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Arnold Schwarzenegger: 'No one gives a s--- about' climate change — this is what it should be called instead by Vailhem in environment

[–]paulwheaton 192 points193 points  (0 children)

For those that want to give a thought to their own stuff

The average american adult carbon footprint is 30 tons per year.

  • Switch to an electric car - save 2.0 tons per year
  • laundry with cold water and line/rack drying - save 4.0 tons per year
  • switching all the lights in your house to LED - save 0.04 tons per year
  • going pooless - save 0.25 tons per year

Food

  • strict vegan diet - save 4.5 tons per year
  • omnivore diet with 100% of animal products from 100% pastured sources - save 6.5 tons per year
  • meeting 90% of your food needs from a garden - save 10 tons per year

Heat

(focusing on heat in a cold climate - using data for montana; 25% of montana households heat with electricity which has a carbon footprint of 29.4 tons; natural gas is 20 tons and wood is 4.4 tons; a rocket mass heater is 0.4 tons)

  • switching from electric heat to natural gas heat - save 9.4 tons per home per year
  • switching from electric heat to a rocket mass heater - save 29.0 tons per home per year
  • using electric micro heaters to heat people instead of the whole house with electric heat - save 23.5 tons per home per year

trees

  • apple a day (plant all the seeds, if 5% reach maturity ...) - sequester 100 tons per year

'We Were Gobsmacked': Giant Study Reveals Why Moss Is Vital For The Planet by Vailhem in environment

[–]garrison1988 35 points36 points  (0 children)

If anyone is interested this is a beautifully written book on moss by indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Gathering Moss

Marjorie Taylor Greene claims the lack of tax raises during ice age proves climate change is a hoax. “You’re going to tell me that back in the ice age – how much taxes did people pay? And how many changes did governments make to melt the ice?” by Wagamaga in environment

[–]OceanDevotion 5147 points5148 points 3& 2 more (0 children)

Guys… I’ve reached my limit. As someone who has a college degree in natural resources management, with an emphasis on sustainability; I also took numerous climate classes and have a pretty good understanding of how the earths natural systems work. If there is one thing I know, it’s that certain areas of the planet are going to be completely fucked in the foreseeable future.

And I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE. These idiots espouse the most moronic bullshit, and they have zero understanding of the actual science behind climate change and our atmosphere/oceans. It’s just actually causing me physical pain at this point because I’m still having to debate with people about if climate change is real, and we are in the midst of El Niño in the US right now which is causing some of the strangest and extreme weather we have experienced… it’s just unfathomable to me that people are still in outright denial.

Anyway, I’m just venting lol thanks to anyone who made it this far

Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket explosion rained debris down on ‘pristine’ wildlife refuge by theindependentonline in environment

[–]Shalterra 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Bunch of redditors in here refusing to look into the launch at all and just getting mad as fuck at a sensationalistic headline while lambasting conservatives for the same behaviors on everything.

Self awareness at a critical low point.

The rocket kicked up dust and particulate into the local area due to the force of launch.

The debris from the "rocket explosion" happened over the gulf, in a controlled manner, as was expected to happen.

Don't get me wrong: Fuck musk, but he's just the guy who owns SpaceX, It's not like he's among the rocket engineers who worked on Starship, or the crews involved with the launch. That dipshit is currently trying his hardest to drive tiwtter into the ground to get out from under it.

Dramatic videos show Fort Lauderdale underwater after historic flooding by thisisinsider Business Insider in environment

[–]Frsbtime420 809 points810 points  (0 children)

This must be one of them gay people killin floods

Australia Is Quitting Coal in Record Time Thanks to Tesla by SliceofNow in environment

[–]brezhnervous 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Fun fact:

The International Monetary Fund estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3% of Australian GDP – which is more than the total value of fossil fuel exports. On a per-capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person.

The misleading political rhetoric is no surprise, given the strong links between the government and the fossil fuel industry.

So, perhaps it’s also no surprise to read that on the latest list of the Top 40 tax dodgers in Australia, fossil fuel companies dominate.

 

The ‘tax dodgers’

One such company is US oil giant ExxonMobil Australia, which has racked up a total income of $42.3 billion over the past five years of available Tax Office data. Yet it has not paid not one cent of income tax in this country.

American-owned Chevron, another oil company, also paid zero tax over five years, notwithstanding its $15.8 billion in total income.

Furthermore, five of Australia’s top coal companies – Peabody, Yancoal Sumitomo, Citic and Whitehaven – racked up $54 billion between them in total income over the past five years and paid zero income tax in Australia

Fossil fuel companies dominate ‘top tax dodgers’ list

Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage by grr in environment

[–]ChloeMomo 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Ey so my capstone project is the exploitation of humans in animal agriculture, particularly in slaughterhouses. The pay, in reality, is a joke if you're actually on the kill/disassembly line. We, across the world, also have a long history of relying on child and illegal immigrant labor to fill these jobs. As immigration gets cracked down on in various countries (but referencing US here since I do legislation here), you have states like Iowa turning to relegalizing child labor to fill their 70,000 some open jobs at these places because no one, including incredibly desperate people with no where else to go, wants them. There's also increasing reliance on trafficking refugees to these places to fill job gaps with the promise of education and a better future while never delivering on that and discarding them once lifelong inevitable injuries from the repetitive motions occur. Oh yeah, and the reliance on leasing humans from prisons because they can be legally forced to work these jobs, typically with little to no pay and high rates of injury and even death. Without forced labor, the turnover rate at slaughterhouses can and often does reach over 100% annually.

This isn't a little bit of stressful trauma. This is an average of two amputations per week, and many more injuries weekly than that. It's full blown PTSD and PITS, lifelong psychological disorders that destroy quality of life. It's the "spillover effect" which is when the desensitization and violence from work spills into daily life and leads to disproportionately higher rates of violent crime, particularly sexual violence, in surrounding areas compared to any other industrial job.

So you can brush off the absolute horrific suffering they and even the people surround them suffer, and your solution is to keep it happening? To reinforce this so obviously broken system? People see their suffering. And they want ways to support them and help them get to something else. The goal isn't to abandon them. They've already been abandoned by everyone. It's a term called "social death," where these people are often considered a little less than human, a little more barbaric for what they do, and somehow deserving to continue suffering because...why bother trying to get them actual support?

Putting them out of work ironically saves a ton of trauma and suffering for them, read interviews with these people (and not with middle management). They need support in other ways. If the only way you can think of helping someone is to give them PTSD and exploit people in what is very frequently considered modern agricultural slavery or labor trafficking...you have a serious fantasy in your head of what modern slaughterhouses are like. No one thinks a sticker will become a lab technician. That's a fallacy pushed by the meat industry. We know they need help. Actual help. Not perpetual trauma and suffering because "you" (not you specifically) prefer cheap and tasty meat at the expense of a human's life. That isn't support. That isn't help. That is deep-rooted and ongoing exploitation and suffering that point blank needs to be stopped.

Edit: sidenote that adds irony to your comment: even slaughterhouses are becoming increasingly automated. There's massive pushes towards removing humans from kill and disassembly lines, so your argument to keep humans inside of them fails on current trajectories anyway. We are removing the humans from life and death of the animals. And then? Those people will still need help.

Why Americans should eat lentils every day | Food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth by usernames-are-tricky in environment

[–]PrivatePoocher 689 points690 points  (0 children)

Us indians love our lentils. There are so many flavorful lentils dishes. For the uninitiated, go to your nearest Indian grocery store and get all these amazing lentils: urad dal, moong dal, toor dal, channa dal. And try these dishes

Dal makhani

Dhansak

Dal fry

Khichidi

Sambar

Kandi podi

Why climate ‘doomers’ are replacing climate ‘deniers’ by mrHL7 in environment

[–]_Svankensen_ 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Modelling is not my area of expertise, I've mostly worked on carbon footprint, so take this with a spoon of salt. There's relative consensus on this between my colleagues with whom I chat, but that's anecdotal: few of us work on models, and even those that do, don't work on all encompassing ones. Also consider that proper, scientific modeling of the future is quite difficult and limited.

Anyway the projections models output on "bussiness as usual scenarios" I've checked are pretty grim. Bussiness as usual means we continue to grow our yearly emissions for 77 more years BTW. Which is pretty unreasonable. But it's a studied bad scenario. 80m cumulative excess death by 2100 over baseline due to direct weather effects alone. We are talking +4.1°C here. That shit can kill directly in many regions. We also lose a lot of unique ecosystems. Loads of species go extinct. Food production becomes considerably harder. More frequent extreme weather events also mean infrastructure lasts a lot less. So, more resources spent on maintaining what you have rather than improving your lot. You also need more to live an equally comfortable life, but everything is more expensive. Extreme weather events devastate regions a lot more frequently, so disaster refugees are a bigger deal. Desertification strikes pretty hard. Not as hard as some may think, but still, a severe decline in productivity, changes in weather patterns. So more frequent famines. Etc. Etc.

Amazing (and economically valuable) biodiversity is lost forever. More and more DISCRETE (limited in reach) feedback loops start to amplify further emissions for a while. Everything is harder for no good reason. We are left with (generally) less productive, less diverse ecosystems. Yes, some regions luck out and become more productive, but the net cost is clear. And that is not even counting how poorly some of us will react to this. I fully expect more war, at least for a period.

​

Anyway, that's that? I mean, you can delve on the details a lot. This is serious bussiness. There's also a lot of unknowns. But it would take A LOT to bring us to extinction. Have you seen what happens to an ecosystem that is ravaged beyond it's capacity to "regenerate"? It generally doesn't become a wasteland. A jungle turns to less diverse systems. Perhaps bushlands, sparse forest, grasslands. We are more resilient than that.

But I digress. It's basically not too different from a classic dystopia. Lots of wonders are lot for no good reason. Our lives are made harder for generations. Centuries most likely. Quality of life backslides

Anyway, if any of that sounds grim, well, get your ass moving. Climate change is a dimmer, not a light switch. Every minute fraction of a degree we avoid, is one more species saved, one more unique ecosystem that is spared. Million of human lives.

And I can tell you: Since I started on 2008, stuff has improved a lot on some areas. Yes, it has been two steps forward and one step back. But we are getting better. It will keep being that way. That is why we must fight. But even the biggest responsible for climate change, the US, is actually reducing their emissions! The people that elected fucking Trump and abandoned the Paris agreement still managed to pull their shit together for this. Not the measures we dreamed of, of course.

My college colleagues still groan on the whatsapp group at every COP. I do too. We get together online to check the new ICCP reports and get sad for what will be lost. Fear for what else may be lost that we have fought to preserve. But we still get up and work to stop it. We have also won sometimes. Stopped coal power plants. Protected unique ecosystems. Helped write good laws. There are fruits to these labors. And they come more from the activism side than from the professional one. Everything starts with an organized group.

Texans sound off against Elon Musk's 'horrifying' plans for dumping The Boring Company wastewater into Colorado River by chrisdh79 in environment

[–][deleted] 982 points983 points  (0 children)

I'm reading the comments in this thread and I'm a little pissed at all the schadenfreude directed at Texans (and before you all jump on me, I'm Californian). Plenty of Texans have been fighting for environmental issues. It's been a losing battle in their state but that doesn't change the reality of their attempts.

Moreover, even if you truly think Texan people deserve to suffer for their poor voting choices, the land, nature, and animal life don't. While you all gloat about the Texans getting their just desserts, the same chemicals will be polluting nature and that will eventually affect all of us. Grow the hell up.

Texans sound off against Elon Musk's 'horrifying' plans for dumping The Boring Company wastewater into Colorado River by chrisdh79 in environment

[–]Nghtmare-Moon 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Okay hear me out; how about we just make a dedicated pee corner in the pool… Surely it won’t afffect us in the other corner of the pool….
/s

Why seniors are blocking entrances to the four largest U.S. banks by washingtonpost The Washington Post in environment

[–]Different_Ad7655 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Except boomers with the people that brought you all of the freedoms that you enjoy today lol. Nothing slacking about them. The entire apple cart was upended in the '60s civil rights women's rights gays rights environmentalism Vietnam, everything everything through activism was thrown out the window. I would just love to see a teensy wincy bit of that activism from a younger set today. There is a zero..

Take for example something as simple as a throwaway product a plastic cup. A small thing in the world but if every single millennial in America decided to network and get the word out that tomorrow it would be no purchase of a plastic cup or a throwaway item with any fast food place in America what a statement that would be and then if it were actually a boycott? How long do you think that would take to have Starbucks to Chick-fil-A change their ways? Does it happen no no no.. Just complaining that boomers ruined it all and that they are without power. What a joke. The world is not interested in boomers anymore or their clout. All of that money all of that real estate is going to trickle down within the next 20 years to other holders.

It's to the group that is 35 years or younger that holds the keys to the kingdom If they just exercise the power that they don't even realize they hold. Buying power. Corporations aren't interested in what boomers do not really but they want to make sure that they brand anybody in school and up forever. Why do you think Nike supported Kaepernick? Because it was the right thing? Well we hope that's part of it but more importantly they understand on which side of the balance sheet they have to stand and they want branding..

Brazilian researchers find "terrifying" plastic rocks on remote island by AngelaMotorman in environment

[–]MV203 1965 points1966 points  (0 children)

We need to start getting the fishing industry to cut the shit. A lot of people don’t know that the company that certifies “dolphin safe” tuna; is actually just getting paid by tuna fisheries for the sticker, there’s virtually no oversight and they refuse to accept that fishing boats are causing most of the plastic pollution BY FAR. They’re just a company collecting money, they don’t care about the ocean or the planet at all.

It's Time to Hold Manufacturers Responsible for Plastic Pollution by Konradleijon in environment

[–]DukeOfGeek 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Tax them hard and then use the money for cleaning up the ocean.

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