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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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I think it's more 99.9% of the scientists think it will get proper fucked up in the 2100s, but this one report says it'll happen in the next few years.
But we should be doing something about it anyway.
If we actually cared we'd ban everything that's fucking the world up, and ban any imports from countries that don't agree. But if the last 5 years or so have told us anything, it's that a lot of people don't care. Even about things that directly affect them.
And people who do care often feel impotent to do anything about it.
Agree that drastic measures are necessary. It doesn't even have to mean a drop in living standards; but it will take radical changes to protect (and even raise) those standards.
Agree about imports. The problem I see is that even if products with a high carbon footprint are imported, it doesn't mean the person responsible for that carbon footprint isn't domestic to e.g. (going by your 'feddit.uk' handle) the UK. This could still be captured by an import ban (i.e. shareholders can't just export their emissions and pretend everything is okay), but the people with the power to export their emissions tend to have a lot of power to lobby the government, sit on government decision-making panels, or even choose MPs. They're unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot like that.
An example is laptops. They break every few years. For the past decade-or-so, they're made to be irreparable. They become landfill, and all that embodied carbon is wasted. Today's laptops don't even do anything that laptops of 15 years ago couldn't do, except deal with websites bloated with adverts. It doesn't matter so much where that consumer item is produced. The problem is the decision to make it so that it breaks and has to be replaced. Those decisions tend to be made in the west by people who will never willingly change their ways. It's all about profit.
I think part of the reason that people feel apathetic is that they know it's all about profit and are convinced that a system based on profit is the only way, so there's nothing to be done. Another way is possible, though, people just need to be organised and educated§ to achieve it.
§ I mean working-class education, not e.g. going to college/university.
I didn't realise how bad laptops had got until I had to repair one for my uncle a few years ago.
I'd always known laptops to be pretty good. Panels underneath for access to RAM and HDD (the most common things to need replacing), and a removable battery.
This thing was glued shut. I did manage to get it open and replace the drive with an SSD, but it was clearly designed to be thrown away once anything went wrong with it. Getting it back together again meant the trackpad didn't work reliably any more, but what can you do?
Anyway, I digress. I fear that real change means a drop in living standards for many. It's unpalatable to the career politicians whose only real motivation to do anything is to get re-elected every 4-5 years, and maybe line their own pockets courtesy of corporate donors.
Reminds me of this article: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops.html