I'm continuously surprised how we're not in full-on panic mode because of climate change.
And I think this slowness of reaction is also what will make any sort of solution extremely difficult to implement - people will complain that they are feeling the impact of any solution right now(like, if plastics were banned tomorrow), while the climate won't improve for a long time - even if we stopped our emissions entirely the climate would keep getting worse for decades until any meaningful improvement would be observed.
It appears to be small sample set of temperature records taken in growing urban environments.
https://www.ft.com/content/73650984-135a-11e9-a168-d45595ad0...
"...renewables (including biofuels, waste and hydro) are responsible for almost the same share of energy today (14 per cent) as supplied in 1971 "
We can shave of percentages by stopping eating meat and so on but fossil fuels are still the major culprit in carbon emissions.
From economical point of view it's catastrophe today (just stopping using fossil fuels cold turkey will destroy the economic structure of our civilization) versus catastrophe tomorrow.
https://mobile.twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1070717050430070...
We, as individual consumers, need to reduce the carbon emissions ourselves as much as possible no matter what the politicians say. Deniers are going to be a problem until shit hits the fan for real, and waiting until everyone is convinced will simply be a waste of time.
So, in other words, focus less on what others do, more on what you do, and make sure to prepare as much as you can for whatever the future holds. Not saying everyone should become a prepper (although it's a fun hobby!), but the fact that people blindly believe that the future is a straight line is scarier, regardless of where they believe that line is pointing.
It's a governmental problem, not an individual one, only way it's going to change is if you start campaigning and voting differently.
Many a mickle makes a muckle, this applies to pretty much everything.
If everybody keeps acting like their individual contributions are completely meaningless, then nobody will change anything about their own ways and thus large scale change will remain a pipe-dream.
The longer you keep parroting this corporate propaganda, the more fucked we are. This needs strong government intervention, now.
Preferably paid for with massive, backdated windfall taxes on every company and shareholder that ever materially benefited from environmentally destructive companies.
Obviously not going to happen, but let's not pretend me or you are responsible for the industrial levels of pollution, and the last few decades of climate change denier lobbying, when those companies full well knew the damage they were doing.
Let's instead pretend our chosen lifestyle of abundance and wastefulness doesn't factor into any of this at all?
Who do you think these companies are selling their products to? Thus financing their operations in the first place? Externalizing the blame for this solely on the industry, like consumers have zero responsibility or impact, might be convenient but imho it only serves to shift the blame from one party to the other and vice versa, so that ultimately nobody feels responsible and thus nobody starts acting.
To tackle this will require efforts on both ends. Because the industry will simply react by "There's demand for it, so we do it", while consumers go "The industry is doing it, somebody needs to force them to change, but don't you dare to inconvenience ME!".
Literally, nothing stops us from doing both: Being responsible consumers and properly regulating the industry.
With enough people spitting, that isn't a problem at all. Shame so many people are just standing back saying it can't be done instead of helping.
If we really want to make a change we have to focus on big picture solutions. Instead of being against, we need to focus on what we want to move towards.
The only way to reduce our dependency on carbon fuels within a realistic timeframe is an aggressive rollout of renevable energy like wind and solar, _and_ nuclear. If we were really serious about this, we would do massive investments in nuclear, building lots of new plants and also stepping up the research in technologies like molten salt and thorium based reactors.
If we should take to the street and demonstrate, it should be _for_ actual solutions like that, rather than _against_ minor things that don't make much of a difference anyways.
The changes we need to do will require a large cultural change in order for people to accept them. We need to accept collective AND individual responsibility for something that affects the entire biosphere. Increasing taxes on fuel won't change the way people think, any more than getting rid of plastic straws will. After all, most large changes can be summarized as a long sequence of smaller events (not sure if that last part sounds right -- English isn't my first language).
Given that there are significant disadvantages and the benefits are entirely collective, why would anybody agree to that?
We need to accept that climate change is a thing and deal with it, as a thing.
Climate change is a "solved" problem, but the solution isn't something I would want to live through.
The good news is, unless you are part of the lucky 0.01%, you won't have to live through it!
Most of us posting here will die of old age before things really get ugly. It's our children or grandchildren who will suffer.
Change your mind about needing a personal automobile, and share it with as many people as possible. Use public transportation if you have it, and insist in your community investing in public transportation systems if you don't.
I think this is a false dichotomy, and so do many economists [1]. We can start phasing out out the non-essential use of fossils and come up with replacements for the remainign parts in the coming decades.
Painting it as this kind of desperate dichotomy is generally playing into the hands those who don't want us to address climate change.
Remember that the changes aren't only chilling on the economy - the energy overhaul is an enormous global public works project.
We are using energy and energy-intensive products in really wasteful ways because of their low cost in our everyday lives (consider oversized cars and low occupancy, available savings from turning heating & cooling to lower levels, going veggie in food, cutting air travel, not to mention all the wasted energy in commercial/industrial side due to low energy costs).
[1] See eg https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/opinion/paul-krugman-coul...
I think the biggest hurdle is that the incumbent investments in hydrocarbons have quite a lot of future profits to tied up to continued usage of said resources. The negative externalities of hydrocarbon eceonomy should be tied more forcefully directly to their usage. But even that would not discourage investors from doing all they can to keep up the demand for oil.
Actually, I think one of the key issues is you still have powerful, vocal pointing out there is no issue. For example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46351940
I was pointing out that it's not as simple as wanting to believe that everyone is on the same page, here. It's not easy to even get people to recognise the issue, let alone starting from a point where we're all pulling in the same direction.
I don't have a solution.
You see there are no easy solutions, our societies have built-in negative externalities of all kinds that culminated in this problem.
At least a tax can be structured in a way that poor people are less impacted.
There are signs of panic amongst the very young. A widespread rebellion is the only thing that could move fast enough to save us at this point, and I can't see where that could come from other than our youth. The chances aren't good, but if there are signs of hope, that would be where to look.
I don't know about this one. I really don't.
Have for example a look at how much the Iraq war cost over seven years and imagine how many batteries and solar panels could have been build with that money and how many homes could have gotten improved insulation. And that was really just a minor blip compared to the efforts that went into WW2.
Also, while defossilizing the industry base, it makes sense to enhance, increase and automate local factories to make it viable to produce things locally and not half a world away. Add a functional and effective system for recycling materials to use for new production, etc. and the long term trend is clear: China's role as the production hub of the world will diminish dramatically. From this perspective I do not understand why China does not seem to be racing like mad to restrict fossil fuels.