A time machine
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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That's the thing about climate change.
One place can do everything right..if the other countries in the world doesn't do the same everyone is fucked regardless.
Also, what you’re doing now will have an effect a decade or more down the road
NO! This is not just false, it's dangerously false.
If a country takes measures to emit 500M less tons of CO2 per year, the result is... 500M less tons of CO2 in the air per year than otherwise. That helps!
There isn't a single fucked/not fucked threshold. There are a lot of nuances of fucked and each one we dodge puts us in an incrementally less awful place. Who knows how many more lives saved for each Mton CO2 not produced. Who knows how many species get to live, how many fewer days of heatwave per year, how many more glaciers survive.
I STG, "we're already fucked anyway" is oil shill talk. Fuck that noise, let's make oil obsolete, let's avoid entire shades of fucked, we've already made insane progress with renewables and electric cars, let's just keep going! Let's pressure our individual politicians because you know the fuckers love it when you give up! You on board?
If a country takes measures to emit 500M less tons of CO2 per year, the result is… 500M less tons of CO2 in the air per year than otherwise. That helps!
Not if that country just offloads industry to another country. This is what the west is doing, offloading dirty industry to China, then pointing fingers at China.
"Nobody else is doing anything about it so why should we go slightly without and pay slightly more to do our part?"
- pretty much everyone at the same time, unironically.
End all fossil fuel use asap and make trade blocks that prefer countries that do the same. Tarrifs for those that use dirty fuels beyond the Eurobloc's schedule.
Remember, even if we stopped today, there is a 20 year lag time so it's getting way, way worse.
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/fossil-fuels#tracking
We are still growing fossil fuel use. The repercussions are enormous, and effectively, permanent.
At this point we need to spend all of our effort in advancing ways we can pull carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean, we are fucked unless we find an efficient way to do so.
But that would hurt fossil fuel companies, so we can't do that. (/jk)
Methinks this needs policy-level changes. There's only so much we can do individually at this point
Immediate terms: There's nothing that can be done to curb the heatwave IMO, but there are ways to prevent danger. Namely, AC, cooling centers, public education on preventing heat-related injuries/deaths... Maybe govts can even temporarily reduce regulations/give subsidies on split-systems to help nudge some folks, but nothing much else can be done. One pet-idea I have is cooling centers, since I know Houston (which has extreme weathers) opens cooling/warming centers when the weather is too extreme; it is a very progressive implementation that benefits those who are underprivileged
Slightly longer term: Trees/green spaces always help. Public transit systems always help. Some fairly sweeping changes in climate-related regulation (ease AC regulations, tighten car regulations, tax on pollution, etc), aimed at both reducing danger and improving the climate... or at least recuperate some "pollution tax" so the govt can use the money to plant more trees and build more trains. Also some European countries can do so much better at discouraging car use (or at least switch to EVs) given how good the train networks are; for countries without good train networks, build some
Even longer term: Massive investments in green energy; if they are investing already, invest more. But be practical... temporary solutions like nuclear are not everyone's cup of tea but they help with the transition. Do better on international collaboration. Find ways to discourage international trading partners from over-polluting (probably a combination of tariffs and negotiations... not my specialty).
Obligatory not an economist/political scientist, there are probably better ways to implement these than what I suggested
Your last point should be first. Europe (and the UK) are reducing their carbon output but our success is dwarfed by the increase in co2 output by China and India. The US has also made no effort to reduce emissions but because industry there is declining it hasn't increased for a few years. We need to apply a carbon tax to imports from those countries.
It appears that Europe does many things right for sustainability and climate change - public transit over cars, recycling, reducing carbon footprint better compared to other parts of the world.
No. It wasn't enough by far
There have been many right ideas, but what has actually been done was only a tiny little change, not significant.
Interesting. What are a couple things Europe should do to reduce it's carbon footprint?
Europe is already better per capita than most regions. not much point in getting Europeans to cut C02 more when Americans are still driving tanks and burning coal.
Stop burning things (oil, gas, ...).
(Stop does not mean reduce by 3%)
Stop producing and buying so many animals for food.
Grow new woods (real large, not tiny).
nothing, nothing we do now will stop the warming. if we end all fossil fuel burning, concrete production, and livestock production tomorrow, the atmosphere will continue to warm for hundreds of years before peaking. We are cooked. Grab your popcorn.
nothing, nothing we do now will stop the warming.
What if (theoretically speaking, because I don't think we're close yet) we rolled out carbon-capture technology and implementation on a massive scale? How much useful impact would that have on mitigating CC versus how much of that is still out of our hands?
This. What part of "well past the tipping point" do people not understand? The time to take drastic action was 20 years ago. It's "adapt or die" time. The good news is, the elderly are more vulnerable so that should help with the population decline issue.
And yet we must stop climate change instead of making it even worse.
Sorry. But this comment made me think of this:
Anyway? We’re fucked and the game now is to mitigate and adapt.
According to the UN and other organizations: To PREVENT the heatwaves, it is crucial that the amount of CO2 released globally is reduced. All nations need to tighten laws to lower CO2 production. This means you need to VOTE for the right party. To MITIGATE the effects of the heatwaves, countries can do many things: plant trees in towns (as they lower temperatures due to evaporation and shade), improve architecture etc. That may not help too much though, as the intensity and length of the heatwaves will continue to increase over the next decades. So reduction of CO2 released is the best bet.
europe needs to invest in ACs, apparently the continent temperatures rises alot faster than other continents as for an immediate solution, long term, they need to accelerate into green energy.
Wouldn’t simply addressing climate change generally be the answer? I don’t understand why this might be confusing.
Because billionaires make that impossible.
The CEO of starbucks lives in LA. The HQ of starbucks is in Seattle.
He COULD move the HQ to LA. He COULD buy a 2nd house in Seattle.
Instead he takes his own personal commercial jet DAILY from LA to Seattle, and back again. Every day.
There is a commercial jet that flies the skies, using up fuel, and burning through the atmosphere 365 days a year.
All because this fuckwit doesn't want to have a ZOOM meeting.
That's one billionaire. One. Now think of the fact that 1 billionaire on average creates more environmental damage than 1 million regular people combined.
And that's ONE. Now think of all the billionaires in the world. Combined.
And then there's America. I live in America. If I need something from the store, I'll walk. Yeah, it may be a 15 minute walk. Each way. But, c'mon. It's not that far. By the time you look for your keys, and open the garage, and start the car, and everything, you're looking at 5-10 minutes anyways. May as well just walk. I got a little wagon I use to carry all my groceries. It handles 750lbs.
Now, every car on the road, doing these short little trips. It feels like not much, but it adds up.
On top of all that, I have a theory that paved surfaces retain natural heat, and in the case of black tar surfaces, RAISE the heat.
As opposed to grass, which would lower it.
But billionaire or middle class, nobody wants to give up their ammenities. Even if the planet suffers. Guess we'll all just die in an inferno.
should the EU take action against billionaires or the US to address climate change? I suppose they could impose sanctions, fines, or something to save EU lives?
Or Guillitines. I'm good with that too.
Many people seem comfortable with bringing back guillotines, including me. It would be interesting to see the reaction.
Lemme tell you man, i don’t think you can sound more impersonal and alien then you are doing now. Yes I would vote to do something about, yes. Maybe some hanging is required.
Yes, they should.
Trumo's threat to impose new, higher, tariffs on EU for starting to legislate against US tech monopolies and support local startups show how it would go.
But better to put it forwards under the chicken taco and make headway, and then future US leaders (if any) would have to make open moves against environmental measures.
The EU could take steps towards less dependency of the US (and other continents for that matter)
Absolutely should.
But the EU would like to continue to benefit from US military power and espionage while getting to pretend it is more moral. If the EU were to more overtly break with the US it would have to dramatically reformulate its neo-colonial economics.
Note that that "1%" isn't just millionaires and billionaires. Anyone lower middle class and up in the Western world is part of that 1%. People mistakenly think the jet setters are the main polluters. Everyone who isn't poor in the West is the main polluter.
Ideally, yes. But we're way past the point where mitigation alone can solve this. We need climate change adaptation, too.
Is Europe addressing climate change?
I have generally found the lack of urban trees in Europe pretty shocking. Even in wide open squares where there's no reason not to have them it's often just cobblestones. While Europe is certainly cooler than where I live, even so it seems like it would be very hot and unpleasant if the weather gets even a bit warm.
Some countries like France and the Netherlands are doing some good work on this lately but it needs to be more widespread and unfortunately it will take some time to pay dividends.
And yes we need to decarbonize more aggressively. It may be a bit painful but less so than the pain of inaction.
More green wouldn't hurt. The city I live in invested heavily in removing green space. Shrubs and plants are nearly all removed and the remaining empty grass fields are continuously cut. Having green space cools the city down, gives shade and helps animals, so how about we plant things and stop cutting everything?
In the USA, we cover everything we can with black asphalt, and those expansive parking lots means you can't walk anywhere.
The interesting question for the US is “can we be doing anÿhing to make things worse than we already are?”
Eat less meat, beef in particular.
I already abstain from beef for environmental reasons. And limit my dairy too.
I heard that the local nut farms in my region consume a lot of ground water. and the majority of their sales are abroad, so I try to eat less nuts now too. I don't want to support nut farms in my area that majority focus on selling abroad or to far away places, because us locals need that ground water more than their profits.
Build a big ass wall that keeps out the heat, and mexico will pay for it!
It's a tantalizing idea simply to blame the US for the deteriorating climate in Europe. But that seems both pointless and unjustified. Industrialization and excessive emissions started in Europe. We have gone into debt far enough ourselves in a manner of speaking, we can't blame the yanks although their government currently is .... well, you know.
Europeans are going to buy air conditioners and they will probably outfit cooling facilities that people can seek refuge from the heat in as a stop gap measure. That's definitely causing more nuclear waste in France where atom splitting reigns supreme. Although nuclear power generation will suffer when rivers needed for cooling become mere trickles. And for the rest of the continent one can only hope they don't burn shit to turn turbines to make more power. But it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
There is no way to prevent these heatwaves; the damage is already done. If we stopped burning stuff today everywhere, we could prevent them from getting worse. That's just a very sensible pipe dream unfortunately.
I was under the impression that Europe's current carbon footprint was lower than much of the world.
Nuclear energy is an interesting discussion. I've heard the suggestion that it's one good alternative specifically for now until communities and countries can get better renewable energy alternatives. But people can be so weary due to the low but real risk that things have gone wrong in the past.
Current? Maybe. Since the 1750s? Nope.
Nuclear power is also a stop gap solution if you ask me. It isn't clean. It creates highly toxic waste products that nobody wants to keep stored for centuries in their backyard, just not a lot of CO2. That gets waved away a lot like it isn't an issue. It's better than burning gas, oil, or coal. It's not better than renewables in my opinion. And nuclear needs a reliable cooling chain for its survival and all the people unfortunate enough to live close by. That's normally done with water that happens to flow by the plant. If the increasing heat dries out these rivers, you'll get a slightly more stretched out version of Fukushima.
The problem is batteries. If we could have batteries that store the sun and wind energy for when sun and wind are on a break, we'd be set. We don't have that. The tech isn't there yet. And we'd probably empoverish all the countries who are unfortunate enough to have the necessary rare earths in the ground in the process. We're fucked in more ways than one.
It creates highly toxic waste products that nobody wants to keep stored for centuries in their backyard, just not a lot of CO2. That gets waved away a lot like it isn’t an issue. It’s better than burning gas, oil, or coal. It’s not better than renewables in my opinion. And nuclear needs a reliable cooling chain for its survival and all the people unfortunate enough to live close by. That’s normally done with water that happens to flow by the plant. If the increasing heat dries out these rivers, you’ll get a slightly more stretched out version of Fukushima.
It’s a very small amount that can be contained in secure casks and concentrated in a particular secure location in the middle of nowhere as opposed to other industrial wastes that are blasted out into the environment and our lungs.
You do need cooling water to keep a plant operational at full power by ensuring your condenser can handle all the steam coming in. If it can’t due to declining river volume then the operators must reduce power (thus making less steam which needs less condensing), if they for whatever reason were not paying attention to the alarms going off then their plant would automatically shut down for loss of condenser vacuum and restore that margin by itself. You don’t have to use rivers as the source of cooling for every nuclear reactor either though some existing ones are designed that way. You can source water from oceans, lakes, groundwater, heck you can make artificial bodies of water that are filled with surplus water and can be used in times of diminished water from whatever is used to feed them, etc.
The major pollutants are manufacturing, mining, oil and energy production, and animal agriculture. not air conditioners. If we want the rest of the world to stop producing with manufacturing, you're going to need to create agreements to share your wealth in ways that do not require the exchange of goods. That's why people over-produce right now. For money. That's why the world will continue to get hotter for the considerable future. Nobody wants to be the ones to give away our wealth for free. You need to take care of your people and install air conditioners like the rest of the world. Good luck finding somewhere in China without air conditioning.
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