No wonder Suzuki has managed to accomplish almost nothing real in his decades of having actual power. The guy has a carbon footprint multiple times higher than average even for a Canadian, has access to powerful people, and the best he can do is tell us to unplug our wall adapters. Just another sell-out boomer self-advancing by not rocking the boat.
Because "YOUR carbon footprint" was never anything but a scam. It allowed the industries that steer our society from behind a curtain of politicians to pay lip-service to the need to adress climate change while making no genuine attempts to do so, and shifting blame from themselves to powerless indeviduals.
Actual fame yes, but no actual power. Access means nothing, one thing Davos has shown us year after year is that powerful people smile and nod and then go about their business.
You know what, I'm just gonna be real with you. All this talk about climate change and what we can do to stop it? It's all a load of BS. The truth is, you can't do JACK shit about it. Sure, you can recycle and drive an electric car and all that jazz, but at the end of the day, the real culprits are the corporations and the governments that allow them to keep polluting. And let's be real, they're not gonna stop just because a few individuals start using metal straws. We need systemic change, and until that happens, all these feel-good actions are just a drop in the bucket. So yeah, call me pessimistic, but that's just the reality of the situation.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I was writing my submission statement, but you type much quicker than me. :-)
Suppose enforceable laws were passed that invoked the necessary systemic changes required to at best mitigate this disaster we're in. It's going to require sacrifice from everyone. What would you be personally be prepared to do without? The link was just a starting point. Not many people would even be willing to make those basic "sacrifices".
I could live without a car and smartphone, other things too.. imo the problem isn’t that most people would say “no” if you presented them with the choice of a much simpler life. It’s they’d call you a liar or misguided and insist we have other options .
The fact that so many out there are not willing to make the sacrifices needed for real change really speaks volumes about how grim our future is going to be. This reinforces my childfree status.
The most effective way to solve climate change gonna put you on the side opposite to infinite money, armies of crooks, looters and delusionals, everybody's instinst to perservethings the ways it is,.. So anyone who think there is a chance, good luck cause you gonna need a lot of them
Sometimes all that's left is violence. It's really coming down to that, now. Better pack some RPGs while we're at it, so we can take down their limos, aircraft, and yachts before they escape.
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If I felt it would make a positive and lasting change I would do everything nessecery to ensure that climate change is slowed and reversed.
That includes and is at minimum:
* Diet consisting of only locally grown foods that do not use any fossil fuel based fertilizers
* Clothing only produced from locally sourced materials and living wage local labour
* To never fly again
* To likely loose my job (white collar jobs are very energy intensive
* To accept that electricity is a luxury (even in +30C and -30C)
* Loosing most electronic equipment
* No more cars
* Food and water rations
That all said, I have not seen enough change in my lifetime to warrent me doing any of this. If there was a decrease in C02 and Methane emmisions for more than 3 years and a scientifically plausible way to extract at least half the C02 in the atmosphere before 2100 (arbitrary date but scientists love it) there isn't a point.
A few years ago I posted a question to this sub asking if people would be willing to make changes similar to what you have listed (also including things like goodbye to most toys for kids, beauty products, etc etc etc). The overwhelming response was “I’m not doing it unless the elite does”, or “it’s the corporations / industry, not me” or “screw that I’m enjoying the party while I still can”. Unfortunately I deleted that post quite some time ago.
Society and our entire way of life needs to change with climate change in the works. And it will change too - either by force or by choose. Sadly I agree with you: there has been far too little effort to make any meaningful change to fix the root of our problems (overconsumption and pollution / destruction of biosphere).
We should burn down Bitcoin mining operations.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/10/23677113/bitcoin-mine-investigation-energy-emissions-electricity-bills-new-york-times
The only thing individuals can do is consume less. Full stop.
The only thing governments can do is to pledge together to write and enforce policies that encourage - even require - people to consume less.
Good luck with that last one, though.
You could spend every waking moment for the rest of your life campaigning for people to change their ways and the end result would be (checks notes)
Fuck all
Remember, not shitting out another human is the number 1 thing you can do to help the climate. It outweighs every other change such as veganism and walking everywhere *put together*.
1. Cry
2. Struggle to cope
3. Give up
4. Drugs
5. Rend your clothing
6. Deny it
7. Be angry
8. Try to bargain for more time
9. Suffer depression
10. Stoically accept our fate
Foreseeing the inevitable in early 70s, vasectimized, saved $ till could move aboard a 10m sailboat reducing our carbon footprint to @2.5t/yr. Sailed around for half a dozen years to check out the lifestyle till it got old, as we did too.
I had a who did exactly that (except for the vasectomy part, although he never had kids). He lived on his boat and moored in a small marina just a few minutes south of Vancouver. He eventually had to sell his boat, as it needed more work than he had money to fix.
These changes still happen within the system that perpetually worsens the conditions; thus looking those who try to change in constant limbo.
It is pernicious idiocy and willful blindness.
I already do a lot, and have done for quite some time. I don’t fly within Europe, I rarely ever by things such as clothes, furniture and utilities, and if I do I buy them second hand. I eat local food and no meat whenever possible. I do drive my car and it runs on gasoline but I try to limit driving as much as possible.
I have a degree in environmental science and I work with preserving fresh water sources and limiting eutrophication of the baltic. I consume very little in terms of electricity and heating, and through my work as a writer and musician I’ve been doing what I can to spread awareness about the issue. I could do more if I had more money to make environmentally informed choices.
What I can’t part with is my dog who needs meat in her diet, and for myself I can not part from collecting music instruments because without them my existence would be incomplete, and I get them secondhand if possible but that’s not always the case.
I know what I am doing is a drop in the ocean but if I’m going to keep advocating for change I have to be willing to make the change in the first place, plus it makes me feel less hopeless. I will not be lead willingly into the future and I won’t sleepwalk my way there either.
However, I think the best thing you can do for the climate as an individual at this point is to engage in eco-terrorism and blow up a pipeline, but I currently lack the balls to do that.
To oil companies, eco-terrorism is a minor inconvenience. I'm sure they have a line item in their budget for that.
The power imbalance is so extreme now that the only way to stop the destruction of our planet is collective action, like a global strike. That comes with a heavy toll, with much suffering and loss of life. A global pandemic couldn't stop the wheel from turning for more than a couple of weeks (at best).
Maybe aliens need to swoop down and fix things?
Maybe if it happens once a year or so, but if their oil rigs and pipelines keep getting destroyed month after month it just won’t be financially viable to keep rebuilding, plus they will be hard pressed to find any workers willing to take the jobs eventually. The EROEI on oil is already fairly low, it won’t be profitable forever especially not if they have to deal with continous sabotage externalities. But this would of course require an international campaign against the fossil fuel industry and they’re probably among the most ruthless bunch you can go up against so engaging in such activity would be a fast ticket to either an early grave or incarceration.
I think a global strike is even more difficult to pull off, people are to divided and fractured for this to happen currently, but who knows, once it finally sinks in what an existential threat we’re facing it might work, but it’ll be way too late.
I just know throwing soup at paintings is where climate protests are currently at, and that is just sad.
Hi, SubstanceStrong. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/12ho6ky/-/jfr0iln/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
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The price of oil can always be raised, and armed guards aided by shoot-to-kill drones can protect a lot of pipeline. If it gets to be a large enough problem, the government will bring in the troops to protect that flow of bubbling crude.
Oh, I agree that a strike would be impossible to pull off at the scale required, but I was just thinking about what it would realistically take for change to occur.
It all feels so hopeless. It's like what O'Brian said to Winston at the end of 1984. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."
Hi, SubstanceStrong. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/12ho6ky/-/jfqrt7h/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
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They won't, but if we can't even do basic simple stuff on that list, when SHTF, we are going to be so royally screwed.
I know that if supply-chain issues stemming from, say a government-imposed reduction in fossil-fuel protection, I'd be dead in short order. I'd be risking my life voting for that. Would I do it to hopefully save the planet for my child? I want to say yes, but I still need to be there for her for a few more years, at least.
There is not a "**DO NOT HAVE KIDS**" action on that list. That is the most important factor for lower our future carbon emissions and pollution an individual can make.
But sure with:
1. Urge government to take bold, ambitious climate action now
2. Use energy wisely — and save money too! (yes slavewages, you are using too much energy by barely making month-by-month, day-by-day life)
3. Green your commute (same as "1.")
4. Consume less, waste less, enjoy life more (same as "2.")
5. Support Indigenous-led climate action (same as "1.")
6. Invest in renewables and divest from fossil fuels (same as "1.")
7. Eat for a climate-stable planet (unless slavewages control the food industry, same as "1." with a tad of "2.")
8. Start a climate conversation (same as "1.")
9. Mobilize for local climate action (same as "1.")
10. Get politically active and vote (same as "1.")
No wonder human civilization won't do anything when the proposed solutions are shit.
Ironically, Suzuki himself admitted in a segment once that he, too, was a hypocrite ignoring his own advice.
If we can't even *start* with this stuff, how can we ever hope to put forth the real effort required to stop this?
The list was just a starting point. People won't even do those things collectively. If we were forced to change our habits and curb our lifestyles, I suspect there will be war. People don't want to give up anything at all. We are caught in a greedy monkey trap.
The below content has been shamelessly stolen from r/Climate:
> [BP popularized the concept of a carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
>
> There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
---
*Carbon footprints and personal responsibility for the climate crisis; that message brought to you by BP!*
---
For me, it's not about fighting climate change. The nations of the world, big and small, have decided that climate change will simply not be fought.
I cut down on things that worsen climate change so I can, to some degree, be different and better than most of the other people in my country. There was a story I heard once about a German man, either a writer or politician, I forget, who pointedly withdrew from public life during the Nazi government. He took heat for several years from everyone, though I think he managed to avoid prison/the camps.
Then, after 1945, he put a sign over his door, to the effect of : ALL OTHERS WENT IN, BUT NOT I.
Worshipped at the alter of Suzuki since I was a little kid growing up and watching The Nature of Things.. I'm in my 50s now and did my best to recycle, eat with the planet in mind, consume as little as possible. For me, it's been over 40 years of trying yo live as sustainably as I could and look where that contribution got us collectively. Squat all. Maybe if we had collectively all started in the 70s it might have meant something. But hardly anyone lived that way and the few accepted collective measures (recycling, turning lights off on earth day) amounted to nothing more but lip service. It was much more essential to renovate our homes every couple of years because the TV said so, completely change out our wardrobes every season, and travel on jet planes several times a year just to get drunk on foreign beaches. Even better, we have thousands upon thousands of people that have multiple homes in multiple countries, with multiple planes, all greedily eating the poor, we have emerging countries and economies who want their share of that pie, and increasing web connectivity requiring tremendous electrical resources. It was a really nice thought which had a very brief window of opportunity and we slammed that window nice and shut.
I would be willing to change a lot. In fact, it would feel very freeing to do so.
I’m already plant-based but I’d be happy to give up most processed foods and spend time growing my own food and forging relationships with neighbours so we could exchange produce and other needs.
Ditching my job so that I can focus on maintaining my property and crops and meeting day-to-day needs instead.
Keeping my car only for emergency situations and switching to bike and walking instead. Letting the car go if that was necessary would be fine too. No more holidays and tourism.
Making clothes.
I’d look to upskill and also trade skills
Unplug from the internet and electricity only for special uses or certain times of day. If electricity completely had to go it wouldn’t be pleasant at first but that would be fine too.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/FiskalRaskal:
---
SS: A lot has been said about reducing our carbon footprint. David Suzuki has been advocating that we all need to take steps to reduce our carbon footprint (or, environmental impact, as the case may be). In honour of his recent retirement announcement, I dug up an article from his website about 10 things we can do about climate change. Personally, I don't think it goes nearly far enough, but it did get me thinking:
How much are we (as a society or as individuals) really willing and able to change our patterns of behaviour for the sake of climate change and the environment and climate change? Have you changed your behaviour in the past 10 years? If so, how? If not, why not? My intent isn't to judge. I'll admit that even I'm at fault here. Even though I did a recent assessment of my climate footprint, and it's below the global average, it feels as though it's not nearly enough.
Let's say that there was a global, enforceable mandate to reduce carbon emissions that applied to companies and individuals, but it involved massive sacrifices. What would you be willing to part with, even if it meant hardship for you? What would be completely off the table?
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/12ho6ky/top_10_things_you_can_do_about_climate_change/jfprl36/
SS: A lot has been said about reducing our carbon footprint. David Suzuki has been advocating that we all need to take steps to reduce our carbon footprint (or, environmental impact, as the case may be). In honour of his recent retirement announcement, I dug up an article from his website about 10 things we can do about climate change. Personally, I don't think it goes nearly far enough, but it did get me thinking:
How much are we (as a society or as individuals) really willing and able to change our patterns of behaviour for the sake of climate change and the environment and climate change? Have you changed your behaviour in the past 10 years? If so, how? If not, why not? My intent isn't to judge. I'll admit that even I'm at fault here. Even though I did a recent assessment of my climate footprint, and it's below the global average, it feels as though it's not nearly enough.
Let's say that there was a global, enforceable mandate to reduce carbon emissions that applied to companies and individuals, but it involved massive sacrifices. What would you be willing to part with, even if it meant hardship for you? What would be completely off the table?
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