this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
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This has been a doozy of a year. And it's the best year so far blah blah. So how are you all coping? Does it hit anyone else like a bolt of lightning that probably I - we - won't die of old age?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The biggest threat to your life from climate change is this kind of doomerism making you suicidal. I've been down that road myself.

Either get off your ass and do something about it or stop worrying about it. You're not helping anyone by making yourself sad.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not saying you are. You missed my point entirely.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I'm asking for coping methods or strategies. For example, I sing a lot because it doesn't contribute anything to capitalism and more fossil fuels being released, and it releases oxytocin so it makes me feel good. I also read and spend time with others, smoke cannabis, take psilocybin.

That we don't want to die, and don't want the planet to die, shows that we are very much not suicidal so it's just weird you brought that up at all lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Hot, and good air conditioning thermal isolation, etc. It's all part of the regular upgrade schedule of my home now

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I'm a silly goose with young kids and I've been head-in-the-sand trying to deal with my own survival. Once I had an iota of stability, I started to let the outside world in again and often wish I hadn't.

I estimate I live in a place least likely to be dramatically affected by climate change, early on. It's not like I'm in Florida and can't afford to insure my home any longer because of hurricane risk. It's not like I'm likely to be one of the 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.

So I try to take little steps to get prepared for something I never thought I'd need to be prepared for. We're growing more and more of our own food, we're expanding our water/food stores and storage. We plan to get a solar system soon (so we're the 1/10 that makes it through an extended grid outage), while global supply chains still function.

I've started a little (20TB) apocalypse library, full of illustrated guides, youtube videos, books, and resources.

My biggest stumbling block is starting community. I generally don't like people and as you've seen in this thread, most people don't take climate change seriously.

And, as someone else said... weed and time in nature.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

related... There are now ac/heat pump mini split units that are set up to be linked directly to solar panel systems and run offgrid or with grid assist.
This is great for a few reasons:

  1. solar radiance and need for cooling are related.
  2. if you hook directly to solar you don't need to convert AC current to DC and lose 10-20% of the energy.
  3. if you dont tie the system to the grid, you might be able to avoid the use induction effect. That is, installing air conditioning tends to make people use more grid energy.
  4. It also helps with adding solar capacity to people who have electrical issues in their house and can't get typical solar install, or who can't add more solar capacity due to net metering edicts by their utilities, or dont want to pull permits for electrical work.

I've had my eye on a system from Airspool here in the US - should help with these warmer summers and help offset a little of the heating need in the winter too.

I would look into a full central system - but I have a relatively new gas furnace and can't justify replacing it and dealing with all the required electrical work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

About time those things became mainstream, bonus: that 20% of lost energy isn't more heat in your house

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Got a vasectomy, because I live in the South and won't risk bringing a kid into the world.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Is Australia that bad?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Weed mostly

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I joined a climate activism group in my local area, frankly it's the best possible way to deal with it. You can make a difference, the messaging we get is often intended to make us feel powerless to keep people from protesting, but it's actually one of the most empowering ways to deal with it. Being with a group of passionate people amplifies your ability to effect change, and given how broken many of our governments are, it's necessary. The biggest thing stopping us from forcing big changes is our lack of numbers, solidarity is strength.

It certainly beats sitting around feeling angry and stressed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Does it hit anyone else like a bolt of lightning that probably I - we - won't die of old age?

Wait, do you actually believe this?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Yes. I am friends with ecological scientists, biologists, soil scientists, ornithologists, and other various environmental researchers. The rest of my natural life would be ~40-50 years. We probably have 10-20 at most. Remember, the heating is exponential and delayed, and we've also exceeded several other planetary boundaries. Our governments are decades too late. We are literally already in the middle of an extinction event.

Even if everyone TODAY stopped burning all fossil fuels, we'd still have to sequester millions of tons of carbon in 10-20 years with no infrastructure for it. To do this will release more greenhouse gases. Amd we still have to address the 9 other planetary boundaries we've crossed including ocean acidification, soil destruction, and pollution.

The absolute best shot we have is to deflect a percentage of the sun's rays from ever reaching earth with some kind of space blanket or shield. Likely we will just inject sulfur into the atmosphere with unknown consequences.

That you don't realize how bad it is, is the sadder thing. We have seriously failed in educating people about science. Chemical reactions need specific energy requirements to work, which means specific temperatures. It's a big deal to our very cells themselves that the planet is getting hotter. And again, that is only 1 planetary boundary and we have crossed others.

You can literally see footage online of people's housing falling into the ocean, and their property wasn't oceanfront when they bought it. You can look u0 articles about billions of sea life boiling alive off the oregon coast and baby eagles flinging themselves from their nests to die due to heat. You can see the recent article about Dubai being beyond the wet bulb temp for humans to survive. That's not normal, ya'll. None of this is normal.

But whatever, it's too late. Enjoy your remaining years as much as you can, and don't forget you can always starve yourself to death for free if you don't have a bullet. Good luck everyone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

This is doommongering nonsense.

I'm no climate change denier at all, but the idea that the planet is basically going to be unliveable in 10-20 years is ludicrous.

Even the most pessimistic of scientists don't believe that.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Likely we will just inject sulfur into the atmosphere with unknown consequences.

Kind of the only hope we have left at this point. One which I'm desperately holding onto.

Articles about insect populations being decimated by something like 70%... They are the ones most vulnerable to climate change, and they're all dying. How people can see that and not understand is mind boggling.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think we should put up a metal blanket in space. Tbh all the space junk and satellites are already doing that a little

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Very very little, the planet is kinda big

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Where did you get the idea that you’re not going to die of old age?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Depends on the rapidity of the onset of the negative effects of climate change. If it’s slow, we’re gonna lose a lot of people, but we’ll be able to preserve some form of civilization. The worst affected will be the usual poorer people and those who can’t geographically escape the heat for whatever reason.

Worst scenario is rapid onset that disrupts the global network of food, energy, manufacturing, medicines, materials, etc. that literally keep everything working. If that goes tits up in an uncontrolled way just plan on losing a very significant chunk of the world’s population very fast. At a certain tipping point we also lose the people that know how to make things work. Modern society works because we have the ability to free some people from manual labor and subsistence existence to take on highly specialized learning. From fixing the grid, to doctors, to IT specialists, to the academics that teach these specialists. Lose enough of them and you lose the knowledge of how to do anything that makes modern civilization work.

So it all depends on your views if you think you’ll make it to old age. Do you think the world will collapse quickly or will it be a controlled descent? It certainly doesn’t look like we’re going to solve a damn thing regarding anthropogenic climate change, much less reverse anything, and we’re already stuck facing the damaging climate changes we started.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I do what I can to reduce my own CO2 footprint - mostly for my own conscience.
In every election I vote for the party with the most focus on CO2 reduction that has a good chance of making it into parlament.
I chose both my work and home specifically so I don't need a car to commute, and am completely safe from "once in a lifetime" floods (which will probably happen every other year soon).
I could make decently more money and rent more living space elsewhere.

Otherwise I don't worry. Cause what else is there to do?
I could die in the climate wars, in an epic storm, in a new pandemic...
Or quietly in my bed at age 100 like my grandparents, who survived 2 world wars, the cold war, and 4 revolutions.
Who knows?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (5 children)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

I found this video to be helpful in putting things in perspective. Basically, despite all the news, we are making progress and it is a priority. Technology is improving really fast to the point where renewable energy is actually the more economical choice.

A lot of companies are actually making an effort to implement more green policies. I work for a tech company, and a lot of discussions revolve around energy efficiency and performance per watt.

Remember that climate change activists want to make the world seem much worse than it is. That's their "job" after all - to raise awareness and attention. It doesn't mean what they are saying isn't true, just that you should view it as them putting a negative lens on it.

Personally, I worry about many things, but not really climate change. With most issues there conflict between two groups. But I think most people generally think climate change is a real thing, even if they disagree on its priority.

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