Ask Lemmy

With all the world (at least western nations) drifting backwards at least into nationalism (some countries even at full throttle into fascism), this could be used as an advantage: Why not shifting the narrative into the direction, that a stable, clean and healthy enviroment is pinnacle of patriotism (like the narrative of a healthy body was used in national-socialist propaganda 90 years ago in Germany), along with renewable energy that makes each nation independent from others. Wind turbines and solar power for freedom, so to say. Things like coal rolling or similar acts like wasting resources will be deemed as un-patriotic then.

Other than inventing time travel, I don't think there's a realistic method at this point. (and then I'm not so sure that time travel is that realistic either)

Call a halt to this AI bullshit for a start. I've just received a (UK) government questionnaire about my personal energy usage and how I might reduce it. Meanwhile, I learn said government has mooted giving everyone in the country ChatGPT Plus for free!

There are innumerable ways businesses and governments can reduce their energy footprint etc and make a difference.

Major corporations caused this, only major corporations can solve it. Laws would have to be passed requiring them to offset the damage from everything they do. Coops would need to be set up wherever possible for one industry to reuse waste from another. Subsidies would need to be ethically set up to encourage industry involved with cleaning the environment. Cooperation between nations to combat global issues would be needed. Actual consequences for industries it nations that violate. Education!! And most importantly convince half the world's population to give a shit or even believe the problem exists. I've probably missed some.

The alternative would be magic.

Yeah, between the two, I think magic is probably more realistic. Let's go with that.

You are asking two how to questions "combat climate change" and "reduce emissions"

To realistically combat climate change:

• Admit that we need to try geoengineering (we are already doing this with all the CO~2~ and CH~4~ going into the atmosphere)
• Weather it is SO~2~ injection or cloud seeding to artificially increase the albido; we need to reduce incident solar radiation to give us a few more decades to actually reduce emissions

To reduce emissions:

• Tackle the biggest emissions first.
• Electrification of the passenger fleet; that means batteries. Keep fuel cells for heavy transport (maybe)
• Encourage electric biking. And other micro-mobility. Along with better public transport.
• Normalise a historical style diet, meat is a treat only once or twice a week.
• Reduce concrete construction; keep it for the important things like the foundations.
• Reduce the practice of packaging everything in plastic; again keep it for the important things only like electrical insulation.
• Massive ramp up of solar and wind around the world.
• Where we use fossil fuels, ask is this important enough to use FF here?

Carbon taxes:

• Tax CO~2~e (carbon dioxide equivalent) at a reasonable rate to encourage all of the reduction measures.
• At less than $65NZD/T the cost is too low to encourage significant movement on the issues.
• Have a ratcheting scheme in the CO~2~ market, i.e. add $5-8/yr/T for CO~2~e; in 10 years the price will be between $110-140/T. At the 10yr mark, make the ratchet $10-15/yr/T.
• Add a carbon tariff; basically make it more expensive to buy from countries that are not pulling their weight.
• Be careful not to double tax, this is important for buy in from the public. i.e. the carbon tax on fuel should be exempt from sales tax, taxing a tax is a great way to alienate people.

Seize political power at every level. Do what you can. Compromise. Tell voters the stupid shit they wanna hear about kitchen table issues, or whatever it takes

We need a binding international treaty implementing carbon taxes.

They're unpopular so we need to take this decision out of the hands of politicians who might be tempted to defect the next time they're up for reelection, they should only be responsible for the implementation of the policy that was already agreed to and can't easily be wriggled out of.

I'm not a doomer, in large part because I think that economic forces will reduce greenhouse emissions significantly on their own, and despite hitting recent setbacks in policymaking that would push those reductions to happen more more quickly or with deeper cuts, that decarbonization back down to 1990 levels is still going to happen in our lifetimes.

Here's how I think we'll get there:

• Phasing out fossil fuel electricity generation. Solar power is just ridiculously cheap compared to any other method of generation. As we deploy grid scale storage, demand-shifting technology and pricing structures, develop redundancy with wind and advanced geothermal (and possibly fusion in the coming decades), we're going to make fossil fuel electricity generation uncompetitive on price. Maybe ratepayers and governments don't want to subsidize carbon-free energy, but why would they want to subsidize carbon emitting energy when those are no longer competitive?
• Electrification of transportation (electric vehicles, including big stuff like trains and buses and small stuff like bikes and scooters).
• Electrification of heat, both for indoor climate control and furnaces/boilers for water and industrial applications. Heat pumps are already cost effective for new construction in most climates, and even retrofits are approaching cost competitiveness with fossil fuel powered heaters.
• Carbon capture as a feedstock into chemical production, including alternative fuels like sustainable aviation fuel. Once electricity is cheap enough, even only at certain times of day, energy-intensive chemical production can hit flexible output targets to absorb surplus energy supply from overproduction of solar, to store that energy for later or otherwise remove carbon from the atmosphere.

To borrow from a Taoist concept, we shouldn't expend effort fighting the current of a river when the current itself can be utilized to accomplish our goals. In this case, the capitalist incentive structure of wanting to do stuff that makes money is now being turned towards decarbonization for cost savings or outright profit.

Buy less crap. That’s it. It sounds like a sacrifice, but stuff doesn’t make you happy (provided your basic needs are met). If you are working longer hours to pay for your cars and tvs and fast fashion, your life might improve.

Playing with a cellphone is kinda fun. Know what’s really fun? Friends.

If you’re under 60, buying less crap is going to disrupt your life less than climate change will, so i think i am entitled to the aforementioned bonus points.

Redistribute all excess wealth perpetually.

Seize control of the corporations that control most of the polution due to global shipping, shut all non-essential services down until our fleet of vehicles are upgraded to carbon neutral.

Reroute military funding to public infrastructure, take away everyone's gas cars and drivers licenses and force the public to use public transport.

Force the meat industry to cull 99%of cows on earth

Reinvest into the satellite tracking for carbon emissions and stamp out the random offenders.

This response is focused on the US since that's the place I already have a very good idea of the current laws and challenges affecting climate action. I'd start by passing the following legislation immediately:

• Mandate remote work options for all positions that can be performed remotely. We saw during the pandemic how much commuting to the office negatively impacts the environment as well as people's lives.
• Carbon tax with a gradual but short (say 4 year) implementation period where it rachets up to the full tax value for carbon emissions directly created by the industry. The carbon tax is intended to make polluting and wasteful choices far more expensive than cleaner alternatives as well as raise tax dollars for significant infrastructure redevelopment
• Create new taxes and tax breaks plus subsidies for rental properties with poor insulation to encourage updating all rental properties to have modern insulation (and similar tax breaks and subsidies for homeowners to upgrade their insulation)
• Federally allow the construction of ADUs in all residential zone types (likely also creating a more relaxed permitting process and building code for ADUs to reduce cost and encourage their construction)
• Federally allow 2 family housing in all single family zoning (meaning a single family zoned lot can now have the main dwelling converted into a duplex plus an ADU constructed, tripling the permitted density)
• Federal tax break and subsidy for the purchase, maintenance and use of bicycles including ebikes and bike trailers (many places are bikable but people just don't choose to bike. For example, every small town is mostly bikable within town save for any highways that cut through them, and residential streets are very safe places to bike even if they don't contain dedicated bike infrastructure)
• Gradually but significantly increase annual vehicle registration fees, racheting them from the current ~$120 per year to ultimately cost several thousand dollars per year, with some discounts available to those who do not live in an incorporated community, NEVs and classic cars, thereby greatly discouraging vehicle ownership and car commuting. Also instituting significantly higher registration fees for heavier vehicles

In the longer term I'd also take the following steps:

• Use carbon taxes to fund a massive transit shift away from private cars to build more railroads and better bike infrastructure
• Nationalize the north American freight rail network and turn all railroads into rail operators, and either an existing federal agency or a new agency takes over maintainance, dispatching and expansion of the rail network, significantly lowering the bar for new railroad services and companies to be created
• Massively expand Amtrak services with many new routes and expanded service on existing routes

And for an even longer term cultural shift to encourage slower growth I'd pass the following legislation:

• Impliment UBI as an eventual replacement for all social safetynet programs. Probably a value of around $1k/month per adult and $3k/month per retiree/disabled adult would make it enough that creative individuals could live entirely off of the UBI but low enough to still encourage working. Most importantly this UBI would be decoupled from the stock market so stock market crashes would not affect people's ability to retire. This fits into climate legislation as it removes one of the primary incentives for infinite economic growth (saving for retirement)
• Strong right to repair legislation combined with minimum warranty terms of 5-10 years (plus minimum expectations for warranties such as limiting how long a repair/replacement may take to receive) for products to ensure higher quality construction
• Greatly expand the EPA's powers so that a nimble agency can forcibly stop companies from finding new ways to legally pollute our world, as well as providing a second mandate to the EPA to help consumers live more sustainably (this could come in the form of EPA-funded repair workshops and tool libraries for example, probably also EPA-funded vehicle rentals including ebike and ebike trailer rentals so that people can more easily go car-free)

And that's what I have off the top of my head. Start with the changes that will make a big impact without requiring individual lifestyle change, and in the longer term financially encourage a more sustainable lifestyle. Removing the financial forces that encourage wasteful resource consumption can be all of the incentive needed for people to live much more sustainably and can be enough to put the world's climate goals within reach

Physically destroy oil and gas production and storage facilities. Seems like the most straightforward method. If Ukraine can reduce Russian oil production 20% in a matter of months then people who care about the planet should be easily capable of doing the same.. I have been looking into producing a google maps style overlay of global infrastructure that anyone who wants to contribute could use as a target list.. but there might be others out there more au fait with mapping technology who could do it better. I’ve been inspired by the book How to Blow up an oil pipeline by Andreas Malm.

I don't think I can. I try and make the least impact I can for my own moral reasons. Essentially I want to know I did as much as I could when I leave this existence. I accept that there are forces beyond me that I can only influence indirectly and that despite my efforts can and have gone in a massively opposite direction of reducing climate change.

My proposal... this is a "long con", so this seem more like a political proposal rather than something that can quickly fix up our society to be less polluting:

1. Start/contribute to a political party that is catered towards young voters, with somewhere between center-left to full left-wing orientation. Note that sadly this party cannot be "far-left" so no eating billionaires or drastic corporate taxes... yet. Climate change will be a core part of the agenda, but at this point the party has to only focus on low-hanging fruit options (improve recycling & waste management, fines on recycling, taxes on cars, company cars, and high-consumption households, etc). Very important that intermediate steps such as nuclear is accepted (in contrast to some Green Parties), we can't afford to ruin the economy at this point
2. Try to pre-emptively rule out serious cases of corruption and/or nepotism, and try to base party focuses and decisions on politically unbiased scientific outputs; might need to hire a good scientific panel
3. Use whatever means possible to try and gain popularity without changing the party's principles. Ads... yes. Social media... yes. Paid influencers... have to swallow a hard pill here but also yes
4. Try to win enough seats to form a majority coalition government with left-leaning and/or green parties. This is where point 1's not being far-left yet comes into place as the party will need to be at least somewhat popular with most voters and most other politicians
5. Work with the coalition to reduce tax loopholes, try to classify more forms of rich-people "income" into regular taxable income, and shift the main beneficiaries of party politics to focus on the working class. So no more tax loopholes for the rich as much as we can try... and the "no corruption" part from point 2 becomes very important here as otherwise the plan can go to waste
6. The government should have a healthy tax base at this point. Now start giving tax incentives to perform more serious individualistic environmentally-friendly options (for example, subsidized high-speed rail instead of plane, install solar panels, biking instead of driving), and heavily tax or penalize situations that are polluting with no particular upsides (one-time use plastic, private jets, ,,,)
7. Now THINK BIGGER. Invest tax money to public transit and green energy infrastructure; the population might be accepting of more radical interventions such as banning private jets or prison time for some execs now so we can start doing that

... Frankly, if anyone actually carries out this plan until like step 5 or 6, I think the exact details regarding combat climate change would be trivial, since the government would have very sufficient resources/good will/power to do so at that point

First, people need to accept that we exist within a culture of overconsumption that directly contributes to climate change. Sacrifices to common conveniences will need to be made before we can make any meaningful change.

I'm not saying this is all on the individual. Corporations contribute tremendous waste. But they do so in service to society's demand for convenience and instant gratification. We all need to learn to live with less.

Genuinely there needs to be a fee that companies must pay for the pollution they create, with it written into law that they can't palm the cost off on their customers.

We need to move shipping away from the 'barely more refined than crude oil' fuels they use

We need to ensure protection of the oceans by making it so that outflowing waste from industry never reaches the watercourse in the first place.

Single use plastics need to be removed from the supply chain (alternatively changed at the production level so they're made from plant cellulose or a material that doesn't break down into PFOAS or microplastics)

We also need to block petrochemical companies from lobbying or interfering with politics, and prevent them from funding smear campaigns against renewable energy sources

Sorry, not sorry, but the

I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.

is not something we can skip as ducking billionaires and private jers are a large part of the reason we're here in the first place.

Ban private jets, all of them. Maybe exceptions for medical flights only. There is no reason for their existence, there is no human right that says "well humans must be able to own their own airplane!"

Ban super yachts, there is no reason why they should exist beyond showing off what an abusive hoarding asshole the owner is.

Make cities for humans, not for cars. That doesn't mean ban cars outright but do make cities like in the Netherlands and more. Cars should be kept out of cities asuch as possible. Pedestrians and bicycles first (and in many places, only) and replace the vast majority of cars with electrified public transport. Make neighborhoods mixed buildings with homes, stores and bars and restaurants. All industrial stuff in industrial parks.

This will change the urban design of cities. You'll get many more smaller stores all around, people don't need a car to go yo Walmart, they walk to their neighborhood store. This will make all countries as nice as "oh my god the Netherlands is so nice, it's so nice with the small streets and the bicycle allowing you to go everywhere". It'll also lower CO2 by a shit load. In the Netherlands, a huge amount of the population doesn't have a car because they don't want a car. It's expensive and they no longer actually NEED one. Cars that are left should all be electrified.

Tax the rich, and not just a little bit. The 1% and 0.1% are extreme polluters and take and waste beyond anything that can be construed as normal. There is no inherent human right to be a billionaire. Tax the rich and prohibit anyone from having a networth over 10 million dollars (example figure, but something around that) by taxation. Any income after you reach that is 100 % taxed. Of course there will be tax brackets, starting at zero for the poorest, going up and up to that 100%.

Limit company sizes to 1 billion dollars networth and or 1000 employees. After that billion, revenue taxes go to 100% equally. No company should be too big. If the company is worth that, btw, you'd need loads of shareholders as each individual can only have a networth of 10 million, remember?

Teach our children that being super rich is something shameful. You've been abusive, you've been hoarding, it's abusive and you should be ashamed, and (as said above) prohibited

Require all product producers that all their products are recyclable, repairable, built with sustainable materials from sustainable sources. If it's not sustainable, don't sell it.

Same for packaging, bit also require all packaging to have only one packaging, not twenty, and all packaging material must be paper

Require stores to also sell used versions of their products. This requires that they also buy used products from their customers. This of course doesnt apply to food and such :)

Prohibit stores from dumping unsold items. If something doesn't sell, they can give it to the government for distribution

Ban plastics where possible. No plastic in packaging, for example. No plastic bottles, go back to glass. Standardize certain bottle sizes and colors for easier reuse.

Teach kids hat he basics of Capitalism is okay, but that it can become an evil beast if not controlled well. Consumerism is not okay, you don't need half the crap people have in their homes these days

With that said, prohibited ALL advertising. If I'd have to see another single lie from a company about how their product really is the best, it'd be too much

Stop inheritance. You should be able to inherit some memorabilia from your loved ones, not that castle they owned

Make all enormous homes with 50 rooms into nice spa hotels. Nobody has the right to have a home that is crazily oversized.

Tax meat heavily. It's still okay (for now) as it's such a staple of everyone's diets, but seriously, you don't need a two pound steak. Limit the amount of meat allowed in single servings. Push for laboratory meat.

Require farms to have all livestock to be able to roam free, have good food, etc.

Those are a few rules to staet with a generally healthier and better world for everyone. I'm sure some rules are incomplete, need more detail, need exceptions or slight modifications, but the basics are there.

Nothing not what we have today HAS to be the way it is, it is the way it is because we all allow it. Changing economic systems is usually disastrous, so let's keep capitalism, it's the best system to make capital. But with these basic limits, nobody gets too rich. The government gets loads of money that it can use for social systems like free healthcare, free education, free food and housing, universal basic income, etc.

Sounds pretty neat in my head, I'll start refining and adding to this list.

Yeet billionaires into space is a decent start.

Proviso of this is that, globally, politicians grow a spine, along with a sense of morality, and long term planning. It would also require them to deal with the money hoarding issues with the hyper rich.

• The first step is a massive push for renewables. They should be representing 200-500% of grid demand regularly. If nuclear can get up to speed and be part of this, great, but we can't wait on it.

• That excess power should be soaked up by large scale, portable, energy storage. Green hydrogen is the current best option, but synthetic fossil fuels could also take up the slack. Depending on the area, desalination could also be combined into this.

• We seriously decarbonise the transport networks. For vans and smaller, electric vehicles win. BYD have demonstrated that low cost electric cars are viable. For larger vehicles, where electric becomes inefficient, hydrogen is viable. This is where a lot of the excess hydrogen will be going.

• Carbon credits with teeth. Rather than relying on a planned economy mindset, we can make capitalism work for us. We need a global fixed carbon emission limit. This limit should trend towards net zero on a preset timetable. Credits are bid on, akin to stock market trades. Companies must have credits by the end of the year/period. The fine for not having credits should be a multiple of the closing credits price (10x?). The fine for falsification should be multiples of that, erring towards corporate execution levels.

This will force easy savings out of the market quickly. It will then force compulsory emitters to factor in Carbon costs.

• Combined with the carbon credits will be negative credits. If a group takes a ton of CO² out of the air, long term, they gain a new credit. They can sell this to emitters. This will provide the CO² emissions industry requires, while meeting net zero.

An example of this might be large scale bio capture on the open ocean. Grow seaweed etc on pontoons, and turn it into a solid. This can then be locked up (old coal mines?) taking carbon out permanently.

• Geo engineering. There are multiple methods of reducing incident sunlight on the earth. Everything from powders in the upper atmosphere, to mylar solar shades at the Lagrange point. They will be short term fixes, but will buy us time.

None of these require massive reductions in quality of life. They do require changes in how we do things. It's also worth noting that I've not covered the numerous problems to be solved e.g. power grid upgrades to account for renewables. None of these should be insurmountable however, just engineering, or political/policing challenges.

An no, I've no fucking idea how to get politicians to grow a spine and do what's required for our long term comfort/survival. Fixing the planet? That's just a (really big) engineering problem. Fixing human nature? ...Fuck knows.

Compost the rich