What are you doing to help stop climate change?

[moon777light]

If your on the internet a lot, you probably are aware of the huge warnings in the past few days about climate change disaster. This forum is about improving consciousness, isnt being eco/saving the earth part of consciousness? I realize so much people, including myself, shit on this earth without thinking of consequences.. (using up gas and polluting and stuff, not literally taking a dump). I think we really need to start making changes, since most of us on here are teenagers or in our 20's.....the warning calculates that in 20 years the Earth will start to have uncontrollable forest fires, food shortages, etc. We going to be only 40. I think we would all like to live comfortably, and our children.

Tips like using Buses, trains, and bikes instead of planes and cars.

Or replacing your car with an electric one

buying food locally

installing solar panels, etc

 

[outlandish]

Thank you for bringing this topic up. It's the critical issue of our time, and it ties in deeply with spirituality and actualization.

We've been mislead into believing that the solution to climate change and environmental devastation lies in our individual hands. We're taught that if only we could we just do a better job of recycling, riding our bikes more and skipping meat on mondays, that everything will be hunky-dory.

Don't get me wrong, individual actions are part of it, extremely important, and commendable. I do all kinds of those things, religiously. However, this is a collective problem and we need high level, collective solutions. That means government, international agreements and regulation. 

The number one solution to climate change is that we need to push the big institutions, politicians, kicking and screaming, into taxing carbon pollution. We need to end coal. We need to push government to end fossil fuel subsidies, slow down fossil fuel industry expansion, and foster renewables and robust high voltage power grids. De-invest in the fossil fuel industry, invest in renewable energy. Vote for local mass transit.

This massive challenge to humanity needs Tier 2 solution and a great deal of progress through the stages for humanity as a whole.

I don't know how bad it's going to get before we do make this progression. I think it's possible we won't, we could fail at this.

[abundance]

I hate to be a pessimist but perhaps the severe implications of climate change are what's necessary for human evolution. Something has to break the current paradigm we're in and climate change may just do that.

[Erlend K]

Here are a few paragraphs from an essay, I am working on regarding the humanitarian and geopolitical consequences of climate change:

Rising sea levels, dwindling water supplies, desertification, and changing weather patterns are expected to erode farm- and pastoral land throughout the developing world. The expected results include unprecedented population displacements, surging poverty, and rapid urbanization, à la Syria’s 2007-2010 drought. Coinciding with the anticipated automation revolution, this booming urban underclass might be largely unemployable - spawning a global archipelago of hotspots for destabilization, civil unrest, civil wars, resource conflicts (à la the unfolding Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict over the river Nile), failed states and a surge of jihadist organisations (Sullivan, 2007), (Nett, 2016).

Gemenne (2011) estimates the potential number of climate refugees by 2050 as high as 300 million. The unsanitary living conditions of some of these refugees might become ground zero for antibiotic-resistant bacteria epidemics, rapidly spreading along their migration routes.

Some climate refugees will undoubtedly migrate northwards, putting the EU under massive strain. Looking back, the puny refugee crisis of the Syrian Civil War will seem minuscule. Like describing the horrors of the Napoleonic wars to a WW1 trench-veteran. Coinciding with other drastic changes, the scene might be set for populists movements and strongmen. The power to influence migration routes towards Europe might shift the EU-Turkey power balance in Turkey's favor. Ditto for Russia, whose influence over Iran and Syria as well as naval presence in the Black Sea, might strategically interfere with northbound migration routes.

Climate change is expected to particularly wreak havoc on Pakistan, where destabilization might result in Taliban acquisition of nuclear weapons. This could usher an age of nuclear terrorism, or at least force a NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. A Unified Afghanistan-Pakistan governed by a nuclear-armed Taliban: a breeding ground for terrorism and a geopolitical worst case scenario for the west.

 

[moon777light]

@Outer or nothing is determined

@outlandish this is true and the only way we can make big progress

@abundance i hope we can catch on fast enough

 

this is a good video on the zero waste movement and how this one girl is battling climate change, even if she lives in a huge city like new york city

 

[moon777light]

i know shes doing too much, but just adopting a fifth of what she does can help

[Solace]

The best thing you can do is spiritually awaken. This is because we need to raise the consciousness of this planet in order for electric cars, renewable energy and distribution efforts to third world countries to be sustainably implemented. We have the technology, however the state of consciousness means that there are people in power who want wealth over peoples lives and people’s health:

Yet there is a balance. We can all do our part. While awakening we can be very active in changing the world, forming online or local groups to focus on a particular issue and come up with creative ideas to solve it. 

Always know people’s state of conscious has a great influence over what they can and cannot do, accept, and be willing to change. So go to the core first, and the outside will naturally change. If everyone knew they were Unconditonal Love and not a human being, the world would reflect that back to them, creating true world peace, unity, when we know we are all one.

[moon777light]

@Solace so true 

[moon777light]

@Erlend K that is terrifying oO.Oo

[Consilience]

A massive societal shift towards veganism would help drastically slow down environmental degradation. But no one wants to hear or admit that the meat and diary industries are the main drivers of deforestation, water usage, and green house gas emission. 

[outlandish]

^ I don't think it's true the meat and dairy are the main drivers of GHGs. But I totally agree that moving to a vegan (or much more vegan) diet is one of the best things you could do for the planet. As a side benefit, it's extremely healthy for your body and a plant-based diet will help you avoid dying (as Dr. whatshisname says), and you can feel better about not causing animals to suffer.

[Zweistein]

@moon777light

I'm one of those people who has recently started to go as much as possible "zerowaste"... (not easy though with a family of 4). Tomorrow we have a Zerowaste-meet-up in Stockholm (in case anyone is interested, feel free to pm me ). Also check out Bea Johnson's book "Zerowaste Home" and her bulk App: https://zerowastehome.com/2016/04/27/welcome-to-my-new-site-and-app/ In Europe, this site might be better: https://zerowastemap.org 

I have been vegetarian for 9 years now, going vegan soon, too.

We take bikes & trains whenever possible and we only have one car that drives on Ecofuel (CNG). I was looking into buying CO2 compensation for flights, but I got upset and confused about all the options - if anyone knows of a serious organization offering that, let me know!

Oh yeah, I'm also plogging regularly - it's a good workout ? You can find group meet-ups close to you all over the world nowadays, just search for Plogging on Facebook.

 

PS: If all the yellow/turquoise thinkers have better ideas than leading by good examples that would be a wonderful discussion to watch! ?

 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Zweistein

[Consilience]

20 minutes ago, outlandish said:

^ I don't think it's true the meat and dairy are the main drivers of GHGs. But I totally agree that moving to a vegan (or much more vegan) diet is one of the best things you could do for the planet. As a side benefit, it's extremely healthy for your body and a plant-based diet will help you avoid dying (as Dr. whatshisname says), and you can feel better about not causing animals to suffer.

You don't have to agree with the data, but it doesn't change what the data indicates. 

Edit: You have to consider the greenhouse gas emission that would normally be recycled from plant mass (aka forests) that is now NOT being recycled out of the atmosphere due to deforestation, deforestation that is a direct result from the demand for meat and diary. Also if you look into the amount of methane livestock produce, its quite insane. So look into it imo and let the scientific research speak for itself, not some dude on the internet haha. 

But yes, everything else from health and wellbeing, to living more ethically are other benefits as well. You gotta make sure and do your research when it comes to health though - veganism lacks certain nutrients an omnivore diet would cover such as B12, omega-3s, vitamin D3, etc. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Consilience

[Erlend K]

4 minutes ago, Consilience said:

You don't have to agree with the data, but it doesn't change what the data indicates. 

But yes, everything else from health and wellbeing, to living more ethically are other benefits as well. You gotta make sure and do your research when it comes to health though - veganism lacks certain nutrients an omnivore diet would cover such as B12, omega-3s, vitamin D3, etc. 

agriculture etc. constitutes 25 % of global CO2e emissions.

[Consilience]

@Erlend K Well ignoring the fact that 1/4th of CO2 emissions is still a large amount, CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gas emission isn't the only problem with the meat, diary, and agriculture industries. Deforestation (we're essentially killing off the lungs of planet Earth with this one), fishery exploitation, mass extinctions and loss of biodiversity, depletion of freshwater sources, animal cruelty, an insane obesity and health epidemic...

You want to talk about fixing the environment? Start by fixing how we sustainable feed 7+ BILLION people on this planet, plus feed the animals used to feed the glutenous desires of meat and diary consumers. The meat and diary industry is one of the most wasteful, stage orange, industries humanity willfully and collectively ignores. Not only is it one of the (if not THE) leading source of environmental degradation, it produces an unfathomable amount of suffering so... You all can pick. 

I suspect if we can make it into the next century, humanity will look back and simply ask, "Why?" lol 

[BuddhaTree]

1 hour ago, Solace said:

The best thing you can do is spiritually awaken. This is because we need to raise the consciousness of this planet in order for electric cars, renewable energy and distribution efforts to third world countries to be sustainably implemented. We have the technology, however the state of consciousness means that there are people in power who want wealth over peoples lives and people’s health:

Yet there is a balance. We can all do our part. While awakening we can be very active in changing the world, forming online or local groups to focus on a particular issue and come up with creative ideas to solve it. 

Always know people’s state of conscious has a great influence over what they can and cannot do, accept, and be willing to change. So go to the core first, and the outside will naturally change. If everyone knew they were Unconditonal Love and not a human being, the world would reflect that back to them, creating true world peace, unity, when we know we are all one.

I agree with you Solace.

If people want to change the world, they will first have to wake up themselves spiritually. It is their ambition and their egocentricity that brought them to the state in which the planet currently is.

[Dragallur]

Is @Leo Gura planning to do a video on ecology? It would be very much appreciated!

[outlandish]

@Consilience @Erlend K I think we can all agree that reducing meat and dairy consumption are a huge part of the solution, whatever the exact numbers are.

@BuddhaTree @Solace The solution does require a great deal of internal change and upgrade to our individual modes of being. However, I argue that if we only focus on the individual, we will loose. If we play that way, and work only on ourselves, we create a greater and greater incentive for the less caring and more ruthless, who will always be around, to profit from the free lunch of the commons.

To create a simpler thought experiment, to illustrate what I mean, let's look at elephants. If we say that the only way to save elephants is for us all to stop buying ivory, and send out love, and we ignore regulating and actively protecting the elephants from poachers, it only drives down the price of ivory, and the less scrupulous will be able to buy more of it for cheaper, the poachers have an easier time slaying elephants and bringing ivory to their customers.

We need systems-level solutions. We need to force our institutions, industries, governments to make the systems level changes. And we need to upgrade ourselves too, of course.

[Erlend K]

1 hour ago, Consilience said:

@Erlend K Well ignoring the fact that 1/4th of CO2 emissions is still a large amount, CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gas emission isn't the only problem with the meat, diary, and agriculture industries. Deforestation (we're essentially killing off the lungs of planet Earth with this one), fishery exploitation, mass extinctions and loss of biodiversity, depletion of freshwater sources, animal cruelty, an insane obesity and health epidemic...

CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents), not CO2 (carbondioxide). CO2e is all greenhouse gasses expressed as an equvalent amount of carbondioxide (An amount with equivalent effect on global warming). For instance 1 tonn of methan = 21 tonns of CO2e. 

And no, we clearly can't ignore any piece of the pai. I agree with the rest of your arguments, but in the short run our most pressing issue is cutting carbon emissions. It's an emergency we simply have to deal with right now! According to the new IPCC, humanity either takes massive action over the next 12-15 years, or we will miss the 1,5 degrees target. 

Humaity need to drop everything else and just deal with this crisis for a couple years. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Erlend K

[Arthur]

I worked in Sustainable Energy Research for one year, we were helping green energy industries with product development (I got solar panels in my profile pic ).

There is a lot of talk about change, and some things do happen, but it is not fast enough, and only a small group of people actually working towards it. Fundamentally most people (me included) don't care about anything other than themselves (they are low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs). People who deny our treatment of the environment are just rationalizing to themselves. They know they are wrong, but admitting that will involve a lot of maturity and work.

I'm a hypocrite in that I do drive a gasoline vehicle and pay for "dirty" electricity (from coal sources). But I am committed to change that in the future.