Climate Strike

[Mischief]

Let's do the arithmetic. Let's say that everyone's consumption goes up by two units.

That means, for the U.S.:

329,000,000 x 2 = 658,000,000 additional units consumed.

And for China, it means:

1,394,200,000 x 2 = 2,788,400,000 additional units consumed

In other words, any change in consumption rate is going to have more than four times the impact coming from China than coming from the U.S., because China has more than four times the population of the U.S.

As I said, simple math:

population x rate of consumption = total consumption

it's not one or the other. It's both.

 

[Forest Nymph]

Let's do the arithmetic. Let's say that everyone's consumption goes up by two units.

That means, for the U.S.:

329,000,000 x 2 = 658,000,000 additional units consumed.

And for China, it means:

1,394,200,000 x 2 = 2,788,400,000 additional units consumed

In other words, any change in consumption rate is going to have more than four times the impact coming from China than coming from the U.S., because China has more than four times the population of the U.S.

As I said, simple math:

population x rate of consumption = total consumption

it's not one or the other. It's both.

In Environmental Science you do algebra, statistics and calculus not "basic math."

That aside, you're operating from a faulty but common middle class Western perception that climate change happens in the future.

In fact, climate change has been happening for decades and absolutely is primarily overwhelmingly the fault of Western people, from Amazon deforestation, Coral reefs bleaching and dying, to trampled ecosystems due to unethical safaris in Sub-saharan Africa, and more.

It would be nice to pretend we could stop climate change by practicing mass genocide in Asia or Muslim cultures, but alas, we are already fucked from Western consumption even if Chinese people didn't start consuming more meat.

 

[Forest Nymph]

To understand this better what helps is knowing that the United States was the number one overall carbon emissions in the world - not just per capita, *despite population* - until 2006. Enormous anthropogenic damage was done between 1750 and 2006, it didn't magically begin when Al Gore made An Inconvenient Truth. So that alone implicates Western people as the root cause.

Even in 2019, the United States is still #2 despite India having a much larger population. China has surpassed the US because of population and consumption (that's true) YET what sped them ahead of the US was a change in consumption, not a change in population - consumption that mirrors Western capitalist consumption.

The US remains number one in per capita emissions. To frame climate damage as futuristic and not as the culmination of Post-Industrial levels of consumption and mass capitalist global colonialism in non-Western nations is an incorrect perception, and not one solved by basic math.

 

[Lou]

Why would a vegan organization give a million dollars to Planned Parenthood? No matter if I support PP, vegans and people on plant based diets range from pro life to anti natalist. Also climate change isn't really a population issue it's a consumption issue. Countries like India with huge populations don't compare to the consumption per capita in countries like the US.

I was mostly thinking that the Pope is Anti Planned Parenthood so that would **** him off. I know it was sort of petty. So good for Vegananuary for not doing it.

But climate change is sort of a planned parenthood thing. the best thing a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint is to have one less child.

 

[Forest Nymph]

But climate change is sort of a planned parenthood thing. the best thing a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint is to have one less child.

That was one person's opinion, and it's not rated recently in the most effective ways to stop climate change individually. On a group/national level it's now claimed to be the carbon tax and on an individual level actions like changing diet and consumption of fossil fuels are emphasized.

Even at current population rates the idea that climate change is about population more than consumption is absurd.

 

[Lou]

"Recycling and using public transit are all fine and good if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, but to truly make a difference you should have fewer children. That’s the conclusion of a new study in which researchers looked at 39 peer-reviewed papers, government reports, and web-based programs that assess how an individual’s lifestyle choices might shrink their personal share of emissions."

Science | AAAS

www.sciencemag.org

 

[Forest Nymph]

"Recycling and using public transit are all fine and good if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, but to truly make a difference you should have fewer children. That’s the conclusion of a new study in which researchers looked at 39 peer-reviewed papers, government reports, and web-based programs that assess how an individual’s lifestyle choices might shrink their personal share of emissions."

Science | AAAS

www.sciencemag.org

That's Ripple from 2017. I'm well aware of it, and agree that birth control is important. On the other hand this viewpoint suggests that current levels of consumption are fine with one less child, which is complete and utter ********.

More recent studies from this year tell a different story of complex, nuanced approaches which ultimately emphasize using renewable energy, changing people's diets and doing things like biking to work, no longer mentioning the population issue since population growth in this country is already at zero or minus, and yet we're still the number two footprint overall and number one per capita.

People be looking for ways to keep their wasteful capitalist lifestyle. It doesn't work like that.

 

[Forest Nymph]

I also want to embellish my last post by explaining why having one less child is idyllic in theory but less important in practice.

The one less child rule upholds the status quo for Westerners which is an absurdly privileged convenience towards them having to make any other consumption changes, as I have previously noted. It's very aligned with right wing non-action in place of real structural change, which is yet another way to abdicate responsibility for continuing consumption patterns of already existing people i.e. parents, potential parents and those who choose to remain child-free.

Even more dangerously, having one less child is a hypothetical long term solution rather than the immediate action we need. If we have eleven years to arrest the "turning point" having less children is essentially doing nothing that legitimately helps in that eleven years, since child-free people and people who have less children still can use damaging resources themselves and excuse themselves for doing so since they're not having a child or a second or third child.

I believe in adopting over breeding IF I settled with a partner and we decided we wanted a child but don't delude myself that the consumption sins of my invisible, non existent children in any way improves our world in the brief time frame given. The one less child theory stems from a time when some people still believed we have until 2100 rather than 2030 (or earlier).

Changing diets and travel related fossil fuel consumption are the most impactful on an individual scale, more so even than low impact things like recycling and using different lightbulbs or home appliances.

Also the real thing we need is systemic global energy and food source changes, neither of which can be achieved individually but by law and policy and business overhaul. Population doesn't even begin to factor into the most necessary immediate needed response.

 

[Lou]

Anyone following the events of Greta Thunberg? She's a 16 year old environmental activist, very inspirational!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1041369960436703232

So I heard about this new nutty conspiracy theory. About Greta being either a time traveler or 120 years old. but check out the photo. She girl in the photo looks just like Greta!

120-year-old photo sparks Greta Thunberg conspiracy theories

She’s powerful but she’s not that powerful.

nypost.com

 

[Lou]

My favorite tweet:

So if Greta is a time traveller she knows stuff you don't. So listen to her. You moron.

 

[Lou]

Anyone following the events of Greta Thunberg? She's a 16 year old environmental activist, very inspirational!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1041369960436703232

 

[Lou]

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has changed her Twitter bio to mock US President Donald Trump's outrage at her winning Time Person of the Year 2019.​

​

He said she had an "anger management problem" and should go to "a good old fashioned movie with a friend".​

​

"Chill Greta, Chill!" he added.​

​

She then adapted her Twitter bio to say she was "a teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend".​

Greta Thunberg changes Twitter bio after Trump dig

He said the teenage activist - who won Time Person of the Year - had an "anger management problem".

www.bbc.com