There was a powercut this week in a large part of Mexico (I know because of family from there). They're getting rarer now as Mexico has really tried to get its grid uptogether. The downside of countries like this having more stable grids is more people and business installing aircon systems, which just means more energy used, more emissions.
The funny thing is there are ways to passively cool areas. You can literally install shading over windows and walls that face the main sun. Last year in the UK we had a few days where it was over 35C. Nobody here has aircon. So that heat is a shock to us. But I managed to cover the outside of open windows with reflective bubble wrap insulation cut into sheets.
I also installed a small solar system on our shed to run a fridge freezer out there. The funny thing is the half inch stand-offs actively created significant shading and the inside of the shed really cooled down to where we could sit in there and chill out or do tasks without melting. When I realised this I started looking online for research on solar power and shading and found agrovoltaics. Solar panels over farm crops such as fruit in hotter regions mean less watering needed... its more spread out than usual solar farms as it has to let the sun in a bit more to the food but its something that needs to be done more.
I also read of people ignoring their energy policy for their home electric and installing grid-tie solar. They use sheds, stands in their garden, conservatory roofing etc, and usually just a few hundred watts of solar. Typically homes have a fuse rating of 30-50 amps. One 300w solar panel grid tied is not going to be anywhere near that, but will mean up to 300w of clean energy. Energy companies should just allow these systems, even provide them if its a problem or worry to them. You can buy this stuff off amazon for a few hundred quid.
Also, and it's kinda insane to me that not more people do this: just grow any plant on the sides of your house. If you are worried about your walls build a cheap metal fence a few centimetres before that wall. It's the cheapest insulation you can get.
Wild wine, ivy, anything that will climb and live more than a year would work.
It’s only unsustainable if you want everyone to survive. Too many people are quietly okay with losing a few billion strangers due to their certainty they’ll be fine.
That's what I said a good 25 years ago when I learned about climate change. It went through a bunch of name changes, there have been multiple world meetings about it to see how much further we could push it up to sustain "our economies" and the few little suggestions that came out of that were completely ignored so that we could have the next world economic forum or whatever.
If any politician would actually do something REAL, I'd support it. I have not seen anything beyond "well let's try to change cars to electrical over a 20 year period but also dump nuclear power so effectively all electrical cars still run coal". We. Need. To. Stop. Using. Cars. Car use needs to drop by 95%, THAT would make a difference. Start converting 90% of car infrastructure to park, bicycle infrastructure and public transportation like trains and busses. Convert cargo trucks to electrical, start investing like crazy in nuclear power plants. Push companies to either let employees work from home or pay tripple tax. Tax the shit out of anyone earning more than 10 times the average. Start adding sulfur solutions to kerosine so that airplanes can start spewing it in the atmosphere to lower temperatures... Any of those are solutions, I haven't seen any of it.
Nobody is going to do anything because politicians are dumb egocentric assholes that only care about their own reelection.
We're fucked in the next 30 years or so
If Trump gets elected, we'll be fucked within 10. I'm honestly thinking at this point that maybe we should just all vote for trump. Get it over with, kill this world, humanity is a failed experiment.
I went through an accelerationist adjacent phase a few years ago, then I realized that what I was accelerating towards would happen regardless. From a utilitarian perspective, I don’t know which path mitigates more human deaths.
Stopping meat eating would have a bigger impact on climate change than removing cars, and that's doable for everyone. Also EV cars do reduce the co2, and as grids get cleaner cars do too. Additionally many put solar on their houses to charge Evs.
Whist i agree car numbers should definitely be reduced, people should work from home far more for example, but meat is a greater problem that we could all address immediately without dismantling infrastructure.
I don't like this mindset, because while there are plenty of businesses, billionaires, and governments that keep burning coal to keep their cash flowing, there's plenty of scientists, activists, engineers, governments, and organizations that are making a difference. We shouldn't be discrediting the hard work of people who are trying to save us or at least delay doomsday.
I think we'll be looking back, waving longingly to the incredible hulk ending song, to 5c
Because the world doesnt exist to serve the 8 billion humans. It exists to serve a few thousand rich and business owners. . which means as long as there is profit to be had, the killing of the planet and the population will continue not only at pace, but ever accelerating
I've been living in coastal Southeastern Texas for 44 years. Im 46.
In 2017 my county rezoned us as a flood zone because of the Havey flooding caused all the poor planning.
An entire section of the state reclassified because "interstate highway" needed to be bigger.
They've been building the same 50ish miles for at least 27 years. All they've managed to do is ruin what was naturally occurring barriers and eroded our ability to maintain habitation. Or to expect a reasonable ability to protect against a disaster.
We're leaving 3.4 acres my grandfather bought in 1986, and gave my sister and I in 2007.
And that's just MY story. We had 375 neighbors in my area and at least 30% have moved on since 2017.
And that's just one coastal city, in one state, in one country, on one continent.
I don't have a lot of fantasy about humanities future.
Okay, we might get to 2.5 degrees, but the economy!
This will go on until we get to around 5 degree and most parts of the world have become uninhabitable and most animals and vegetation has gone extinct and we've locked ourselves in perpetual wars due to water and food shortages. Sounds like a shitty B movie, but this is what I truely believe we will end up with.
I’m hopeful economies and governments will collapse before 3 degrees and measures will be put in place. I’m not extrapolating a utopian future. Before we get to the point where the world reacts, there will be many wars, migration and fascism. But as it gets worse, I’m hopeful groups will work together and fight for a better future.
Nah, what will happen is that said incompetent governments will be replaced by incompetent dictatorships that will just tell people over the barrel of a gun that things are better now.
If it makes you feel any better, once it gets that bad, society will eventually break down and our CO2 levels will naturally return to normal over the next several centuries while the Earth is reclaimed by nature as we go extinct.
The intentionally-created famine and water shortage may be the worst war crime of all. There aren’t enough bombs to kill everyone, but starvation and thirst will.
Human beings should not be treated this way. At least allow humanitarian aide in for innocent civilians. Children.
The cruelty is absolutely the point here. They want to ethnicly cleanse them, whichever way is quickest before the international community actually does anything about it.
Starvation of civilian populations is a time honored military strategy. Bonus if you starve them out, then use catapults to launch infected/rotten livestock over the walls.
"Chivalry was abandoned, too, if the fight dragged on, such as when Henry V had dead animals thrown into the wells of Rouen in France during his siege of 1418-19 CE. Catapults might launch manure and corpses in the hope of spreading disease amongst the enemy."
Which Monty Python reversed for comedy in Holy Grail:
And it has been clear since the 10. October after Israel stated to block all food, water, electricity, medial aid and other goods for basic human survival, stating to fight "Human animals" and stating that "there is no uninvolved Civilians"
Yeah well you just need like 3 brain cells to predict that but I don’t think Israel pm wants to defeat hamas. He wants voters probably, seems to work pretty good
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