Top 3 things every individual needs to do to slow down rising temperatures

[Anonymous]

Stop driving
Stop using AC
Stop eating meat

This past year, my spouse started cycling to and from work. Showers there, not a big deal. I bike/take train to work, but sometimes I drive. This year, I'll work on one less day of driving each week. We haven't completely stopped using AC, but we don't have it as cold as we used to. And we're eating less meat. Not perfect, but we're trying to move in the direction of being more eco friendly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Voting is obviously the most important thing.

Here are things we do that I think are pretty low impact on us—

Buy less crap. Reuse or remake stuff you have. You don’t need to redo your house decor every few years.

Electric or hybrid cars. We got solar panels that cover our car charging. We also use bus/metro to get to work, and have done that for most of our 30 year working career. I really don’t know why more people don’t get solar panels — if you finance them they are basically free, as they use the savings from electric to pay off the panel price.

Compost and try to eat local to extent reasonably feasible. I was shocked when I saw how much food waste contributes to climate change.

We can’t cut plane travel entirely, or don’t want to, but I do consider the impact of travel. If I can do a work meeting remotely rather than flying, I will, and I’m starting to encourage clients just to hire local people where possible. We could afford to go to Europe basically whenever but have only done it four times in twenty five years, and have never been to Asia or Africa.

But I know there are other things we do that are not great — I can’t cut meat and dairy entirely, and we have a big dog which is probably terrible for the environment with what he eats plus the additional a/c just to keep him comfortable. We all have to make choices about what we feel like we can do and can’t do without going a little crazy. We also give money to places that preserve large forest areas, trying to keep some areas that will eat up the carbon naturally.


Solar panels take almost two decades to break even in our region. And that ignores lost gains from the money tied up in them.

When (and not if) the price of electricity increases, it will not take two decades. Those data centers are not going to decrease electricity prices.

We broke even in seven.

[Anonymous]

Contact your elected officials
Run candidates willing to tackle issues
Advocate

[Anonymous]

Commercial Buildings need to stop with the freezing AC. Seriously. Set it at 75 or higher. Not 65.

[Anonymous]

Go to light colored road and parking surfaces. Those large expanses of black roads and lots are just ovens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Commercial Buildings need to stop with the freezing AC. Seriously. Set it at 75 or higher. Not 65.

Amen to this. The younger workers don’t want to wear long sleeves and suits to work in the summer anyway. Put it at 75 and we can all eat short sleeves in the summer! Yay! They should start polling office residents and I bet this could happen:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contact your elected officials
Run candidates willing to tackle issues
Advocate

This - throw out the ones taking money from corrupt corps

[Anonymous]

People are such idiots. This is the dumbest thread ever.

I challenge OP to stop eating anything you want, flying, using the A/C, basically living your life.

If you can't do that, don't expect others to sacrifice anything either.

This fantasy of humans collectively 100% globally coming together to do EVERYTHING we would need to make global warming either stop or slow is exactly that - a fantasy.

The best thing we can hope for is to try to find solutions for when things get totally out of control. We should work on not trying to stop the inevitable and instead figure out plans for how we are all going to make do with what will be our reality in I'm guessing 10 years. It will be a planet with much more adverse weather conditions and food production changes that will really impact all of us. Better we don't fool ourselves on what's to come very soon and face reality than to put efforts into actions that won't happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are such idiots. This is the dumbest thread ever.

I challenge OP to stop eating anything you want, flying, using the A/C, basically living your life.

If you can't do that, don't expect others to sacrifice anything either.

This fantasy of humans collectively 100% globally coming together to do EVERYTHING we would need to make global warming either stop or slow is exactly that - a fantasy.

The best thing we can hope for is to try to find solutions for when things get totally out of control. We should work on not trying to stop the inevitable and instead figure out plans for how we are all going to make do with what will be our reality in I'm guessing 10 years. It will be a planet with much more adverse weather conditions and food production changes that will really impact all of us. Better we don't fool ourselves on what's to come very soon and face reality than to put efforts into actions that won't happen.

The science doesn’t support what you’re saying. Even a marginal decrease in the rate of change is really helpful. We need to slow the change so that the scientists have time to catch up to invent adaptations. It’s the difference between a future that is different but manageable and a future that is basically mad max.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are such idiots. This is the dumbest thread ever.

I challenge OP to stop eating anything you want, flying, using the A/C, basically living your life.

If you can't do that, don't expect others to sacrifice anything either.

This fantasy of humans collectively 100% globally coming together to do EVERYTHING we would need to make global warming either stop or slow is exactly that - a fantasy.

The best thing we can hope for is to try to find solutions for when things get totally out of control. We should work on not trying to stop the inevitable and instead figure out plans for how we are all going to make do with what will be our reality in I'm guessing 10 years. It will be a planet with much more adverse weather conditions and food production changes that will really impact all of us. Better we don't fool ourselves on what's to come very soon and face reality than to put efforts into actions that won't happen.

The science doesn’t support what you’re saying. Even a marginal decrease in the rate of change is really helpful. We need to slow the change so that the scientists have time to catch up to invent adaptations. It’s the difference between a future that is different but manageable and a future that is basically mad max.

There is a direct correlation between development and per capita carbon consumption. Bangladesh and Nigeria have huge populations and minimal per capita emissions, unless you consign them to eternal poverty, you aren't reducing emissions overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are such idiots. This is the dumbest thread ever.

I challenge OP to stop eating anything you want, flying, using the A/C, basically living your life.

If you can't do that, don't expect others to sacrifice anything either.

This fantasy of humans collectively 100% globally coming together to do EVERYTHING we would need to make global warming either stop or slow is exactly that - a fantasy.

The best thing we can hope for is to try to find solutions for when things get totally out of control. We should work on not trying to stop the inevitable and instead figure out plans for how we are all going to make do with what will be our reality in I'm guessing 10 years. It will be a planet with much more adverse weather conditions and food production changes that will really impact all of us. Better we don't fool ourselves on what's to come very soon and face reality than to put efforts into actions that won't happen.

I used to be a rosey eyed supporter of focusing on ways we can change to stop the inevitable, but not anymore.

Now I agree with pp. I’m looking long term. Getting my family as financially secure as possible. Bought a second home up north to escape the heat for my family.

[Anonymous]

How people actually think we are going to revert the tide of global warming makes me ROFL.

We may not be at the tipping point in terms of science but psychologically you bet we're there. In our online Amazon 2 day delivery smart phone/phones/social media world, convenience reigns supreme. We will never return to a world where people don't want to travel, live the "good" life and have to sacrifice any convenience ever.

Acceptance is everything. Things will change only upon acceptance of our fate.

[Anonymous]

Some of the stuff is to extreme. We still have to live. I still need to visit my ailing parents out west. I still want to travel.

But, if we collectively did some small things (drive a hybrid or electric; carpool; don't buy so much stuff; recycle as much as possible, etc..) it would help.

[Anonymous]

Kids - limit one by birth

Shop way way less - the carbon foot print from the mining, shipping, production, packaging shipping & eventual throwing out is crazy

Eat less meat

Don’t buy bottled water (plastic, shipping)

Plant trees plant trees

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't become a vegetarian number one?

Maybe if people are huge meat eaters to begin with. Like families that buy half a cow every year. I think it would take us five or more years to eat that much beef.

One of my kids is a vegetarian and doesn’t cook. Most of the meat substitutes she eats are not great for the environment.

Probably the huge amount of imported produce my family eats is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the small amount of meat we eat because of the distance the produce is flown and trucked.