UN report says world is racing to well past warming limit as carbon emissions rise instead of plunge

The truth of the matter is that it's impossible to stop climate change in the short and mid term without degrowth in energy consumption. World leaders gathered and celebrated when they agreed to trade responsibilities for CO2 emissions, when a market-oriented world economy was always going to provoke this result unless there were explicit limits to the production of contaminant energy sources.

Driven by the wealthy and enabled by the stupid.

If this topic ceased to be a partisan issue, we might actually see real change and limits enforced.

A world where pollution producers would need to price cleanup and management into their production (which would in turn incentivize cleaner alternatives).

Where corporations might be held liable for damages from their climate or eco negligence.

But as long as this remains an issue that the masses are going to be divided over, the world is going to burn as stupid people insist 3rd degree burns on asphalt is just part of the circle of life.

But I drive my car less, that should do it! /s

This is the reason we're should focus out efforts to make a ruckus and force decision makers to enforce carbon neutrality BY NEXT YEAR instead of by next century. Of course that won't happen but that would be the reasonable way.

Not even if 99% of us would (or even could, for that matter)

It's not driven by the wealthy, because there are far fewer wealthy people than everyone else.

Individual shopping habits are a band-aid until we can fully replace how some of those habits work.

Carbon taxes would be infinitely preferable to voluntary changes, but we can't pass carbon taxes because people will go absolutely insane if asked to pay the true cost of their goods.

And the biggest polluters are corporations/industry, and the rich.

Wealthy nations are making progress, but too little and they’re starting from a bad place.

Poor nations are busily repeating the industrialization process that made the wealthy nations wealthy. Anyone want to tell them they don’t have the right to do so?

I wonder if the window of opportunity on geoengineering is also closing. Because this emissions reduction thing isn’t going anywhere.

“But there are risks with geoengineering! We don’t know what might happen!” So: let’s get testing and find out, the way we do with everything else. Doing nothing on this spells certain doom. I’ll take an unknown quantity over certain doom.

The majority of emissions come from just a handful of large companies, even if every individual cut their carbon footprint to zero those companies would still continue to kill the planet. It's also easier to change the behaviour of some companies than every person on the planet.

Then we'll go too far and freeze the planet as foretold by the wise minds of Hollywood.

So clearly we need a different solution than cutting back on emissions.

I'd argue we might have to start human expansion into space to have any real positive impact. A solar shade, for example, could block out enough sunlight to artificially prevent warming and stabilize the climate while we construct or seek out alternative energy resources.

Planes are kinda necessary now and less of a convenience. I moved to Miami from NJ (where the rest of my family lives) and just came home today for Thanksgiving. Driving would have taken around 3 days/about 23 hours of total driving and cost a few hundred bucks in gas and maintenance costs. I flew home in under 3 hours and it cost me about $100.

My buddy in NJ married a British woman, so for her, if planes didn't exist her only option would be to take a boat home which easily takes a week or two, instead it takes her about 7 hours.

But telling people to lower their emissions because the world is on fucking fire, is eugenics! /s

Some people will never admit anything is happening. They'll just blame everything on something else.

We are already seeing the effects of climate change. If they were going to admit it, they would have done so already.

There are constant cycles of 'fuck around' and 'find out' that are naturally occurring, pay too close attention and you'll see more than you want to. Like 5g conspiracies were always fucking dumb, but I'll be damned if I didn't hear almost nothing serious about them after someone decided to try and bomb a city block over it.

We're gonna go from ignoring it to seeding the atmosphere

Methane is burned at the point of use and produces carbon dioxide. Ideally there is no methane released in to the environment.

Rectify it? No, they know they'll be gone before their life is disrupted so much that money can't fix it.

That time is now before they get worse killler robots than they do.

Always the possibility we eat the rich but I'm not hopeful

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Hoping everyone collectively changes their behaviour isn't a solution unfortunately.

We have all the tools and technology to make a huge dent in this problem right now if not outright solve it. The most impactful thing you can do is spread awareness and do what you can to make this a voting issue if you live in a democracy. It could even be as simple is making it a non negotiable for how you choose to vote.

Lack of climate action needs to be a death sentence for the careers of the political class or it will become a death sentence for the the rest of us.

I'll do you one better: don't have kids!

Not having children is the most impactful individual change one can make, well over going vegan.

And the easiest. But even if all animal products were eliminated worldwide tomorrow, it would probably still not be enough for the emissions target. So individual changes do not make a dent in the problem.

What makes you think major nations will forego their cheapest source of energy if other nations are using it?

Being vegan is the most impactful change that individuals can make.

being vegan has no impact at all.

regrettably, God made animals taste good.

I’m not a big fan of China, but that’s just dishonest. Yes, China emits more than twice the co2 US emits. But that means that its per capita emissions are still way below those of the US, even after western countries outsourced a lot of their own pollution to China. Yes, you NEED to talk to China if you’re going to solve it, but pretending that it is more on them than on the west is ridiculous.

What do you think China is producing that's creating all that pollution? I'll give you a hint. IT'S EVERYTHING WESTERNERS ARE BUYING.

According to the EPA,

The primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector in the United States are:

Transportation (28% of 2021 greenhouse gas emissions) – The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes.

And

The largest sources of transportation greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (37%); medium- and heavy-duty trucks (23%); passenger cars (21%); commercial aircraft (7%); other aircraft (2%); pipelines (4%); ships and boats (3%); and rail (2%). In terms of the overall trend, from 1990 to 2021, total transportation emissions have increased due, in large part, to increased demand for travel. The number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by light-duty motor vehicles (passenger cars and light-duty trucks) increased by 45% from 1990 to 2021, as a result of a confluence of factors including population growth, economic growth, urban sprawl, and periods of low fuel prices. Between 1990 and 2004, average fuel economy among new vehicles sold annually declined, as sales of light-duty trucks increased.

In the US, cars and the car-centric sprawl it encourages is absolutely the largest single contributor to carbon emissions.

There's a reason that the per capita emissions of the Netherlands are literally half of what they are in the states. It's the cars.

You sound pretty crazy there

There is no more or less control between gas or electric cars

Nuttier than a squirrel turd man.

Lmao

Not enough people apparently.

But isn't the Fukashima water lower radiation than ... oh I get it. I get jokes.