I think there might be a silver lining to this. One of the reasons American cars have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger is that CAFE fuel economy standards are more generous for bigger cars - so instead of building more efficient engines, manufacturers built cars with bigger footprints.
In the long run, I’d certainly want internal combustion engines phased out. But in the short term, we might get actual small pickups again 😆
Toronto has restricted development in the ravines and other low-lying areas since 1954, when a freak hurricane caused severe flooding that killed dozens of people and washed away homes and bridges.
Today, the ravines include restored and artificial wetlands that soak up rainfall and mitigate flood risk.
There’s the most important part of the article, I think. It’s a lot easier to get buy-in for urban green spaces when the land involved is “useless” (from a capitalist standpoint) for development.
How would you feel about purely secular “mumbo jumbo” ceremonies meant to encourage care for the environment? Like, for example, an organized moment of silence before or after a cleanup (to stop and think about the natural area you’re cleaning up, listen to the birds/bugs/water, whatever)?
Thank you for reading it!
I agree. Biden’s presidency was the biggest lost opportunity of my lifetime for exactly that reason.
FDR responded to a similar global challenge - the Great Depression - by transforming the American government to serve the needs of struggling Americans - and the American people rewarded his courage and vision with overwhelming support when he ran for his second term.
Biden? Barely tried to improve America. And everything he tried failed. He couldn’t even reduce student loan payments. And when Harris had the opportunity to break with him and fight for her own vision of what America could be, she either had no vision of her own or was too afraid to fight for it.
The American “left” is terrified to promote anything more than a return to the Obama-era status quo. But if they don’t find their vision and courage the United States is guaranteed one party Republican rule for another generation.
I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we’d need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.
The back of the envelope calculation says if everybody on Earth lived like an average American we’d need the resources of about four Earths to cover it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
That being said, from the same source, if everyone on Earth lived like an average Indian we’d only use half the Earth’s resources and could support twice as many people.
So it’s not about the number of people - it’s about the standard of living those people have and the resources they use.
I think the most effective way forward is more efficient and sustainable lifeways - if the richest countries learn to consume less, if people around the world get access to better technology and better institutions to raise their standard of living without raising their resource consumption.
And it’s interesting to note, the better off people are, the fewer children they tend to have. If we improve people’s lives worldwide, a steadily declining population will be a natural side effect.
An incredibly difficult goal, of course, but worth pursuing.
Yeah, that’s definitely a camping/survivalist/prepping question and outside my expertise. I suspect it’ll take you a long time to learn to be “comfortable” living that way, though 😆
poVoq linked an article from Low Tech Magazine, which is a great resource for low energy sustainable living. I wanted to highlight this older article from them, too:
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-get-your-apartment-off-the-grid/
It’s not clear to me, from your post, if you’re thinking about making a home/apartment “off grid”, and limiting your powered appliances to what solar power can cover to prepare for future disruptions to the power grid, or about living outside a fixed dwelling and using portable solar to power a few accessories like a portable induction stove. This matters because solar panels are bulky and batteries are heavy - charging a laptop and phone is trivial with a man-portable setup, but a solar generator capable of boiling water and cooking is not going to fit in a reasonably sized backpack 😆
If you’re thinking about “bugging out” or “going off the grid” in the survivalist sense, living with only the equipment you take with you, you might get better answers on equipment from camping and survivalist forums.
On the one hand, yes, it does.
On the other hand, I don’t want to hear it from an AI content farm.
I think that’s what happens when you wear pants too big for you - the extra material has to go somewhere.
I know it’s not intuitive, but taking in the waist - actually reducing the waist instead of just cinching it with a belt - can help with crotch bulge. You take it in in the back, so that the front is pulled tighter and lays flatter; some excess material is removed, and the rest gets bunched up in the back where it’s not as noticeable.
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Jeans-Tighter
I’d suggest practicing on a pair of jeans you don’t really mind putting holes in first - I totally screwed up the first time I tried 😆
In this particular article, I think, the author is advocating for rural communes as a solution to the American housing crisis - and, in general, as one potential form of sustainable living - that’s both cheaper and more sustainable than what the United States has been trying for decades.
The author does believe Western urban society is unsustainable due to fundamental resource constraints, but you don’t have to agree on that to think about “Hobbit villages” as one possible sustainable community model.
Let a thousand flowers bloom, right?
You’re not a poser. You’re starting somewhere. And starting anywhere is better than not starting at all.
To supplement what you’re already doing: I strongly believe the most important thing you can do to create change is talk about it.
https://www.talkingclimate.ca/p/the-most-impactful-climate-actions?triedRedirect=true
So when you grow a native lawn, you could let people know what you’re growing and why - talk to your neighbors, put up signs next to your flowers with QR codes linking to species identification, etc. If you’re deciding what to buy based on packaging, tell friends and family why you buy what you buy - you could even write to companies thanking them for using less/no plastic or whatever, you’d be surprised how few people contact companies and how big an impact a single letter can have. Etc.
Your individual action may not have much of an impact, but collective action starts with individual action - with one person inspiring another, and then they go on to inspire more, and more, and more. Be the change you want to see in the world 😆
This is pretty cool and a better deal than I thought it was. The article pitches it like a $35 per month subscription model, which would be hot garbage - but Bright Saver’s website explains they charge $1329 up front or $35 per month for six years, plus the $350 installation fee.
The kit ks two 400W panels, so yeah, if you’re handy with solar you can buy parts and build your own for cheaper - but with such low barriers to entry, that’s literally plug and play and is more or less reasonably priced, I definitely think there’s going to be a market.
I mean, maybe not in California, legal reform will have to get past Newsom and the legislators owned by PG&E, but there’s going to be a market somewhere.
Why not try to do both?
Okay, let me write in “Climate for President” and see how that goes.
That factoid is vastly misinterpreted. In particular, the term “responsible for” does not mean “emitted”.
The study it’s referencing studied only fossil fuel producers. And it credited all emissions from anyone who burned fuel from that producer to that producer. So if I buy a tank of gas from Chevron and burn it, my emissions are credited to Chevron for purposes of that study.
The study is not saying that 100 companies emit 71% of global emissions. It’s saying that 100 companies produce 71% of the fossil fuels used globally.
Why not vote and protest and consume less?
A whole lot of people hate this notion because it essentially frames it as the consumer’s fault, but at the end of the day it kind of is.
Absolutely. Producers and consumers have joint responsibility for getting us where we are. Climate action requires joint action by consumers and by (or, more likely, against) producers.
Because politicians follow the money. And they understand voters follow the money. So when voters demand, for instance, legislation against fossil fuel companies, politicians look at all the gas consumers buy and ask themselves “what will voters do if we pass fossil fuel legislation and gas gets more expensive”? And then they decide not to pass fossil fuel legislation, because they’d rather have activists angry at them than have millions of consumers angry at them.
I was ranting in a different thread about the “discourses of delay” that corporate and right-wing propagandists use to delay climate action. And the fascinating thing is, the idea that only individual consumption matters (the BP carbon footprint ad campaign) and the idea that only the actions of corporations matter (a typical American activist attitude) are both industry propaganda. The former is meant to discourage political action. The latter is meant to discourage individual action. And by framing it as one against the other, propagandists discourage us from taking effective action on either.
We can do both. We have to do both.
You might look up cohousing.
I’m reminded of the old saying from the days of the AIDS crisis, when Reagan decided HIV was God’s solution to homosexuality and researching a cure went against His will - bury your friends in the morning, protest in the afternoon, and dance all night.
Which does kind of put things into perspective.