I always thought it it was frightening enough to realize, if you were born in the 80’s, every year of your life had been the hottest year on record. Will stacking hottest days consecutively hit harder? I get the sense that it won’t hit all that hard until the capitalists can no longer keep off-loading the cost of climate change on the public. The outcry at that stage should be something to behold. I’m really sorry to the younger people watching us all give up, but every year of our lives has been the hottest in history and nobody has done anything about it no matter how willing we’ve been to do our part.
I had to put on a coat the other day. So clearly global warming is a conspiracy to make the world a better place for no reason. I’m not having it, that’s why I burn a barrel of crude oil every night in my garden.
Roughly 500 years ago, maybe more. Recordings are spotty up to the 19th century. Monestaries often had a daily log of current weather, for example. There are likely recovered observations going back to Greek or Roman civilizations.
Average temperatures can be deduced from scientific observations of ice cores and geological records as well. The arctic and antartic ice cores revealed detailed oxygen, carbon dioxide, and particulate data going back a couple million years.
Come on guys, it’s our turn to remedy to this disaster and to make the world a better place!
We can totally do it. Let’s work togheter and let’s work hard, there’s nothing more beautiful than to think of possible solutions that would make us all live better.
We can totally do it. Let’s work togheter and let’s work hard, there’s nothing more beautiful than to think of possible solutions that would make us all live better.
Maybe we can. But climate preservation is clearly not working: Humanity is not disciplined enough, not capable of working together enough and too focused on short term gains.
I think our only hope for optimism lies in climate engineering and full-on terraforming, it’s more our style. But of course, it’s about just as scary and can go totally wrong.
Our need to survive will always lead us to make a true change. Climate engineering and terraforling can surely be a way but it’s not enough for now, we need an immediate solution to deal with the current problems, we need to understand the technologies we have now and what we can do with them.
But climate preservation is clearly not working: Humanity is not disciplined enough
We are but we have to reach absolute tipping point first we only turn back from the edge when we’re right on it. That has always been how governments operate.
Up till the Cuban missile crisis the American military were all about using nukes in every possible situation for in even a small conflict. After the crisis they started to back off from that policy. The insanity of it was always clear, but until we actually got to the edge no one was prepared to act.
In what way would socialism prevent extinction, environmental degradation, or global warming? It might even make things worse, as capitalists only exploit the earth and its people to make profit. Marxism has a goal to expand industrialization to relieve humanity of harsh labor and to provide products for all people. The love affair with development is as much a capitalist value as it is a Marxist infatuation.
Socialism is really an economic system based on equality, but as all economic systems require centralized authority and overseeing/supervising to maintain. As capitalism is a system of organized inequality, socialism is one of organized equality. Centralized authority creates an endless political inequality, in some way much worse than found in capitalism.
Please read the book Socialist Reconstruction that was put out by the Party for Socialism and Labor. The sentence that you have starting with “Marxism” is not factual and completely debunked by not only the chapter on farming, but any of the chapters that touch on climate change at all.
Your heart is in the right place, but telling someone to read a book they already know they’re going to disagree with has got to be one of the least effective ways of persuading anyone. People read books about things they already think are worthwhile, not to convince themselves they’re wrong and some stranger on the internet is right.
I don’t agree with everything in it but you might want to read Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism. You’ll find that Marxists aren’t infatuated with growth for growth’s sake, nor with growth at the expense of the environment.
I will look up this work, but 7.5bil people can no longer survive at the rate of current land/water use, not for long that is. Even if development was to halt at this very moment, the planet’s resources will be depleated, and equalization of material conditions will never have enough time to reach the other half of the population suffering.
It’s quite short. He did a TED talk, too, which presents a condensed version. The talk is also a bit liberalised to appeal to a wider, Canadian audience, but it’s an interesting listen nonetheless. (Interesting to note that he was attacked near his home today/yesterday by someone shouting his name. Looks like a political attack against a journalist. If it was, the forces of reaction are getting bolder again.)
I might disagree about the planet’s capacity. It may have one but we’re not close to it yet. The idea that it’s over populated is Malthusian and doesn’t lead to great conclusions. I don’t entirely disagree with you though, with your qualification:
…can no longer survive at the rate of current land/water use, not for long that is.
Destroying livable habitats so that Vegas and other dessert towns can can have water is a terrible project, for example. The problem is not the population but the political economy. The peoples indigenous to Turtle Island had a far more sustainable model than the current set of governors. The Red Nation’s manifiesto, The Red Deal, makes some powerful arguments. If you’re in the US, you might prefer starting with this than Bastani. (There’s a reasonably priced book and a pdf version on their site – the pdf is actually three pdfs but it’s the same content, if in a slightly different order to the book.)
Hopefully I’m not mistaken, but I’m going to assume you are asking in good faith.
Capitalism is an ideology of infinite growth. Capital is only invested for growth, that’s the whole point…so corporations have to consume more, produce more, sell more, or capitalists will take away their capital investments. Think of it this way, you’re a capitalist (by which, I don’t mean someone who believes in the idea of capitalism…I mean someone who makes the bulk of their wealth with capital investments instead of labor) with millions invested in an oil company – that oil company realizes that we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels for the sake of the planet – so they announce a plan to limit production (and therefore profits).
Your capital is how you make your money, so if they announce a very finite upside (with a real possibility that in a decade or two, their whole business will dry up), you will quickly take your millions and move them somewhere else. And you won’t be alone – think of the bank run that Silicon Valley Bank had once everyone suspected the bank would have solvency problems. And before you know it, that whole company has lost trillions and fails almost immediately.
Now repeat this while coal, commercial beef farms, and down the line of the worst industries for the climate.
The corporations that are the main source of climate change causing emissions also know that if any one of them chooses to do the right thing for the planet, other, less ethical corporations will see blood in the water, and take over their portion of the market; and nothing will change for the environment, all that CEO will have done is put thousands of their own workers out of business.
Socialism, by contrast, is not an ideology of infinite growth. At it’s core, it’s an ideology of collectivism – we all need to take care of everyone else – this includes making sure everyone has a habitable planet to live on. The government can make sure all companies play by the rules, for the benefit of all humankind, not just do as they do now…ask nicely for the corporations to be nice, and then shrug their shoulders when nothing changes.
Well put. I think David Harvey explains this kind of thing in more depth in Rebel Cities. I’ll explain his work not as a correction, as I agree with you, but to add to what you said as a different summary might help you people who haven’t heard this before.
There’s a chapter on the ‘surplus capital absorption problem’. The successful capitalist ends every day with more money than they began with. What do they do with the extra, the surplus?
They can spend some, sure. But there are only so many things to buy. And if they don’t invest, inflation will make them poorer and their competition will become more competitive, stealing their resources, labour, and customers. Part of the surplus, then, must be invested.
But what in? Everything is already owned by someone. So that leaves new industries, and the destruction of other things that already exist.
New industries implies that it’s possible to keep building and building forever, leading always to use more and more scarce and harmful resources.
And destroying things only to re-build them isn’t always very nice for the people who live in and use those things. Destructive wars, and consumer goods that break every three years and can’t be replaced, are terrible for the environment.
But all this is the essence of capitalism. A system where commodities are produced for their exchange value, not their use value. This the ‘commodity form’. It’s the exchange of commodities for money that creates the opportunity to profit. It’s this profit that allows the successful capitalist to end every day with more money than which they began. The problem of climate change cannot be solved within this capitalist logic.
The essence of Marxism, one might say, is the critique of the ‘commodity form’ and everything that flows from it. (This is what Marx works out in Capital, Volume I.)
The essence of socialism is the attempt to dissolve the commodity form, to produce things for their use value, not their exchange value. When society makes things on the basis of need and use, several things can happen: no more war; we can make consumer items that last and that can be repaired; we can build habitable, green homes for people to live in, not for property developers to speculate; etc, etc.
The essence of communism is the society that comes after socialists have fully taken us beyond the commodity.
The industrialization needed to carry out the Marxist project has already occurred. Capitalism is a religion of infinite growth on a finite planet just for growth’s sake.
You’re not wrong my friend, but it is because of hoarding by the capitalist class, as well as their willingness to destroy things rather than see the poor have them, as it would lower their perceived “value”. See: grocery stores and fast food joints throwing perfectly good food in the dumpster vs. giving it away, luxury brands like LV and others destroying handbags and what not to keep them artificially scarce, etc. We can make it happen with the industry and tech we have today.
You’re confusing the means with the goals. Marxism is about making the economy work for people (rather than the other way around). Industrialization was the obvious means to that end in Marx’s time, but any sane person trying to run an economy today would prioritize making sure people have a planet to live on over just making more stuff for them to consume.
Capitalism is fundamentally different because it’s highest goal isn’t to make people’s lives better—it’s to increase privately held wealth. Capitalism can’t pivot to prioritizing survival over private wealth, because if it did, it would no longer be capitalism.
Nah all the people with guns in America won’t allow that to happen in the USA. Every member of the US Military is also sworn to uphold the US Constitution and defend it against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
Maybe you could end up with a handful of socialist states trying to make their own idea of a socialist system work, but if the conservative-dominated states who produce most of the food won’t trade with you then you’d be stuck importing food.
The reality is there’s nothing any of us can really do about it. It’s up to the mega-polluters like industrial plants and international shipping companies to make changes where it counts.
Some variation of that idea was used in at least two Supreme Court opinions and by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. But sure, feel free to speak on behalf of the Constitution itself, O mighty legal scholar.
Personally, though, I don’t need a legal justification for breaking the law when it impairs my survival, because I’m unwilling to sacrifice my survival or my conscience for the sake of obeying dead men. People who don’t recognize that laws can be wrong are, frankly, horrifying, because they have a tendency feel justified in doing horrible things.
So what do you think is in the Constitution that’s bad? I’m glad about it all personally, because it’s great having inalienable rights. The Constitution is the framework that America was built on, and it worked out better than most of the rest of the world generally.
That’s exactly us that could push and work to make those changes happen, you have more power than you realize. And that’s probably OUR responsability to make those changes happen, because we all know fossil-fuels companies won’t decide to stop selling their resources after their saw some of their most proficuos years (just look the datas for 2022, it was the most profitable year for them).
I have no idea how many US service members there are in the US but it’s a non issue for two reasons. One, the US population far outnumbers them and two, I bet when the fighting starts there would be a lot of desertions because it would mean killing their friends, family and fellow countrymen.
Pessimistic defeatist attitude won’t get us anywhere.
Edit: oh and before I became a socialist my friend who is in the military (and has been for a while) reminded me how effective guerrilla warfare is. See: Vietnam and Korea.
You goobers are vastly underestimating the support for socialism in the USA if you really think that’s any kind of realistic possibility. It’s a sad delusion and you’re wasting your energy.
I’m not pessimistic about it, I’m glad. I don’t want socialism anywhere around me. I would shoot any of you who try to do anything like you’re describing about taking over the US government, because I too swore the oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution. Liberty will be defended, and you will fail. Fuck communists and socialists, you are barely better than Nazis.
Actually, California produces a ton of the US’s fruits and vegetables (like, 90%+ of a lot of fruits). Just not cereal grains. I bet the costs could probably grow their own food if it came to that. Were there no trade between the states, the middle of the country would have plenty calorie-wise, but not the most varied of diets.
The social programs would definitely be underfunded, but I would be fine, and our communities would continue to do fine without external money. I’m not worried about your money at all. I’m gradually going off grid, making my own utilities and food at home already.
I dunno if I’d say humanity is suicidal. I’d say we’re more like those morbidly obese people on My 600 Life who are eating themselves to death. We are slowly killing ourselves with our behaviours and choices but not with the intent to do so. We are either too lazy, unmotivated, depressed, hopeless, selfish, or apathetic to care or make changes, so humanity will just keep “eating” ourselves to death with our polluting and consumerism etc (killing the planet and ourselves in the process).
Yeah well this is frightening. In 25-30 years I will retire and now I need to raise the chances that I will live in a home with air conditioning in a country that – currently – hardly has buildings with air conditioning because it was not a necessity up until now. This will be an uphill battle. I don’t want to die prematurely in a summer heat wave…
This is why all climate change predictions come with predictions for escalated war, famine, violence. Human ‘civilization’ may have just been a result of a resource glut.
That’s all well and good until your AC breaks, hits its heat transfer limit, you lose the ability to afford it run the AC, or your electricity goes out because the grid is overloaded because everyone else is also running their AC.
It’s normal to use AC for billions of people already, so it is a solution to our reality as it is.
Where I live, I’ve been in need of AC my whole life, which has spanned multiple centuries already.
If your grid is overloaded, get some solar panels and make your own power off-grid. If your air conditioner breaks, buy another one or keep a spare one on hand. That’s what the fuck I’m gonna do, because AC is great and I love having it.
It’s normal to use AC for billions of people already, so it is a solution to our reality as it is.
A solution would end the problem. AC does not do that. In fact it is the opposite since heavier AC use leads to higher energy use which ultimately means more greenhouse gasses.
It’s a band aid. It allievates the symptoms, and only for those who can afford it.
The solution is to end our production of greenhouse gasses.
If your grid is overloaded, get some solar panels and make your own power off-grid. If your air conditioner breaks, buy another one or keep a spare one on hand. That’s what the fuck I’m gonna do, because AC is great and I love having it.
The guy I replied to said he didn’t want to die from overheating since he doesn’t have AC.
I replied and said that they make affordable and easy to install AC now as a direct and immediate solution to his issue of not wanting to die from overheating due to not having AC.
You come along and say this is a bandaid solution and makes things worse. Okay sure, that’s true for society as a whole on a large enough timeline, but not true for this individual person in the near future.
So I interpreted this as you saying you wouldn’t install AC in his shoes, but also don’t appear to have an alternative course of action in order to not overheat and die due to not having AC, therefore you’d be the first to die.
So I interpreted this as you saying you wouldn’t install AC in his shoes, but also don’t appear to have an alternative course of action in order to not overheat and die due to not having AC, therefore you’d be the first to die.
Who doesn’t know of the Summer of 1931 where everything was so much hotter than today, but they just didn’t have the technolgy back then to keep the records they made?..
I’m glad I’m old enough that I remember much more seasonally appropriate weather, if nothing else. It was really snowy in December when I was a kid in the 1980s and I think I only saw one green Christmas that whole time, while green Christmas is just normal now. We also didn’t have air conditioning until I was in my teens, because Canada had cooler summers, and for the odd hot night you’d just sleep in the basement. Eventually we moved to a house that had central air, but I don’t remember needing it the way we have the last 20 years.
I don’t have air conditioning now, but it hasn’t been a bad summer in Ontario so far heat wise, somehow we’re missing the big heat waves everyone else is getting. I’m lucky I get a lot of tree shade.
Where I’m from, we were massively talking about it in the 80s when I was a kid. It promply stopped by the end of the 90s. Then all of sudden, we don’t hear much about it.
It’s so fucked up to be told all your life that your are insane to believe in climate change, and then about 40 years later, most people talk about it as if it was a given.
We should not be anxious about climate change, we should be furious.
Fuck generational politics. There are class, gender, and racial divisions within each generation. We have more in common with working class and oppressed boomers than with ruling class members of our own generation.
I remember this also in the 80s. But we were mostly worried about the ozone. Then that got figured out, more or less, and we got stuck with reduce, reuse, recycle.
It was being talked about in newspapers a century ago. The fossil fuels companies have known for a very long time, and have been suppressing it for a very long time, hiring many of the same people involved in suppressing evidence that tobacco causes cancer. We should be torches and pitchforks in the street livid.
Its that the channels that we watch news on have now been fragmented / specialized to the point where we can “watch the news” and only get right wing propaganda.
Yeah, I remember the topic from school in the 90s, where it said “if we don’t start to do anything about it soon, it will have serious catastrophic consequences in about 30 years”. And now here we are.
I was a kid in the early 2000’s and I remember that page from the science book that we were reading during class, and it was also already alarming us about climate change/global warming. And like you said, here we are…
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