On 7/24/2019 at 3:39 AM, Zeffolia said:

Fixed.  Dairy is still bad for the environment.

the only truly ethical diet you can possibly have would be growing your own food on a small scale, and in small quantity to promote health of the soil and biodiversity. Or to kill what you eat yourself in the wild in moderation and only in seasons without vegetative abundance.

If everyone switched to a vegan diet the negative effects on the environment would still be astronomical. Especially in the fall and winter in colder climates where not enough grows to sustain a large population of people. We would be forced to rely on large scale importation via air and sea which is absolutely disastrous for the environment and uses up an incredible amount of non-renewable resources. Not only that, but it would encourage the further destruction of the Earth's soil. Even further over-farming to satiate an ever growing population of people.

  On 7/24/2019 at 5:46 AM, The Magic Autist said:

the only truly ethical diet you can possibly have would be growing your own food on a small scale, and in small quantity to promote health of the soil and biodiversity. Or to kill what you eat yourself in the wild in moderation and only in seasons without vegetative abundance.

If everyone switched to a vegan diet the negative effects on the environment would still be astronomical. Especially in the fall and winter in colder climates where not enough grows to sustain a large population of people. We would be forced to rely on large scale importation via air and sea which is absolutely disastrous for the environment and uses up an incredible amount of non-renewable resources. Not only that, but it would encourage the further destruction of the Earth's soil. Even further over-farming to satiate an ever growing population of people.

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You're forgetting about the inefficiency of small-scale farming apparatuses in comparison to large-scale ones.  First off where is everyone going to get this farming equipment in the near future?  How is everyone going to find the time to learn how to do this at an expert enough level to produce worthy yields?  Would this worldwide farming investment be as effective as for instance worldwide personal donations for green energy to power the ships that transport the mass-farmed plants?  I doubt it.

In theory, if society had been set up that way from the beginning, and farming skills were widespread, then this may be feasible.  But one large field tended to by automated farming equipment, despite needing transportation, would be far more efficient than any distributed farming scenario we could come up with in the near future, unless we get AI-powered hydroponic cubes which is a longterm requirement anyway for space

Plus if everyone went vegan, net plant consumption by humans would go down.  The reason is that animals consume the vast majority of our plants, it's like a 15x energy transfer so it's extremely inefficient.  This doesn't include the more exotic foods some vegans eat for specific vitamins and minerals.  But they are only "exotic" because they haven't been commoditized yet, which they eventually would be on a larger scale.

Any plant can rightfully have its exoticness stolen from it by the economy of scale.  In addition, how will individuals know how much to grow in comparison to exactly how much their family will consume?  The economy of scale solves this problem through demand-based production excitement signals

Here's an apocalypse thought for ya: in 20 years most of you will become right wingers! ;p

  On 7/24/2019 at 7:20 AM, goDel said:

Here's an apocalypse thought for ya: in 20 years most of you will become right wingers!

can you elaborate

yeah. here's a link

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politics

Fuck that. In twenty years, I'll be dead, by hook or by heroin overdose. 

So, if my guess is the "apocalypse now" people have secret suicide fantasies, how far am I off?

It's not a suicide fantasy so much as it is a plan for handling a predicted scenario. I'm just lacking the motivation to fight on in such a world. But I'd certainly rather be wrong and I'd definitely prefer to keep living the comfortable life I have now for another forty years instead.  

  On 7/24/2019 at 11:10 AM, goDel said:

So, if my guess is the "apocalypse now" people have secret suicide fantasies, how far am I off?

Suicidal but too lazy/cowardly to just do it themselves 

I love how we use "cowardly" to describe people that either do or don't kill themselves.

Apparently we have 18 months to save the planet from climate change (lol good fkn luck): https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736?utm_source=pocket-newtab

  On 7/24/2019 at 10:53 PM, sheatheman said:

Suicidal but too lazy/cowardly to just do it themselves 

  On 7/25/2019 at 5:49 AM, ambergonk said:

Apparently we have 18 months to save the planet from climate change (lol good fkn luck): https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736?utm_source=pocket-newtab

summers are too hot. noone can think straight or be bothered doing anything atm. give it another 6 months..

Well we managed to survive an abnormally hot, dry, smoky month and a half where I live and we're just now getting much-needed rain. But I'm sure this relief is temporary.

I was a much better driver after I got in a wreck on the highway when I was 16. Nowadays I’m a preventative driver.

(collapsitarian ism)

you will never convince the world to live sustainably until the effects are 100% evident and deeply impactful in the everyday life of the majority of the population.

Luckily I survived the accident.

  On 7/25/2019 at 9:26 PM, sheatheman said:

I was a much better driver after I got in a wreck on the highway when I was 16. Nowadays I’m a preventative driver.

(collapsitarian ism)

you will never convince the world to live sustainably until the effects are 100% evident and deeply impactful in the everyday life of the majority of the population.

Luckily I survived the accident.

 

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maybe we need a bit more benevolent authoritarianism, humanity is clearly in its infant stages.  we can't risk it though because of how it can be abused I guess.

Interesting piece on the empty promises made by those who want to fight climate change.

https://issues.org/the-empty-radicalism-of-the-climate-apocalypse/

  Quote

As many environmentalists and even elected Democrats have come to believe that serious climate disruption is already upon us, it has become fashionable to call for a World War II-style mobilization to fight climate change. But virtually no one will actually call for any of the sorts of activities that the United States undertook during the war mobilization—rationing food and fuels, seizing property, nationalizing factories or industries, or suspending democratic liberties.

...

If one believed that the climate crisis was already under way and that the world had only a decade or so not only to stop the growth of emissions but to slash them deeply, an emergency mobilization to rapidly cut carbon dioxide emissions would seemingly be the only sane response. But the apocalyptic rhetoric, endless demands for binding global temperature targets, and radical-sounding condemnations of neoliberalism, consumption, and corporations only conceal how feeble the environmental climate agenda actually is. The vagueness and modesty of the Green New Deal is not proof that progressives and environmentalists are closet socialists. It is, rather, evidence that most climate advocates, though no doubt alarmed, don’t actually see climate change as the immediate and existential threat they suggest it is.

Practically, the specific decarbonization policies advocated by environmentalists and progressives are incremental, lukewarmist, and neoliberal, boiling down to some variant of either regulating corporations to stop them from doing things that produce carbon emissions or subsidizing them to use energy and other technologies that reduce carbon emissions—mostly the very small set of technologies and practices that environmentalists approve of: wind, solar, bioenergy, electric vehicles, and organic farming.

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We can't even get carbon taxes how are we going to get war-style rationing and seizing of private industry?  It's hilarious how the writer of that article is blaming progressives for the fact that they're being blocked by retarded conservatives who ironically don't give a shit about conserving anything.

so close and yet so far... maybe next time tho 

that warm air mass that just fried all of europe is on its way to Greenland which has already lost like billions of tons of sheet ice this year.. something equivalent to 11 million olympic sized swimming pools which is always a thing they do to help people get their minds around how much that is but wtf it's annoying. 

Europe's heatwave could now cause catastrophic melting of Greenland's ice sheet

https://theweek.com/speedreads/855186/europes-heatwave-could-now-cause-catastrophic-melting-greenlands-ice-sheet

more details about 2018 ice sheet loss which was also 150 billion tons above normal. 

http://sciencenordic.com/how-greenland-ice-sheet-fared-2018

meanwhile USA farmers went through floods that froze on their crops then thawed and then summer floods as well. it'll be fine though. ahem. 

"I'm not a climate change guy, but...": Farmers reckon with new reality in the heartland

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-reckoning-in-the-heartland-cbsn-originals/

  On 7/27/2019 at 5:42 PM, ignatius said:

"I'm not a climate change guy, but..."

Well, that's a silver lining!

Literally had an elderly neighbor begin a conversation with me last November (just after I moved out here in cornfield and pig farm country) exactly that way. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-27/other-ways-to-dispose-of-recycling-besides-putting-it-in-bin/11350488

I think if you're convinced the world is about to end then you should get off of the internet for a while and avoid keeping up with 24 hour news. I think that in the western world the recent surge of right wing personalities has grown a little (aided by the likes of online influencers) but I don't think it will last as long as you think. To me it feels more like a death rattle of that old regressive way of thinking, one last attempt to hold on. Constantly reading the miserable nonsense you get online is going to taint how you think day to day.

It's better to let go IMO. I mean, the world isn't going to end, humanity will end before the world does. I'm deeply concerned about the climate and do as much as I can to be green, but when I think about deforestation in other countries and just China on it's own I have to laugh bitterly and just not worry about it.

I'm optimistic deep down though. I think humanity will take a few licks and a good bit of the human populace will have to die before we collectively get our shit together. Regressive mentalities will need to die out but that process is happening currently. The climate thing will be the near miss, but we have smart people working on clever ideas. Right now we don't have an easy solution but human ingenuity has surprised throughout history. Just think how quickly technology has come together since the industrial revolution!

If you're seriously feeling apocalyptic my genuine advice is to get off of social media, away from the influencers. Take more time away from the internet and get away from 24 hour news. Spend more time outside and with your friends or family. Think of the world in terms of your communities. Everything seems terrible because we're mostly only interested in bad news and we're fed it constantly. Back when the news was on one or two times a day you'd be like "ah yeah that sounds bad", but then your reality would kick back in and you'd go about your life. We can't go back to that world, sadly. But you can have a bit of discipline and stop poisoning your brain.

We'll be alright.