People are doing their damnedest to fight against climate change no matter the odds, and that should fill you with inspiration and encouragement.
This is like saying people on the Titanic are doing their damnedest to fight the iceberg that’s approaching right ahead and that should fill you with inspiration and encouragement.
We’re not even stopping new drilling or driving cars with better MPG than decades ago; forget net zero carbon emissions. We’re still pushing more CO2 into the air every year.
To come back to my analogy the passengers may want to swerve from the iceberg, but the captain is mad, drunk, and stubborn and wants to teach the iceberg a lesson.
Except it’s all of humanity and not a fucking captain. It’s a canoe and we all have paddles of varying effectiveness.
It’s not unfounded optimism because at least some people are trying to paddle away from the fucking iceberg.
Shutting down any and all attempts at being optimistic make people shut down and then ACTUALLY do nothing, rather than the minimal they already do because they feel bombarded by hopelessness and go “what’s the point?”.
So fucking point to the scientists, point to the companies going green, point to EVs and a grassroots movement towards walkability and public transport that’s always growing.
Stop with the “unfounded optimism” bullshit unless you actually think future generations deserve to suffer for their ancestors’ mistakes.
We’re already hitting the iceberg. We’re probably going to keep hitting it the next few decades, at best. I believe analysis still says however it won’t be extinction level, partially because of the efforts made to this point already. This is the article I’m thinking of:
"It’s not that if we go past 1.5 degrees everything is lost,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “But there’s clear evidence that 1.5 is better than 1.6, which is better than 1.7, and so on. The point is we need to do everything we can to keep warming as low as possible.”
The article also goes on to say that the +4C forecast is looking increasingly unlikely, and we’re track to 2.1 - 2.9 C this century. That’s because of what we’ve already done to curb emissions. The work people have done so far has made us likely avoid the worst. And the work we continue to do now, whether that’s voting for pro climate politicians or turning a wrench at a hydrogen plant or researching a new generation of solar panels – it will help us make the future worse.
This whole thing isn’t colliding with an iceberg and sinking. A better analogy would be a snowstorm that we’re trying to get through. Some places will be completely buried, but there’s still people out there digging through the snow to try and minimize the accumulation as much as they can. There’s people working hard to keep homes warm. There’s people cooking meals for everyone.
We shouldn’t be so despondent about the places that will be completely covered and destroyed by snow, that we don’t fix and save what we can!
Yes, but we should also be demanding the oil CEOs be put to death as if this really is hopeless. If you have money, your trial is already unfairly biased, why should you get anything less than a kangaroo court for something like this, ArAmCo?
See the bullet points in the executive summary of the study linked from this article. They are all illuminating, but I’ve extracted three just for ease of reading:
Average CO2 emissions per kilometre (gCO2/km) from new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles are no longer falling at the UK and London levels; and they are rising in urban areas where large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) are most popular, such as Kensington & Chelsea.
The annual reduction in the average CO2 emissions of new cars sold in the UK is now exclusively attributable to the rapidly growing market share of electric vehicles (EVs), and EV sales are expected to be the main source of future CO2 reductions from now on.
The recent trend towards larger, heavier, more powerful cars such as SUVs means that on average, a car that was bought new in 2013 is likely to have lower CO2 emissions than a new ICE car bought in 2023.
(Edit to add: I’ve tried my damnedest to format those bullet points, but I cannot get them to separate nicely, please just ignore those asterisks.)
However those points were talking about CO2 emission levels, where I was responding to a comment about MPG.
My comment was comparing apples to apples same vehicles from the same make/model from back in the day versus now.
Federal laws have changed over the years requiring better MPG for vehicles, and that’s where my comment was coming from, that auto manufacturers had to improve the MPG.
Yes, I agree. I suspect the person you were replying to made a comment born of general frustration with car trends. Apples to apples, sure motors are more efficient. But the fact is my car from 2009 uses 4-15 l/100 km and my mother in-law’s fucking VW Tiguan from last year uses 9-11 l/100 km. It’s absurd, this single woman driving a genuinely huge SUV. Her kids are grown up and gone her husband is gone. She cannot use that much vehicle.
Sometimes she complains about how difficult it is to park. My partner will humor her a bit, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that she could have bought (leased actually, but that’s another problem) a hatchback.
Aaaallll that to say, yes, you’re right, technically. And if we look at the current fleet, I think you’re right. But there is a worrying trend of worsening fuel consumption among a segment of the market that is growing, fast, so the previous commenter is also right from anotger perspective.
This is like saying people on the Titanic are doing their damnedest to fight the iceberg that’s approaching right ahead and that should fill you with inspiration and encouragement.
We’re not even stopping new drilling or driving cars with better MPG than decades ago; forget net zero carbon emissions. We’re still pushing more CO2 into the air every year.
To come back to my analogy the passengers may want to swerve from the iceberg, but the captain is mad, drunk, and stubborn and wants to teach the iceberg a lesson.
Except it’s all of humanity and not a fucking captain. It’s a canoe and we all have paddles of varying effectiveness.
It’s not unfounded optimism because at least some people are trying to paddle away from the fucking iceberg.
Shutting down any and all attempts at being optimistic make people shut down and then ACTUALLY do nothing, rather than the minimal they already do because they feel bombarded by hopelessness and go “what’s the point?”.
So fucking point to the scientists, point to the companies going green, point to EVs and a grassroots movement towards walkability and public transport that’s always growing.
Stop with the “unfounded optimism” bullshit unless you actually think future generations deserve to suffer for their ancestors’ mistakes.
Keep paddling, and don’t look at the people controlling the steering wheel and engine room.
We’re already hitting the iceberg. We’re probably going to keep hitting it the next few decades, at best. I believe analysis still says however it won’t be extinction level, partially because of the efforts made to this point already. This is the article I’m thinking of:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/climate/global-warming-ipcc-earth.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
The article also goes on to say that the +4C forecast is looking increasingly unlikely, and we’re track to 2.1 - 2.9 C this century. That’s because of what we’ve already done to curb emissions. The work people have done so far has made us likely avoid the worst. And the work we continue to do now, whether that’s voting for pro climate politicians or turning a wrench at a hydrogen plant or researching a new generation of solar panels – it will help us make the future worse.
This whole thing isn’t colliding with an iceberg and sinking. A better analogy would be a snowstorm that we’re trying to get through. Some places will be completely buried, but there’s still people out there digging through the snow to try and minimize the accumulation as much as they can. There’s people working hard to keep homes warm. There’s people cooking meals for everyone.
We shouldn’t be so despondent about the places that will be completely covered and destroyed by snow, that we don’t fix and save what we can!
Yes, but we should also be demanding the oil CEOs be put to death as if this really is hopeless. If you have money, your trial is already unfairly biased, why should you get anything less than a kangaroo court for something like this, ArAmCo?
So we’re kids screaming in the backseat while drunk dad swerves and pervs. Not much we can do, despite our efforts.
Swerves and pervs is a hilarious turn of phrase, well done
That’s not true.
See the bullet points in the executive summary of the study linked from this article. They are all illuminating, but I’ve extracted three just for ease of reading:
Average CO2 emissions per kilometre (gCO2/km) from new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles are no longer falling at the UK and London levels; and they are rising in urban areas where large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) are most popular, such as Kensington & Chelsea.
The annual reduction in the average CO2 emissions of new cars sold in the UK is now exclusively attributable to the rapidly growing market share of electric vehicles (EVs), and EV sales are expected to be the main source of future CO2 reductions from now on.
The recent trend towards larger, heavier, more powerful cars such as SUVs means that on average, a car that was bought new in 2013 is likely to have lower CO2 emissions than a new ICE car bought in 2023.
(Edit to add: I’ve tried my damnedest to format those bullet points, but I cannot get them to separate nicely, please just ignore those asterisks.)
Fine points, thank you for sharing.
However those points were talking about CO2 emission levels, where I was responding to a comment about MPG.
My comment was comparing apples to apples same vehicles from the same make/model from back in the day versus now.
Federal laws have changed over the years requiring better MPG for vehicles, and that’s where my comment was coming from, that auto manufacturers had to improve the MPG.
Yes, I agree. I suspect the person you were replying to made a comment born of general frustration with car trends. Apples to apples, sure motors are more efficient. But the fact is my car from 2009 uses 4-15 l/100 km and my mother in-law’s fucking VW Tiguan from last year uses 9-11 l/100 km. It’s absurd, this single woman driving a genuinely huge SUV. Her kids are grown up and gone her husband is gone. She cannot use that much vehicle.
Sometimes she complains about how difficult it is to park. My partner will humor her a bit, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that she could have bought (leased actually, but that’s another problem) a hatchback.
Aaaallll that to say, yes, you’re right, technically. And if we look at the current fleet, I think you’re right. But there is a worrying trend of worsening fuel consumption among a segment of the market that is growing, fast, so the previous commenter is also right from anotger perspective.