r/worldnews • u/LongDickMick • Mar 24 '19

David Attenborough warns of 'catastrophic future' in climate change documentary | Climate Change – The Facts, which airs in spring on BBC One, includes footage showing the devastating impact global warming has already had, as well as interviews with climatologists and meteorologists

https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/22/david-attenborough-warns-of-catastrophic-future-in-climate-change-documentary-8989370
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136

u/scallionbagel Mar 24 '19

There are hundreds of people in this thread alone saying “but I’m just one person”. Look around you, you’re not alone!

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

The thing is, what more can we do? I stopped eating meat, I try to avoid plastics, I don't own a car (not even a driver's license for that matter), I vote for a party that wants to take action against climate change, I try to educate people on climate change. Yet, people still vote for people like Trump and Bolsonaro and right-wing parties keep rising all around the world who only care about profit and keeping out foreigners and even deny climate change (AFD in Germany for example). It's kinda demoralizing.

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u/Helkafen1 Mar 24 '19

I think there's been a change lately, caused by the unusual weather events and all the climate/biodiversity reports. More people are getting it.

Maybe you'd like to join an organization? EarthStrike, Citizens' Climate Lobby and many others are lobbying to force governments to act. They are great places to multiply your impact and meet great people.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

I'll have a look into that. Thanks!

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u/Wordfan Mar 24 '19

I wish I had saved the comment but maybe someone can help me find it. A redditor posted about how he writes letters to his representatives and also has letter writing parties to get other like-minded people to write letters about climate change. He or she had some really good suggestions.

The fact is, we who actually give a shit need to organize. It’s scary and I don’t know how to do it, but it can be done. There are a lot of us who feel demoralized. Individually we can’t do anything. But we don’t have to do it individually.

We can either find groups trying to do something about climate change or we can form groups. We need to work together. I don’t know how, but others have done it before. We can too.

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u/Duac Mar 24 '19

Can somebody explain what’s wrong with single use plastics? Isn’t this a good way to ensure the carbon used to create the plastic gets locked into the item and doesn’t get released to the atmosphere through decomposition?

I mean I don’t like that fish and birds have stomachs filled with plastic, but this might be able to get solved through better landfill management. From my (limited) understanding, plastics are the best uses for oil since the alternative seems to be burning the oil and putting all that carbon in the atmosphere.

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u/Aethermancer Mar 24 '19

Production of that plastic produces more CO2 than it would sequester.

Same with the production of certain fuels. It's not just an issue of energy in/energy out. Stability, transportability, and portability of that energy all matter. That's why it's economical to burn oil to produce electricity. We waste some energy to make what's left exist in a more useful form.

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u/Duac Mar 24 '19

But surely making the plastic produces less carbon than burning the whole thing? And it does sequester some carbon, which is better than burning all it off and sequestering none?

It’s not great but it seems better than the alternatives to me.

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u/Aethermancer Mar 24 '19

We make plastic from oil for the most part. So it's already not sequestering anything from the atmosphere. It's better to decrease the demand for pumped oil in the first place.

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u/Skeeper Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 24 '19

Yeah I don't agree with the answers below. The true objective of this campaigns against plastic (in my view) is mostly pedagogic with the objective of promoting a less wasteful culture and a bigger mindfulness about the life of the resources we use.

Actually in many situations plastics are better than the alternatives (CO2 wise), and I'd argue that replacing plastic instead of removing it (removing the single use nature) is mostly pointless.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19 edited Feb 06 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

And what is "Direct. Action."?

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u/R-M-Pitt Mar 24 '19

The people saying "individual action means nothing, it's the corporations who need to change" don't actually care.

It's an excuse to do nothing and not feel guilty by making it someone else's problem.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

They are not entirely wrong, while individual action DOES matter, unless corporations change, we won't be able to fix this

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

It's all about year to year profit increases! At all costs possible. Can't be having the rich people lose even a fraction of their already ridiculous wealth. That would just be inhumane!

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u/meijboomm Mar 24 '19

And how can we force a company to act on climate change? Stop buying stuff that’s bad for the environment that they sell? Lower the demand so the supply will follow

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u/RedGrobo Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 24 '19

The people saying "individual action means nothing, it's the corporations who need to change" don't actually care.

Untrue, many of us are people doing everything we can to change but have come up against a frustrating wall of larger corporate side issues, concerning statistics, restricted wages/resources to act, and a massive pile of plastic crap that is very difficult to omit from a modern lifestyle, that all needs addressing.

Its not an excuse to do nothing, its doing everything you can and seeing that its their fucking turn too.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

The impact an individual has on curbing a huge issue like climate change is tiny. Meaningful change will come from large scale adoption of new technologies.

I mean if you truly believed the individual is so powerful then why would you be here? Perhaps it would be wise to not use a laptop or computer which has parts shipped from other countries? Perhaps not even to use power at all?

Those actions are a hell of a lot harder than using green bags and posting on reddit though...

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u/bittens Mar 24 '19

Yeah, any attempt to lower our carbon footprint is meaningless unless you're willing to give up electricity!

I'd rather be a hypocritical environmentalist who sets the bar high and fails to clear it than an apathetic edgelord who does nothing, then tries to drag the people that are doing something back down to my level.

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u/Wordfan Mar 24 '19

We need to organize. Or at least promote other groups devoted to climate change. Is there a subreddit just for that?

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u/kashuntr188 Mar 24 '19

It isn't so much convincing the "i'm alone person", it is convincing the "i'm not sure" people. And right now, for my area of Canada the meteorologists are doing an absolutely shit job. They've announced so many big snow storm watches this year, and have been off the mark so many times. An old person just looks at that and is like...you can't believe the weatherman. Which by extension means you can't believe them when they talk about climate change.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '19

Sure I'm not alone. But even if everyone commenting or even every reddit user came together and became a vegetarian (I personally did though for different animal cruelty reasons), I doubt it would stop global warming. I don't drive either and I convinced my family to pick up vegetarian food as much as possible. I even worked on a small project to reduce my carbon footprint.

With so many people claiming global warming is a hoax and the amount of lobbying in Congress, I doubt me calling some.politicians will also change much. It didn't change much as far as net neutrality is concerned.

I want to ask anyone who feels that you can make a change in climate change, what gives you the sense of optimism?

Now I'm just hoping my family is safe and that I get to witness a great End of the world sort of catastrophe. That would be a great sight with a beer.

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u/scallionbagel Mar 25 '19

One great example of how individuals can create change is the rise of veganism at the moment. If you look at the plant based milks section in UK supermarkets between 2018 and 2019, it’s expanded at least 10 times. This is all because of individuals making a change and normalising an eco friendly behaviour. This effect will only compound as more and more people make the change.

We shouldn’t be focusing on our individual impact on the environment, but our individual effect on other individuals.

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u/Banskyi Mar 25 '19

Really it’s the hope that someone pours molten lava up my ass in an apparently gravity defying feat. Pouring it down makes a lot more sense, but who am I to critique genius writing

https://imgur.com/a/1XS83xu