Comment by MrDresden | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrDresden | Hacker News Reader

- vote for political parties that take the climate catastrophy seriously and have actionable locally related action on their agendas.

- not owned nor operated a car for 8 years, relying on public transport and car pooling as much as possible.

- live sparsely, buying way less disposable junk, buying more expensive well built things that last (but only if they are absolutely needed and will be used)

- lower meat consumption to around 250gr per week. Could probably go lower.

- put money where my mouth is; sponsor foundations and initiatives that are helping to restore ecosystems (I would recommend 'Mossy Earth').

- also related to money and my mouth; put funds into certified green investment funds. I can't say if you can be sure they are green where you are based, but mine are government certified so I trust it.

- push against comments from friends, family and coworkers that hint at futility of, or lack of responsibility for, our own individual action in the face of this crisis. Help them to see that our collective actions are numerous and can extend way further then just to something like recycling.

- buy food stuffs from outlets that allow you to bring your own container rather than getting it wrapped in disposable plastic.

Living a somewhat frugal life is probably key to living a happy life but recycling and personal responsibility is a smokescreen as documented heavily in the history of green PR.

For some reason the american political hegemony the world suffers under has convinced everyone that global culture is driven by the most superficial almost cartoon-like identity or introverted politics and not hardcore resources, class war, and realpolitical games adhering to a global physical reality.

It's a trick. And it's working because people look inwards when they should be seething with rage at the elite and the systems that have put us in this mess. Hint: Someone did something to community organisers from the 60's until now.

There is only trying to go against the bizarrely powerful lobbying groups, the open doors between industry and politics, the shadowy networks of power, or if not interested in parapolitics try to move towards various scientific adaptations for an extremely uncertain future.

The world is a huge cybernetic system and human culture or something as irrelevant as personal consumption patterns is 100% downstream from physical resources, technology, and the resource and class wars plus geopolitical games to control them. These were the known targets for all successful mass movements but that has been obscured.

Re: push against bc of futility

This is the most annoying and concerning narrative; "It doesn't matter because China has coal plants", from groups that traditionally tout " personal responsibility" and "individual action". The U.S. is full of entrepreneurial, innovatives leaders - movements start with individuals, businesses start with an idea, but they want to quit without trying.

I wouldn't call it especially concerning, I think it's very classic human laziness hiding behind arguments which themselves are lazy. You can find the same behaviour in the face of any required effort, starting at two years of age...

But the amount of laziness displayed when arguing this way does make my blood boil sometimes, it's almost insulting.

Laziness is one of the reasons I think we are in a very bad position. Humans need immediate rewards to do anything, at most it has to be a couple of months away. The rest are an infinitesimal exceptional population, the mass is what counts.

To save ourselves (and the planet) we need to: 1. Sacrifice for a long time, with no rewards before a very long time. 2. Trust that everyone will sacrifice as much without being able to check or, alternatively, accept some will just not do their share.

All things humans are historically really really bad at. Although I hate it does, this makes be all doom&gloom I must admit...

The best individual action you can do is agitate for political and corporate change. Almost all the blame is on corporations and government bodies. The emissions of individuals pales in comparison.

Corporations go where money is, individuals have the money.

Most individuals don't have the luxury of choice. They buy the cheapest option.

I really appreciate your thoughtful answer and there are a number of items you do that I should add to my list because I am doing them as well (green investing, etc). On this point:

> vote for political parties that take the climate catastrophy seriously and have actionable locally related action on their agendas.

In Canada at least we have on party (conservatives, natch) who either deny it or otherwise obstruct all efforts to counter it, and two parties that talk a big game but take no real action and do counterproductive things like buy pipelines.

So while I agree with the sentiment, there is no viable party that makes it a serious point that they’ll take action on. And from what I can tell the same seems to be true in most countries. Politics is broken.

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