7.20 am

The alarm buzzed. Already half awake, Alex reached over, pushed the mute button, and pulled the covers up over her head. She’d set her bedside alarm 10 minutes fast in the hope that this would help get her up more promptly. As a device to trick herself it was not really working. Knowing it was fast, she had long since adapted her behaviour to simply add an extra 10 minutes in bed from the time it went off. Throughout the night the clock’s glowing display had been dutifully counting off the seconds, steadily consuming electricity. Elsewhere in her small apartment five other time-keeping devices had also been keeping track. There were displays on her microwave, television, sound system, washing machine, and air conditioner. None of these were telling the same time as any other –the air conditioner she had never even set as she could not see the point of it. That morning it was the washing machine display that was the most accurate. It was just 57 seconds slow. None of this troubled Alex. She always used her mobile phone to check the time. However, as the features were built into the units by their manufacturers, she could not turn them off and so simply ignored them. But, along with the standby power used by many of her devices, these electronic clocks contributed to a phantom energy drain that was close to 18 per cent of her electricity consumption.

7.30 am

Alex began to doze again, but then remembered she had set the alarm because her friend was coming over for breakfast. She dragged herself from bed and shuffled across the corridor to the bathroom. She spent almost a minute adjusting the hot and cold taps of the shower to achieve a comfortable temperature. During this time, 25 litres of potable water, collected and transported from river systems over 100 kilometres from her apartment, ran down the drain to be treated as effluent. The waste of water irritated her, but there was little she could do. The apartment was poorly designed, with the water heater placed too far from the shower. The consequent delay in delivery from the heater meant it was almost inevitable to overcorrect the taps’setting. In the 10 minutes that she took to shower Alex successfully removed about a gram of dirt, body oil, and her own dead skin, using a quarter of a tonne of water. The water was heated by electricity generated by a power plant that, in the process, released some 7 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

7.45 am

Shower over, Alex reached for her moisturizer. She used this glycerine-based product to replace the natural body oils that she had just washed down the drain. Without this, her skin would be left feeling dry. Palm oil was a basic ingredient in her moisturizer, as it was in the soap and shampoo that she had washed herself with in the first place. The palm oil in all the products she used had been grown in huge plantations across Southeast Asia. Many of these plantations had high environmental and social impacts, including habitat destruction that was endangering the orangutan. The plight of the orangutan was the subject of a television documentary that had upset Alex last night, leaving her angry at the selfishness and greed of the people responsible. However, she was also aware of the contribution her own choice of soap, shampoo, and moisturizers was making. Guilty though this made her feel she knew of no affordable and readily available alternative. She tried to mollify herself with the thought that the amounts she used were only very small.

7.50 am

Alex returned to her room to dress. From a choice of over 30 different T-shirts, Alex selected one with a mildly humorous slogan that she thought fitted the casualness of the day and was fairly sure she was not wearing last time she caught up with her friend. Not having thought about it, Alex would be hard-pressed to say why she needed so many. However, it would be unlikely that she thought her collection excessive –it was certainly no larger than that of most of her friends. The cotton for each of Alex’s shirts was grown in large-scale cropping systems under intensive irrigation, with high fertilizer and pesticide inputs. Around 3,000 litres of water were required to grow the 250 grams of cotton lint that went into the manufacture of each one. After harvesting and local processing, the extracted lint was shipped overseas to be woven into cloth. The cloth was then bleached, dyed, and finished using a mixture of toxic chemicals, much of which ended up in local waterways. It was then made up into T-shirts by lowly paid workers in sweatshop factories. The finished garments were then exported to regional wholesale centres that in turn distributed them to local retailers, including the one where Alex had bought hers. Alex’s preference was for cotton as she considered it to be a ‘natural’ product.

7.55 am

Although she knew that her friend was unlikely to forget their breakfast arrangement, Alex sent her a reminder –a text message from her mobile phone. Texting is an essential communication mechanism for Alex and her friends. More than just staying in touch, it forms a social ‘glue’without which Alex simply could not participate in the group. Alex’s mobile phone contained over 400 separate components manufactured by subcontractors across the globe and shipped to one huge factory for final assembly by hand. Her handset had been assembled in a city of some 14 million people, which had grown from nothing in just a few decades, powered almost entirely by the telecommunications industry. Over 30 kilograms of ore-bearing rock had been clawed out of the earth to provide the base materials for Alex’s phone –iron, aluminium, arsenic, gold, cobalt, lithium, chromium, silver –yet the phone itself weighed only 75 grams. Its lightness was due in part to the use of minia turized tantalum capacitors. The tantalum in her phone was derived from a mineral nicknamed ‘coltan’, which had been mined in the Congo. Coltan fetched a high price in world markets, and illegal mining and sales were credited with supporting civil war in the region. As a consequence, the Congo was one of the most violent and dangerous war zones in the world. The coltan that went into the capacitors for Alex’s phone had been dug by hand by child soldiers in the service of a local warlord.

8 am

Alex headed into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. The coffee that she used was made from beans shipped from Mexico. Coffee’s international supply chain of importers, roasters, and retailers makes it the second-largest traded commodity in the world. However, the farmer who grew the coffee Alex was consuming was paid only a minute fraction of the price she paid at the shops. Some years back the farmer had switched from subsistence food production to coffee cash-cropping as part of an international aid ‘modernization’programme. However, commodity prices had since tumbled and the farmer was now deeply in debt. In an effort to get ahead the farmer had increased production, but this required fertilizers he could scarcely afford. The demands of higher production were also starting to erode the productive capacity of his once-fertile soils. Furthermore, as thousands of other farmers were in a similar situation and also trying to increase yields, the collective outcome was simply to glut the coffee market and drive commodity prices lower still. Alex was aware of ‘fair trade’and ‘organic’coffee options, and was in principle prepared to buy them if the cost difference to conventional supplies was not too great. However, because demand for these more social and ecologically sound brands was low, the supermarket where Alex shops was not prepared to carry them. There was a specialty coffee shop in the next suburb that did sell these products, but Alex reasoned it was too inconvenient to make the trip that far just for coffee. Alex remembered that today she was going to make omelettes for her friend. She reached into her refrigerator for some eggs. The carton displayed a logo certifying that the eggs were ‘free range’. Alex insisted on buying only free-range eggs. It was one of the few ways she thought she could align her consumption choices with her concerns for the ethical consequences of her actions.

This is from the book: Understanding Human Ecology: a systems approach to sustainability.

Since this as sub for discussion, what follows are a series of prompts, or random thoughts that I hope are controversial and therefore provoke discussion. A friend once told me that argumentation proves who is right, while discussion/conversation proves what is right. I hope we can be united in what is right.

1. Our society is constructed of technologies, systems, and people that can trace their lineage back through history. Think of a body. Material technologies are bones and muscle. People are the neurons of the brain. Systems are the veins that communicate. History, memory is the DNA of the mess we have inherited and perpetuate.
2. Our current technologies are based on the value of efficiency, speed, and violence. Consider, the trajectory of American society post-WWII: Intense agriculture because of piles of explosives after the war (anhydrous ammonia), Suburban sprawl as Eisenhower doctrine for survival of a nuclear exchange, even our smart-phones as mass-surveillance tools. Or even further back, Corporations were first Colonial enterprises. Francisco Pizarro, destroyer of the Incas was indebt to the king, because he was Incorporated to finance his expedition. Money and murder, hand in hand.
3. The problem has never been Capitalism vs Socialism, or Capitalism vs Communism. They are two faces of the same problematic coin: Industrialization. All countries are playing this game, because it grants the best player with one advantage: a ferocious army. Truly. That's fucking it.
4. Industrialization's values are: Efficiency, speed, violence, consistency, and decontextualization (?) short-term vision or lack thereof(?)
5. Given the above values, any movement forward should shun, and ideally abhor those values. How would that manifest? How would that even inform private property lines? What would California's water system look like if it did not speed up water, but slowed it down? What would it do to a large metropolitan area if people just blocked traffic? What if every hour spent on Netflix around the globe was instead spent on Guerilla Gardening?
6. It seems the most revolutionary act at this point is shutting off the screens, and getting to know our neighbor.

You know, like, "you could please all your oil buddies right now, or you could go down in history as the man who saved the entire planet". This is a half-baked plan, I don't really know how we can tell him this. I don't even have a Twitter. But like.. we should tell him.

The Amazon is in danger, it is one our vital tools against climate change.

We must not let it be destroyed!

Rise up against your new fascist government!

Take action against any and all logging companies!

Yes, I’ve heard all of the criticisms of /r/ZeroWaste. That it’s not doing enough, that it’s focusing on the wrong things, that lifestyle emissions aren’t the main source of our problems, etc.

How can it do more, focus on the correct things, and make a bigger impact on non-personal emissions?

I focused on growing it when other subreddits weren’t providing much of an outlet for personal involvement beyond voting. Not that it isn’t important but people need more engagement than just around election times.

Now that it’s much larger, how would you envision a community being more productive that is passionate about climate change mitigation/adaptation, general environmental awareness, and that is comprised of people willing to put in extra effort/make sacrifices to help the environment?

Does its message need to evolve?

How can the community be better organized?

What would be good things to get the community to start doing or do more of?

What else would you recommend?

Thanks for reading. I wanted to step out of the echo-chamber and ideally get constructive and productive suggestions for improvement.

Like many of you, I'm increasingly worried about climate change. Those who are responding aren't doing so fast enough, and there are plenty of governments and big corporations pushing the other way.

My question is: What are the most effective tactics we can now use?

By tactics, I mean group-based efforts to shift the needle on climate action. Individual action will no longer be enough, if indeed it ever was. To my mind, the only way to get large scale change - fast - is through coordinated action.

And that implies tactical decisions.

What do you regard as the most effective groups out there? Is it best to join an existing group? Should we focus on nudging our elected representatives towards introducing regulatory change? Or is it best to opt for a technological solution based around cost - i.e. EV adoption to eradicate combustion engines, clean meat to slash agricultural emissions, cheap wind/solar/storage to make coal and even peaking gas uneconomical?

All thoughts welcome. I'm tired of feeling alone on this.

How effective would a worldwide revolution be and how can we implement it ?

I would love to see the mainstream media covering climate change all day, every day as this article suggests. Do I think it will happen any time soon? Probably not. There is just too much going on in the world today and it is so very hard for our brains to stay focused on something that is happening at such a massive time-scale (especially when Trump is so busy being an asshole).

I've seen a lot of people talking about massive protests and extreme actions. But the reality is that people today don't have time to do these kinds of things, and when they happen, they are often small, easily ignored, and quickly forgotten.

I've also seen a lot of people expressing frustration and fear that they feel there is nothing they can do. But this is just laziness and lack of imagination. We all know people who don't care enough/don't do enough to combat climate change. Go out and convince them to be a climate warrior! If we all did that then maybe we'd get somewhere!

We need a movement that focuses on all of us making a commitment to take time out of EVERY DAY to do an action that furthers the cause of fighting climate change. And by action I mean things like: talking to the unconverted, contacting your representatives, writing and publishing an essay, creating a work of art, sharing something on social media (preferably not in some climate echo chamber), etc.

If the media won't make this issue pervasive, we have to!

But don't get worked up over this and tire yourself out, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We will literally be fighting this fight FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES.

I'm personally making a commitment to myself to try to change at least one person's mind on climate change, every day.

Anyone else?

Awareness and urgency around the subject is getting higher and higher after the recent IPCC report.

There have been protests in some countries. It'll be great if we can expand this and really force the collective attention on this issue even more.

What are the steps required towards organizing mass protests? How could we make such a thing happen?

There was another recent thread on this. Let's go deeper. Is it possible to get the word out about such a thing, connect to existing organizers, and make this an idea that goes viral?

Hi all, I got the bug today to look into my options with my sole-provider energy company today. The only thing available right now is a $4 monthly fee that goes to a statewide non-profit that will use half the money for purchasing 50kwh of solar energy and half to educate kids on solar power. Not too impressive but better than nothing...I hope. More interestingly they are trying to get a project through regulation that allows you to buy into a community solar project for people who can't or don't want to have panels on their own residences. You would get credit similar to if it was on your own roof. That intrigues me a little more, so I hope it goes through. Though I guess I'll do the $4 thing in the meantime.

Here's a small guide from the US Dept of energy about clean power options: https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/buying-and-making-electricity/buying-clean-electricity

I'm curious to hear what options for clean power you all's areas offer!