Are we all fucked?

[Eoin McLove]

Experts appear to have put a number on the climate deadline.  Twelve years to halt the destruction of the environment or there is no turning back.  We might already beyond the point of no return. On top of that we have the advancement in AI which could be a double edged sword- rendering the human workforce obsolete could be viewed from several angles I'm sure.  There was a report on the radio a few years back that described how the Earth's human population appears to cyclically reduce to a ludicrously low number like 300,000 every 30,000 years, so perhaps we are heading back into that cycle of decline.  Is it all hysterical nonsense or are we fucked? It feels good to recycle and do our bit to cut down on plastic waste, carbon emissions etc but is it a waste of time? It seems obvious to me that countries setting targets for 2035 or 2050 are burying their head in the sand,  or just refusing to take the matter seriously,  but maybe I've just been brainwashed.  What are your thoughts? Hype or Armageddon?

[Kurt Cocaine]

Prepare to be pummelled into oblivion by the old dreaded Carbon Tax.
Plastics have to be sorted out though. No need for 80% of it really. Our grandparents generation had it right, cloth shopping bag, glass jars and tin cans.

[StoutAndAle]

I think that we're bollixed.

I was reading a thing in The Guardian the other day about how no matter well meaning our attempts at recycling are a lot of the stuff that we do makes little impact and that the recycling guidelines on packaging aren't accurate or, in some cases, meaningless. It's an interesting read so I'm going to leave the link here;

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/17/recycling-plastic-wrong-guide

My local coffee place has switched to compostable cups and eco-safe dishwasher tablets. All great until you note that the sleeve which the cup is packed in is plastic and each dishwasher tablet come wrapped in its own individual plastic pocket.

This is not to say that I think recycling is futile and there's no point to it (I mean just take a look at my glass bin every 2 weeks, that alone has saved a few polar bears). I just think that companies, governments and consumers all need to be more proactive and clever.

[ochoill]

Unless there's an overhaul on a worldwide industrial scale of greener production methods, environmentally, we are completely fucked yeah.  But I don't know if twelve years would do it.  All well and good individual consumers doing their part but it has to change noticeably at the source, and a full switch to renewable materials and power, or we'll drive ourselves into the ground.  There is no ethical or green consumption under the system we have built for ourselves as a civilisation and without radical overhauls everywhere, individual efforts are mostly performative.  Doesn't mean you shouldn't do them, nor does it mean you should beat yourself up when not doing them - just do the best you can.  I certainly fuckin don't, but I do the usual consumer end of things, recycling and that.  I'd never go full vegetarian but had reduced the number of days I ate meat a week for a long time.  Buy local within reason.  If everybody made small changes it would add up, but without tackling production at the roots we'll never fix the issue.

AI is another issue and yeah that has us fucked through the automation of labour, but the effects are impossible to predict fully.  Great, but old, video on it here by CGP grey:

https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

I have mixed feelings on the outcomes of both, natural pessimism makes me think that we're done for but you would hope otherwise.

[Eoin McLove]

That is more out less my take on things.  Even if my modest/ irrelevant part is ultimately futile,  I think it's the right path.  But definitely the problem lies at the source.  Hugh Fernly Whittingstal has a tv show on at the minute and he showed what happens to much of the UK's recycled plastic. It ends up in Malaysia,  destroying their fucking environment! It would make you sick.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

We are all fucked, but it's grand. Earth won't miss us, and neither will we.

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

Every generation inherits the previous ones failures,, we've been passing 'hand me down clothes' for so long that the edges have frayed and holes are appearing more and more in them. But we cover them up with shitty patches to get some more wear out of it.. let the next person worry about it.

Money & Ignorance are why things (probably) won't change. You get all the crap of stop using plastic straws/bags.... how about stop manufactures from making them today . People can't buy whats not available. Very simplistic approach but it's always being put on individuals backs  (who are at fault also) while doing the whole 'supply and demand' line.

I don't know, just rambling but if change is to happen it needs to be a day and night type event.. just stop. But most of these guys in power are more concerned about their own welfare than anyone else's.

The more you think about it the more depressing it is

[Eoin McLove]

Absolutely.  Humans are incredibly adaptable and the novel becomes the norm in no time at all.  A day and night approach to these matters,  as you say,  is exactly what is needed, not the promises for 2035, which are meaningless.  The fact that the development of wind farms get halted because some twits say they are ugly is mind bending.

[Pedrito]

We'll adapt and evolve and survive. All this nihilistic, doomsday stuff is best taken with a pinch of salt as far as I'm concerned. Imagine having lived through Nagasaki..then you'd be properly fucked. Recycling is a joke. Austria send their rubbish to Italy, god knows where ours go, the Canadians were shipping theirs out to South East Asia. That Norwegian chick who loves telling us we're all evil and we're all going to die, if she was carrying a bible she'd be locked up.

Of course there are issues, but they require systemic change rather than me dividing my bottles at home, which all get thrown together at the end of the day and fucked in a hole in the ground. Call me cynical but I've worked in multinationals and large scale businesses...lots of it, similar to the whole LGBT flag waving these corporations engage in, is purely cynical and superficial.

But behind it all we have governments and car companies and all these big businesses creaming themselves over the green dollar. One of the Healy Rae's (unbelievably) hit the nail on the head asking how we expect the already stretched rural community to somehow start driving around in beaitiful electric cars, in places where we have tiny populations and the actual pollution being created is almost non-existent. Wind farms too..a complete waste of money, destroy the landscape and are not a viable long term solution from what I've read.

Imagine a decentralized Ireland, a proper long term plan with infrastructure put in place, where millions of people aren't stuck on top of eachother, where you don't even need a car everything works so well. Then look at arseways Dublin and the likes. Nothing is getting done in a hurry on a higher level, lots of box ticking, plenty of five year plans and even more pressure on normal people who have enough on their fucking plates without having to worry about global cataclysm, and I would imagine that actual changes are miniscule.

That's my tuppence, I know it's not a popular viewpoint, but I'm deeply cynical, not so much about global.warming and the science behind it(though I sense a lot of vested interests on that level also) but about the ways we are supposedly combating it.

[Pedrito]

Money & Ignorance are why things (probably) won't change. You get all the crap of stop using plastic straws/bags.... how about stop manufactures from making them today . People can't buy whats not available. Very simplistic approach but it's always being put on individuals backs  (who are at fault also) while doing the whole 'supply and demand' line.

Yep..imagine Coca Cola had to do something about all them bottles. Imagine some real pressure was put on them. But it's not..

[Eoin McLove]

I disagree about wind farms.  I like the look of them and I like what they represent.  Renewable energy has to become the mainstream sooner rather than later. They appear to have a fairly low impact on ecosystems too from what I can see. Once they are in place they more or less run themselves and the environment can quickly revive.

Technologically and in terms of efficiency they may prove to be primitive compared with what may be invented in future,  but if we keep on waiting for better technology to emerge when do we actually act? If thinking in a way that is sensitive to the environment becomes the norm,  becomes expected,  then that's a big step in the right direction.

Sadly everything else you said seems depressingly true.  But mass resignation won't help is in any way so what do we do?

[Eoin McLove]

I think that we're bollixed.

I was reading a thing in The Guardian the other day about how no matter well meaning our attempts at recycling are a lot of the stuff that we do makes little impact and that the recycling guidelines on packaging aren't accurate or, in some cases, meaningless. It's an interesting read so I'm going to leave the link here;

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/17/recycling-plastic-wrong-guide

My local coffee place has switched to compostable cups and eco-safe dishwasher tablets. All great until you note that the sleeve which the cup is packed in is plastic and each dishwasher tablet come wrapped in its own individual plastic pocket.

This is not to say that I think recycling is futile and there's no point to it (I mean just take a look at my glass bin every 2 weeks, that alone has saved a few polar bears). I just think that companies, governments and consumers all need to be more proactive and clever.

Just had a read through that article.  Defo time to ditch single use plastics.  I know that will result in higher costs,  and that bring up the old 'first world problems' chestnut,  but plastic is hugely damaging to the environment.  Essentially though,  there are so many factors that need to be addressed,  so many different pollutants that we use on a daily basis that the solution simply has to come from the top down. 

[Eoin McLove]

This could be the perfect time to see what social media is really made of. People power has never been stronger.  Causes are the new whatever... I wonder if, en masse, people decided to put pressure on the likes of Coca Cola, Tesco and other large companies responsible for introducing single use plastics into society,  might a change actually happen. A mass movement against those companies via Twitter,  Facebook etc could be effective.

[Pedrito]

Yeah but instead they go into central London gluing themselves to trains. I agree with everything you say but so many of the solutions I hear are pie in the sky stuff. If the changes were made at source there would be no problem, but everytime I go to a shop, I end up with a bag full of plastic in my kitchen. So by all means let's solve it, what I'm absolutely sick of is the hysteria and I think a lot of people are.

[Eoin McLove]

Everything is hysteria now.  That's the age we live in and it's a pain in the hole alright.  I think though,  this is a cause worth being hysterical about haha.  It's just getting the corporations to actually engage in a meaningful way.  The amount of plastic and other packaging in the fruit and veg section of the supermarket is scandalous really.  That's a really obvious and simple thing to fix.