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The real question is not just about debating what is causing a rise in average temperature over the past half century, but whether there is anything we can do t

The real question is not just about debating what is causing a rise in average temperature over the past half century, but whether there is anything we can do to change it. Deniers say people are not to blame so do nothing; the rest of us say people are the majority cause so change our behavior. The problem is we only have one earth, either we do nothing and all die eventually, or we do something and possibly we don't. In the long run the latter seems a far better bet: at worst we have a cleaner environment and a slightly slower economy versus a barren planet filled with roaches.

spodek 10y ago
> whether there is anything we can do to change it There is zero question if there is anything we can do to change it. The question on the social level is if we will, as a species, regulate the behavior of individuals and institutions. On the individual level the question is if you and I will choose to take responsibility and choose our behavior as individuals and stop saying, if a billion other people don't change it doesn't matter what I do so I won't change. We can all take responsibility for our personal actions. If people in previous generations had, we wouldn't face these issues. They didn't so we do, but maybe we can for future generations.
- knz 10y ago
  While I share your sense of personal responsibility being key to any hope of mitigating the impact for future generations, a recent project I've been involved with has left me feeling quite cynical about the chance of any meaningful impact. The project was related to measuring greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation industry. Everyone is excited about the massive savings (potentially the largest single saving in the State) but the numbers are pathetic when you put them into an equivalency calculator (https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calc...). My takeaway from the project has been that without dramatic and systematic change at a societal level nothing else really matters. At best we can mitigate and try to slow the impacts of climate change. The Sustainability Manager at my work has told me that the industry/literature/academics are also shifting towards talk of mitigation and resiliency now instead of prevention. I hope I'm wrong but global GHG emissions are massive compared to the solutions we currently have.
- deleted 10y ago
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spodek 10y ago

> whether there is anything we can do to change it There is zero question if there is anything we can do to change it. The question on the social level is if we will, as a species, regulate the behavior of individuals and institutions. On the individual level the question is if you and I will choose to take responsibility and choose our behavior as individuals and stop saying, if a billion other people don't change it doesn't matter what I do so I won't change. We can all take responsibility for our personal actions. If people in previous generations had, we wouldn't face these issues. They didn't so we do, but maybe we can for future generations.

knz 10y ago
While I share your sense of personal responsibility being key to any hope of mitigating the impact for future generations, a recent project I've been involved with has left me feeling quite cynical about the chance of any meaningful impact. The project was related to measuring greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation industry. Everyone is excited about the massive savings (potentially the largest single saving in the State) but the numbers are pathetic when you put them into an equivalency calculator (https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calc...). My takeaway from the project has been that without dramatic and systematic change at a societal level nothing else really matters. At best we can mitigate and try to slow the impacts of climate change. The Sustainability Manager at my work has told me that the industry/literature/academics are also shifting towards talk of mitigation and resiliency now instead of prevention. I hope I'm wrong but global GHG emissions are massive compared to the solutions we currently have.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]