Fuel cells are bulky and fragile.
Right now, it’s relatively viable because we get it as a petrolium byproduct. But that version doesn’t burn very clean.
Once we’re using solar at home, it’s green, but you’re chewing through freshwater which isn’t ideal.
Something like sodium ion batteries would be better is most ways. (Other than refilling cars in a gas station)
Hydrogen storage is very expensive and difficult, which makes personal storage difficult. Industrial storage is easier, but still… sketchy. Just look at how many times a year Texas City has an explosion at their gas plant network.
There are better ways to store energy. Hydrogen is just cheap to acquire, which makes it an attractive substance for the existing industry.
Most of what I have read are discussing this possibility is industrial storage, for industrial scale fuel use. Then they usually come in with asides if the car industry, or whom ever, ever creates a good fuel cell. Though I know there are a lot of BS articles about hydrogen fuel cells powering everything, especially cars. Largely pushed by the oil, and auto, industries.
I looked up Texas City explosions, there aren’t actually a whole lot. Though they do have one devastating one (1947), and one really bad one (2005). Most of them seem to have less to do with the stores of hydrogen, and more to do with mishandling of other aspects of the fuel refinement, and fertilizer, manufacture/storage. Large scale hydrogen storage is not as dangerous as it would seem. When punctures in LH tanks happen, even though they are now mixing with oxygen, it proves to be very difficult to actually get it to light. With most attempts to create a hydrogen leak explosion showing it lights briefly, before the pressure of the expanding gas puts it back out, because it actually displaces all the oxygen. The biggest dangers actually seem to be burns from the extreme temperature of it, and suffocation as leaks rapidly fill areas, displacing all the oxygen. Most of the storage explosions of hydrogen are due to how rapidly it expands, which, when improperly stored, can cause a run away pressure build up, and pressure explosion, rather than an ignition one. Though there are exceptions, such as the Muskingum River power plant explosion. Though we still don’t know what managed to ignite the hydrogen leaking from the truck. This means hydrogen isn’t any more dangerous than the storage of other fuels, and materials, that can explode. It is more dangerous to store large amounts of grain.
https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so-just-how-dangerous-is-hydrogen-fuel/
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/hydrogen-vehicle-danger1.htm
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/christian-tae/hydrogen-safety-lets-clear-air
https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/npre470/sp2019/web/readings/Hydrogen safety issues.pdf
I looked up Texas City explosions, there aren’t actually a whole lot.
Interactions continued long after the 2005 explosion. OSHA leveed an $87M fine on facilities in 2009.
There were a series of leaks and minor explosions leading up to a fire as recently as last December.
The '05 was a big one, but problems at the site are routine enough that shelter orders and shutdowns are regularly on the local news.
Oh, I wasn’t saying those two were the only ones. Just that over nearly a century of them being a big producer of refined fuel, and synthetic fertilizer, there really haven’t been enough explosions to warrant the “times per year” comment. This is also only one, out of many, places like this, and none of them, at least that there is public record for, have a whole lot of bad things happening. Unfortunately, the occasional leak of toxic chemicals, explosions due to mishandling of fuels, etc. is something that can’t be avoided if the modern world is to continue working. This is why regulatory bodies, and enforcement of safety, and procedural, laws are important. In the big picture though, hydrogen isn’t particularly dangerous.
nearly a century of them being a big producer of refined fuel, and synthetic fertilizer, there really haven’t been enough explosions to warrant the “times per year” comment.
Idk what the “minimum number of catastrophic accidents” would qualify. But more minor accidents in Texas City are routine. You just found the two historic ones.
Like saying you Googled Biggest Hurricanes In Texas and only came back with Harvey and The Great Galveston Hurricane, so why is everyone complaining? That’s just two in a century.
I am not just talking about catastrophic incidents, in that I mean to say the ones that killed people, and devastated the facility it was in. I looked up data with the BSEE, FERC, and PHMSA. There are little leaks of hydrogen that are considered the most minor hazard a several times a year yes. But the amount of incidents when it goes from potential, to actual, are not frequent enough to be rated in times per year. I was considering situations like where it just lit then went out, or created an environment that could suffocate someone, etc. Beyond that, most of these hazards are not from hydrogen, but other materials.
What it boils down to, is that hydrogen is no more dangerous than other chemicals, we commonly use, that can be explosive.
The main problem with Hydrogen is the efficiency. If we want to get off fossil fuels, we need to talk about primary energy, not only the electricity consumed today. That alone means that we need multiple of the electric production (the physicist in me shudders at that word) of what we have today.
So instead of the finite resource of oil or gas, there’s a bottleneck in energy production and its infrastructure, which means that we need to be efficient with the energy we have. With Hydrogen, you first need energy for Hydrolysis, then cool it down and pressurize it which uses a lot of energy. And then converting it back in the fuel cell to usable electric energy is again lossy. On a good day that’s an overall efficiency of about 30% (which is around the peak efficiency of the combustion itself in modern ICEs). A good LiPo Battery (which comes with its own problems, and for industrial applications energy density is less of a problem) has a roundtrip efficiency of 98%. So you’d need triple the production infrastructure (PV, wind mills, geothermal, etc.) for your storage, if you’d do everything with H2 compared to everything with batteries.
Which means, that if there aren’t major breakthroughs, like a totally different technology (e.g. photosensitive bacteria) to produce H2 at a multiple of the efficiency of today’s tech, then H2 and E-Fuels in general have to be reserved for the applications, where energy and power density are un-negotionable (like airplanes, some construction equipment, or for some agricultural applications).
This is correct, however the idea, at least the one not being pushing by industry, is not that hydrogen will be the primary source of power, nor is it considered efficient. It is just one way that we can, right now, capture some of the excess power generation, as opposed to losing it, or other problems is can create. This is all being considered precisely because we can’t really create batteries at the scale needed to accomplish this, yet. Hydrogen is also something that can be broken down into units that can be transported via numerous different means, such as trucks, rather than needing it to just be grid attached. It is also not being proposed as THE solution here. Most, reasonable, sources discussing this, that I have found, see this as one of many methods needed to accomplish this. All working together, with different strengths, for different uses. This one lacks in efficiency, but is highly portable, and not grid dependent, which makes it attractive to a number of different use cases.
Yes these are all good and valid arguments as a bridge technology used when we can’t meet demands through other, already availabe, often better suited technologies. With the power structures today though, it often gets pushed as the ONLY future. Which is what I’m pushing back against. We should use it where it makes sense, not where it serves some particular interest group to consolidate power to the detriment of us all. I mean H2-cars? Really?
That is one possibility. We could also use pumped hydro, thermal batteries, or just a big fucking rock on a pulley to store that extra energy.
Not only this, H₂ is also a green gas, and we can’t afford the leaks of H₂ due to the used as an energy supply.
The dumb thing is they could have bought the whole market 20 years ago
I have an idea that might work for solving climate change. It has no scientific basis but hear me out, I think it’s worth at least trying. We should try sacrificing some oil execs in a volcano. Maybe tie them to a barrel of oil so that the earth understands we are trying to return what we took and make up for it a bit, so please chill out. Probably won’t actually do anything but it wouldn’t hurt to at least try it for a few decades, right?
I like it. I mean, people won’t go into the lava, as it’s liquid stone, everyone thinks they’ll just dive in but no, it’d be like falling onto solid rock; but you’ve solved that with the oil barrel - well done.
Yea no harm no foul if it doesn’t work out. But we should at least try.
This comment was reported for advocating violence. I’m chalking it up to venting. I share similar frustrations, but let’s make sure we aren’t pushing the envelope too far.
I’ve made similar comments, but I’m trying to take my mod duties (and reports associated with them) half seriously.
Kind regards
TS
Is a blood sacrifice violence?
Myeh. Kinda
Moderating online forums is hard and thankless. You giving thought to such things and not “just following rules” is laudable. Thank you :)
I’m new to moderating, but I’d like to do right by the users.
Veganism would be the biggest boycott to combat climate change while still allowing workers to still go to work.
Let’s get rid of fossil fuels and eat more plants?
The first part is a harder structural issue. The second is an action everyone can take now and have a greater impact towards sustaining the planet. With the side benefits of better health and less animal suffering.
If veganism was welded as a solidarity against capitalism greater market structures would be forced to bend to working class demands.
Speak for yourself, my bike has become my primary means of transportation and I’m saving up for a solar array for my house. That change can and should happen now on every level.
Speaking of structural issues: There are massive, pervasive systems in place both practically and politically surrounding the meat industry. They even get huge tax funded subsidies from the government! Using your logic, should people just give up because of it? What’s the difference?
Veganism and vegetarianism are a hard sell to many people too, encouraging people to eat more plants instead of chastising them for eating meat would probably be more effective in convincing them.
Your comment even leaves out one of the most persuasive reasons the public, at large, are hard to sway to eat less, let alone no, animal products. Our bodies are wired to have strong responses to things like the smell of cooking meat. The way grease affects the tastes of food, etc. Our bodies have long recognized indicators of edible things, that are calorie dense, as that was critical to survival for most of human existence.
Yep, cooked meat was a game changer for our species but now it’s become a health and environmental hazard because we eat so much of it.
Yeah, all that extra protein was a big deal to our development. It has played a critical role in our species for nearly a million years, it won’t be dropped easily.
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I’m not sure theres reason to promote adhering to your base instincts. Do you also try to mount every woman you find attractive?
Surely you can comprehend the idea of choosing to abstain from something you have the urge to do?
I am not promoting it. I am recognizing it as barrier to moving people away from using animals as food. If saying something is a reason that it is hard to convert the larger public, is the same as promoting it, I am not sure how you go about discussing the hurdles to achieving this goal. The old saying “it is an explanation, not an excuse”.
Well if I take it as a serious point, I dont see still how its useful to bring it up. We can’t change our natural impulses, only how we react to them. Following a vegan diet is no more challenging physically or mentally than managing a regular diet if you have the same goals.
Its akin to saying that a mans nature makes it difficult not to sexually assault women. While technically true, it has nothing to do with identifying problems and creating solutions.
I’m struggling to find any good reason to bring up natural instinct besides as an excuse.
I am not arguing that it is good, better, etc because it is natural though. I am saying we , over ~750k years, evolved to have a strong natural reaction to indicators of things that are calorie dense, and maybe protein/nutrient dense. This makes it harder to persuade people to the better option of veganism. It isn’t the only factor, but it is definitely one.
Just because humanity has done something for a long time doesn’t mean we should continue doing it. If this isn’t an appeal to nature then look beyond it and and realize there’s plenty of other ways to to get nutrients besides supporting mass murder of other sentient beings.
If you can over come that then radicalize and realize a unified boycott of the animal agriculture industry would cripple the owning class.
That’s cool I’m glad you have the means to get a house to put solar panels on. I’m also glad your able-bodied enough to get across town. Those are what’s called material conditions. People that have to use a car to get to work can easily take up a vegan diet and be more efficient at fighting climate change.
This second paragraph reads like you didn’t even read the second link.
I wondered how many flights Elon would have to do to undo your bike rides.
Your defeatist attitude is presumptuous bullshit bud
Your ableist attitude is adorable dude.
Keep on making presumtions but I won’t be reading them.
being vegan hasn’t decreased the size of the animal agriculture industry or even stopped it’s growth. for what reason do you think it would have any impact on the planet or animal suffering?
Absolute numbers vs percentages my friend. Populations increase, absolute numbers increase, but what happens with the percent of the whole?
the industry has ceaseless growth.
Growth itself can increase or decrease, you are aware of this right?
it’s still not less suffering or GHG/pollution, only more.
Give up cheese… Or die…
Sometimes sacrifices must be made. It is a shame though, this planet is pretty.
After even 100+ hours in no mans sky. Earth is the most beautiful planet I’ve ever been to.
Literally any time I bring up veganism and climate change, I have ten people jumping my neck screaming “but the corporations!”. Like, it’s so easy to eat vegan and it’s cheaper. I don’t get people
So the thing people miss about this one is people who live out of the reduced/sale section. While at full price a vegan diet is cheaper (though requires a bit more prep time, not much more though microwave steamers are a miracle) Meat is much more calorie dense and can end up being as much as 80-90% off just before it turns, vegetables on the other hand never go on sale. In this circumstance meat is cheaper.
More regionally some of the foods in a vegan diet that make up for protein can be more expensive than you might be used to. Sure beans are universally cheap and there’s some nice varieties (I like kidney and butter beans a lot) but chickpeas, nuts and really all of the non-bean alternatives are actually pretty expensive in some places (e.g. where I live).
That said I admit to being one of these people who could maybe drop meat (I only get it when its on sale/reduction at this point) but couldn’t live without cheese and eggs. iirc chickens are the lowest carbon livestock but I await a good cheese alternative or non-dairy cheese.
I’m not sure what the situation is like wherever you live, but these past recent years there’s been a lot of progress made when it comes to vegan cheeses and egg substitutes. The cheese I’m getting is also quite affordable at Lidl (1,20€ maybe for 150g), eggs can be substituted with tofu or egg mix you just mix with water and spices, though I don’t remember how much those cost.
Also strange, I would have expected chickpeas to cost next to nothing anywhere, really. A 265g can (400g including water) costs like 70 cents maybe
Calorie dense isnt an inherently positive feature. Its what has led to high weights in america to begin with. Calorie dense just means more calories in your belly before you feel full. Are you underweight and need to pack in as much as you can when you are able to eat?
I wouldnt recommend eating that way while overweight.
The time you use prepping meat could easily be applied to prepping a vegan alternative.
I feel like the twitter post addresses the last issue.
thing is that you’re completely ignoring how culturally important meat is to a lot of people, and how much easier it is to cook a very tasty and nutritious meal with meat.
sure, rice and beans is cheaper, but you need to eat other things too and to most people “rice and beans” sounds like abject misery.
You can’t just say “go vegan” as if that’s just a switch you flip, the easy vegan alternatives are expensive and the cheap ones aren’t easy.
If you want people to go vegan, start producing cheap and easy vegan food that is indistinguishable from non-vegan stuff, we have a small amount of such products here and it’s helped me eat less meat.Even if you are right that going 100% vegan is difficult for most people, going 95% vegan is not, and the impact on the climate would be nearly the same.
Not to mention it’s only barely more sustainable than Breatharianism unless you’re taking a ton of supplements.
I’ve been a vegan for 18 years. I’m a little chubby because I can’t afford the gym lately but I haven’t taken supplements in 10+ years. Between cultured vegan yogurt, nutritional yeast, and seaweed it’s not really necessary anymore.
You literally do not need vegan meat substitutes. And if you do want or need them, there are plenty alternatives that cost pretty much the same. I can only speak for Germany, but eating meat would be plenty more expensive. Not even touching on vegetables that are super cheap compared to meat, and are way more nutritious, and don’t clog up your arteries
congratulations on literally just ignoring what i wrote and instead just preaching about your own superiority!
There is the doomerism timeline. “Well, it’s too late now, no reason to change anything now!”.
Doomerism is just an evolution of binary thinking.
…
That’s a strawman of doomerism. There’s as many different opinions as there are “doomers”, but most are probably in the realm of “do what we can to reduce the damage, but the science and math is saying we’re way past any great solutions.” I guess some would call that realism to separate it from the doomer label, but whatever it’s called, that’s where we are.
I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao.
Actual, real scientists that have been studying this for decades all agree. Within 50 years, the Earth will witness a mass die-off of all current life forms directly due to runaway climate change.
And you have lemmings calling this shit “doomer”, so they can feel good in their little liberal bubble about their metal water bottle and paper straws like that’s making any fucking difference.
“Drastic change in the current human way of life” is not just switching to recyclables. It’s fucking over and the liberals, in predictable fashion, are doing nothing to stop it besides feel-good band aids that don’t actually do anything.
Except that’s not true.
What most scientists had not foreseen with an eye so fixated on the artillery of denialism, was the sustained and one would presume well-intentioned misuse of science from the other end of the spectrum, by those who do accept the reality of climate change. When Extinction Rebellion began in England, it conveyed a sense of being witnesses to the cascade of plant and animal extinctions that are escalating around the world as many habitats become less habitable. There is no scientific quibble with that. However, the narrative soon escalated to human death on a massive and imminent scale. As the prominent co-founder Roger Hallam saw it, the burning question had become: ‘How do we avoid extinction?’
…
I get people coming up at my talks, or sending in an email, then being disappointed when I tell them that I only partly buy into the fears stimulated by prominent alarmists. Because I say I’m sticking to consensus science – even knowing that it can never be bang up to date and that its expression will be sure but probably cautious – I suspect they sometimes think that I’m the denier. A climate model researcher in Sweden dropped me a line, saying that he gets the same disappointed reactions, adding that ‘some teenagers are distraught on this, so the alarmism of such actors is taking a heavy and unjustifiable psychological toll on others.’ Those who work with young people warn of the consequences of growing ‘climate anxiety’(27).
…
Michael Mann concurs. He sees ‘doomism and despair’ that exceeds the science as being ‘extremely destructive and extremely influential’. It has built up ‘a huge number of followers and it has been exploited and co-opted by the forces of denial and delay’. ‘Good scientists aren’t alarmists,’ he insists. ‘Our message may be – and in fact is – alarming . . . The distinction is so very, very critical and cannot be brushed under the rug.’(30)
Mann actively tried…sorry, still tries to shift blame for not doing anything on so many of these “alarmists” who are waving their arms pointing at the problems getting worse (yet agrees that the facts are alarming - which is it Michael?) I note that the author uses the term “alarmists”, almost lock in step with how “doomer” is used as a negative. Jesus, the house is on fire, AND we’re trapped in the house, and everyone is asking what’s for lunch. Yes, I’m alarmed and shouting! I guess at least the alarmist name doesn’t imply pacifism or apathy, it “only” paints the guy screaming things are worse and we’re still not doing much as crazy.
I turned doomer/alarmist when the IPCC showed their true colors and not only lagged way behind the breaking science evidence (which I realize has some reasons, but there are some like methane that should have had footnotes back then), but in the last major announcement decided that we’re probably going to shoot past the limit they had set as a “we don’t dare go past this” mark, but it’s okay because we’ll just use technology we have then in the future to draw things back down. They really think the average science-aware person is this stupid. But it made
their string-holderseconomists and politicians feel better, so it’s all “scientific”.We’re in the process (maybe/likely already done) of pushing the environment into a totally different pattern that would lead to a new and hotter planet for millennia. The ice age cycles are gone. Past such disruptions led to mass extinctions while other species adapted and changed, but those gave time to do that adaption. We’re doing it geologically as fast as a meteor impact, however what we’re doing is far more than such an effect.
But this is alarmist. I guess part of that label is not because such observations aren’t wrong, but they don’t give some solutions to keep doing what we’re doing and fix the problems. Worse…some say that even if we try and do things, it will still likely be that bad. I guess seen one way that is apathetic and doomer…but does that make it necessarily wrong? Just because you see the train heading towards the stalled car and say, that’s going to be bad, doesn’t make you a doomer and your point should be discarded. It’s just morbid and it’s more comfortable to not watch and hope no one was in the car. Or to be like the IPCC and figure that the car will magically start right before it’s hit, or maybe will start rolling off the track on its own accord.
I wear the labels thrown at me proudly, because I know that even though I can’t provide any answers to those it upsets, at least I’m not pretending it’s fine.
I’m sure even after what I said I’ll get a reply asking “then what should we do?” I can only say to think locally what you can change about your life to make yourself more self-sufficient and knowledgeable of how to get by if you can’t go get something from the store. Know your neighbors and who you can rely on in times of crisis. Reduce what effects you have, not because it will help the planet, but it will help you adapt to a worsening one. Some may say don’t have kids…I think it’s too late for that mindset, and the population will go down on its own once food becomes scarce anyway. There’s the philosophical problem of bringing someone into a setting where it’s bad and going to always be worse, if that’s fair to them, but I’ll let each wannabe parent work that out themselves.
Adapt and mitigate. It’s all we have left. We aren’t going to stop or even slow what’s already baked in, which is much more than that 1.5C limit that was proposed to make us feel better about continuing our society as-is.
That’s a whole lot of words without a single reference to a climate scientist who thinks doomerism is correct.
It was my opinion. You are quite welcome to toss it out and continue the hope. As for what I said about Mann and his take on alarmists, that’s easily found. It’s in the article even.
I wasn’t trying to convince anyone of anything, just ranting. I’m done already after decades of thinking maybe something could or would be done. How does one cite evidence of one’s experiences? Whatever, sorry to have wasted the enormous amounts of time I’m sure you spent skimming over the text for some links.
You started this thread with “I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao” and now it’s “just like my opinion, man”.
I’d add an overlapping step sponsored by BP in 2004: “Climate Change is real, and here’s a calculator to show you, that we have nothing to do with it.”
For the uninitiated: The Carbon Footprint Calculator was introduced by BP in 2004 as what can only be described as a successful attempt to shift attention and blame to the general public.
Like…why would anyone believe a company whose interest is enmeshed with their claims?? A company isn’t a person with morals. It’s a Machiavellian machine with the sole purpose of maximizing profits. They will never ever intentionally make a claim that hurts their profits. It would make absolutely no sense for a company to reduce demand of its product. That would be soooooo counterintuitive. If you sold lemonade, would you publish a study that showed that lemonade harms people? If yes, then your company would stop selling lemonade and disband while every other lemonade seller would flood the market with the benefits of consuming lemonade.
no dispute there. The thing is, it wasn’t advertised like that. It was advertised as: Here’s this scientifically sound tool to measure your impact and judge what you can do. Which in and of itself wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t burying the lead.
Exxon knew since at least the 70s
Same for Shell, if I remember correctly.
We knew about the Keeling curve in the 50’s
You forgot the “yes it is real and it’s the consumers fault” phase
Executives for these companies should publicly hang for this
Abolish the corporate veil! Their children and children’s children deserve to go to public school.
As should their supporters. This was all made possible by conservatives who delight in polluting the planet.
Conservatives gleefully defend the most pollutive corporations. They choose the most pollutive vehicles, roll coal, litter at will, dump used oil and chemicals into sewers and rivers and berate anyone who expresses support for a clean planet. Conservatism is a disease that is killing us all. It is time for a cure.
Conservatives gleefully defend the most pollutive corporations.
I know for a fact that there are evangelicals who believe the pollution hastens the ‘end times’ and think they’re bringing christ’s rapture to earth that much faster.
almost makes me want to believe in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity just to see that god bitchslap these assholes, thundering “I WASN’T JOKING ABOUT PSALM 115 :15–16. YOU IDIOTS, I GAVE YOU A PARADISE AND YOU FILLED IT WITH SHIT AND PLASTIC.”
Gods or not, we’ve made our bed, I just fill bad for the kids who have to live through the end.
There is one step in between. “Climate change is real and caused by humans, but it’s already too late, might as well keep drilling”
That’s the oops section, and we got one foot in the door on that already.
Climate change deniers changed their tune. They re-branded themselves as “climate skeptic”, and from outright denialism they shifted to “climate change is happening, but it happened before and this one will not be as bad.”
A lot of O&G industry has pivoted to “Only we can fix climate change!” then started mopping up federal grants and subsidies to build quixotic hydrogen fuel cell, carbon capture, and “clean” carbon projects that consistently fail to pay dividends.
Their Republican enablers then point to these failures and announce “climate change is a hoax! We should go back to Drill Here, Drill Now!”
We go back into a debate, while O&G profits surge and temperatures continue to rise. Then everyone in the economy panics when a foreign power takes the lead on battery and nuclear technology.
The one from Total lately is more subtle: climate change is real and humans cause it, but there’s still an increasing demand for fossil fuel, so we answer it (would rather buy more from the Russians?), by opening new wells we keep it affordable for the people (do you want yellow jackets again?).
It would be nice to at least have a plan to one day be immune to oil price chaos and geopolitical fights surrounding distant oil wells. And day now…
I think the only way is to reduce oil dependency. As long as it exists, people will exploit the dependency for economical and political advantage.
Project 2025 has a plan for that.
Unfortunately the plan is “build lots and lots of nuclear power plants and produce more coal, oil, and national gas domestically”. But at least it’s a plan.
Should motivate places like Europe, Japan, China and India who don’t produce oil, hopefully only nuclear and sodium batteries/pumped hydro for baseload power. For oil producers, it is harder to wean them off.
I mean UK & Norway having oil while also both being top 10 in Europe for use of renewables 👀
For places like Europe which are politically stable within themselves, places that can provide way more than they need renewably (uk with wind, norway with hydro, spain with solar) should just pretty much provide for the whole continent and maybe make some nice profit in the process (as they are right now, UK is producing 70% from renewables and exporting 14% of their generation to other countries right now - https://grid.iamkate.com)
Let’s all remember that jury nullification exists, even if being on jury duty kind of sucks.
