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Not sure I have too much to add to the discussion but I do have a question – what do the people who know the most about climate change think we (consumers) shou

Not sure I have too much to add to the discussion but I do have a question – what do the people who know the most about climate change think we (consumers) should do? There seem to be few coherent lobbying efforts; the people best known for accurate science (IPCC) have no information that I can find about what an average human should be doing to help fight the good fight; it all just feels so impossible. Does anyone here have any links or suggestions? I've done a small amount of work on "raising awareness" (https://twitter.com/ipccbot https://twitter.com/ipccbot) but it seems like everyone either knows and cares or knows and doesn't care. A lot of the climate news feels like climate news porn – so the earthworms are freaking scientists out, what does that mean for me? Can I help the scientists? Are there places I can donate? Or specific calls to action I can follow to help advocate for saner climate policy? What is that policy?

morley 7y ago
The most common refrain I've heard is to reduce meat consumption, and to shift from high-carbon-output meats to lower-output ones. I think the rough order, from highest to lowest, is: - Beef - Pork - Seafood - Chicken - Non-meat diet
- misterzip 7y ago
  I'm willing to believe you (and I am already doing this!) but can you show me where any climate scientists advocate for consumers to take this kind of action? And model out how supply of these high-carbon-output food sources will be affected by this depending on how many consumers take action? If you don't have the time or interest that's totally fine, but I'm trying to make the point that it's really confusing for me as a consumer to understand what to do about climate change. I really wish the IPCC or other climate groups would get together with a list of actions for regular people, along with the predicted effects of those actions.
  - tom_mellior 7y ago
    This is not from the IPCC but a multidisciplinary commission that presumably included climate scientists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_diet
  - firethief 7y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climate-change-food-eating-habits.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climat... The information is widely available. I don't think needing more summaries of it is the problem. The problem is people don't care enough to change their behavior. And food is really tied up with identity, while people covet bad identities.
- mrec 7y ago
  Interesting; I hadn't seen that list before. Annoyingly, most of it goes directly against arguments I have seen [1] about how best to reduce animal suffering in the human food chain without everyone going full vegetarian, since one suffering cow can replace an awful lot of suffering chickens even if you percieve individual chickens as "less conscious". [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat...
- PorterDuff 7y ago
  What happens when you have 15 billion people eating a non-meat diet?
  - graenxa 7y ago
    They eat vegetables instead. What are you getting at?
  - mikorym 7y ago
    You get a lot of pesticides.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Soon, 7 billion living people. Humans aren't immune to mass dieoffs. We're animals too.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That's 35 or more years out. First fix the emissions then work on population growth to increase the doubling time. Unless we want to discover the point at which Malthus was right?
- mikorym 7y ago
  Many high-level decisions fail to take into account lower-level intricacies. For example, assuming you live in Germany (for the sake of concreteness) and you want to move down the chain from pork to seafood. 1. Are you aware of fish rated as green, yellow or red? 2. Are you aware of other consideration, such as logistics and methods (e.g.: aquaculture vs. wild)? 3. Do you have access to local and sustainable pork (but perhaps not seafood)?
  - firethief 7y ago
    And even if you consider this stuff, most people won't; supporting pork is supporting pork, because pork is fungible. Only the simple approach is viable.
- discreteevent 7y ago
  The order in that list may depend on how the animal is farmed. For example, in some countries the beef is raised outdoors on grass and the pork is raised indoors.
ckarmann 7y ago
Off the top of my head: - Only take a plane when absolutely necessary. - Live in a city, sell your car and take public transport - Reduce meat consumption (at least beef and lamb which are a lot worse than the others). You don't need to eat meat every single day. Also try tofu, tempeh and seitan; you may find you like them. - Vote with this topic in mind, even if it might hurt you financially.
- tony_cannistra 7y ago
  That last one, x1000
- empath75 7y ago
  Individual action will barely make a dent, to the point where it’s nearly pointless to bother. We need global collective actions and a worldwide tax on carbon emissions.
  - bitesociety 7y ago
    There's no need to bother paying women equally for equal work at my employer (pointless to bother), what we need is changed laws to ensure women get fair pay in all cases. See how silly this sounds? How about instead, both.
tony_cannistra 7y ago
Climate scientist here. I really resonate with the "climate change porn" bullshit. Drives me crazy, and just makes people numb to it. The best thing you can do is the thing you're best at doing, and that you're motivated to do. You'll do it well, and others will follow. If that's too vague, here are some objective suggestions. Might get in trouble for this, but individual action isn't going to fix this problem. I don't really care if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, or whether you buy carbon credits or offset your airplane tickets or whatever other bullshit Wall Street is pushing to get around this problem. What you should be doing is encouraging systems-level thinking. Get people to understand how top-level governmental decisions (or lack thereof) can lead to a system where carbon is entirely written off as irrelevant in our current economic and political system. Encourage people to think of ways in which, to the best of our ability, lifestyles for all people can be maintained or improved while severely regulating the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
- misterzip 7y ago
  Love that idea, but again it's this abstract "change how people think" – who is organizing this collective action? How can I join their existing efforts? My comparative advantage is not public relations / marketing / persuasion, and while I'm going to of course keep trying to make sure the people around me understand the seriousness of the issue, I'm at a loss for how to have a larger impact. 1000% agreed that individual action is not enough, and that we need to get the corporations and governments of the world to make serious changes. But I have no idea what those changes are, or like you say, how we can make them while maintaining or improving lifestyles for all people. Also, thank you for answering kindly and collaboratively. For some reason I'm just feeling really fed up with climate news porn today and these are all the frustrations and questions I've always wanted to ask.
  - tony_cannistra 7y ago
    Your quest for a large impact is noble, but I encourage you to think more locally. Consider your community first, because it's where you have the most direct levers for change. Hell, you could have a book club. You could write up an e-mail to your friends with the climate policies of relevant political candidates, "just FYI!". There's a middle ground between "I'm buying local produce for myself" and "I'm quitting my job and chaining myself to an oil tanker."
graenxa 7y ago
CCL https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ in the US is working towards something, albeit in a mild and incremental way. They're pushing a carbon tax policy in the house right now https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbo.... It's a little silly since it seems like there's little appetite for a bill like this with conservatives. I still think it's important to try. I'd say there's a lot of opportunity to do things on a state or local level. Reducing your state's carbon emissions has a real impact. Push for renewable energy sources. Fight to make the process of rezoning for higher density housing easier in your community and improve public transit.

morley 7y ago

The most common refrain I've heard is to reduce meat consumption, and to shift from high-carbon-output meats to lower-output ones. I think the rough order, from highest to lowest, is: - Beef - Pork - Seafood - Chicken - Non-meat diet

misterzip 7y ago
I'm willing to believe you (and I am already doing this!) but can you show me where any climate scientists advocate for consumers to take this kind of action? And model out how supply of these high-carbon-output food sources will be affected by this depending on how many consumers take action? If you don't have the time or interest that's totally fine, but I'm trying to make the point that it's really confusing for me as a consumer to understand what to do about climate change. I really wish the IPCC or other climate groups would get together with a list of actions for regular people, along with the predicted effects of those actions.
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  This is not from the IPCC but a multidisciplinary commission that presumably included climate scientists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_diet
- firethief 7y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climate-change-food-eating-habits.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climat... The information is widely available. I don't think needing more summaries of it is the problem. The problem is people don't care enough to change their behavior. And food is really tied up with identity, while people covet bad identities.
mrec 7y ago
Interesting; I hadn't seen that list before. Annoyingly, most of it goes directly against arguments I have seen [1] about how best to reduce animal suffering in the human food chain without everyone going full vegetarian, since one suffering cow can replace an awful lot of suffering chickens even if you percieve individual chickens as "less conscious". [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat...
PorterDuff 7y ago
What happens when you have 15 billion people eating a non-meat diet?
- graenxa 7y ago
  They eat vegetables instead. What are you getting at?
- mikorym 7y ago
  You get a lot of pesticides.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Soon, 7 billion living people. Humans aren't immune to mass dieoffs. We're animals too.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That's 35 or more years out. First fix the emissions then work on population growth to increase the doubling time. Unless we want to discover the point at which Malthus was right?
mikorym 7y ago
Many high-level decisions fail to take into account lower-level intricacies. For example, assuming you live in Germany (for the sake of concreteness) and you want to move down the chain from pork to seafood. 1. Are you aware of fish rated as green, yellow or red? 2. Are you aware of other consideration, such as logistics and methods (e.g.: aquaculture vs. wild)? 3. Do you have access to local and sustainable pork (but perhaps not seafood)?
- firethief 7y ago
  And even if you consider this stuff, most people won't; supporting pork is supporting pork, because pork is fungible. Only the simple approach is viable.
discreteevent 7y ago
The order in that list may depend on how the animal is farmed. For example, in some countries the beef is raised outdoors on grass and the pork is raised indoors.

ckarmann 7y ago

Off the top of my head: - Only take a plane when absolutely necessary. - Live in a city, sell your car and take public transport - Reduce meat consumption (at least beef and lamb which are a lot worse than the others). You don't need to eat meat every single day. Also try tofu, tempeh and seitan; you may find you like them. - Vote with this topic in mind, even if it might hurt you financially.

tony_cannistra 7y ago
That last one, x1000
empath75 7y ago
Individual action will barely make a dent, to the point where it’s nearly pointless to bother. We need global collective actions and a worldwide tax on carbon emissions.
- bitesociety 7y ago
  There's no need to bother paying women equally for equal work at my employer (pointless to bother), what we need is changed laws to ensure women get fair pay in all cases. See how silly this sounds? How about instead, both.

tony_cannistra 7y ago

Climate scientist here. I really resonate with the "climate change porn" bullshit. Drives me crazy, and just makes people numb to it. The best thing you can do is the thing you're best at doing, and that you're motivated to do. You'll do it well, and others will follow. If that's too vague, here are some objective suggestions. Might get in trouble for this, but individual action isn't going to fix this problem. I don't really care if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, or whether you buy carbon credits or offset your airplane tickets or whatever other bullshit Wall Street is pushing to get around this problem. What you should be doing is encouraging systems-level thinking. Get people to understand how top-level governmental decisions (or lack thereof) can lead to a system where carbon is entirely written off as irrelevant in our current economic and political system. Encourage people to think of ways in which, to the best of our ability, lifestyles for all people can be maintained or improved while severely regulating the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

misterzip 7y ago
Love that idea, but again it's this abstract "change how people think" – who is organizing this collective action? How can I join their existing efforts? My comparative advantage is not public relations / marketing / persuasion, and while I'm going to of course keep trying to make sure the people around me understand the seriousness of the issue, I'm at a loss for how to have a larger impact. 1000% agreed that individual action is not enough, and that we need to get the corporations and governments of the world to make serious changes. But I have no idea what those changes are, or like you say, how we can make them while maintaining or improving lifestyles for all people. Also, thank you for answering kindly and collaboratively. For some reason I'm just feeling really fed up with climate news porn today and these are all the frustrations and questions I've always wanted to ask.
- tony_cannistra 7y ago
  Your quest for a large impact is noble, but I encourage you to think more locally. Consider your community first, because it's where you have the most direct levers for change. Hell, you could have a book club. You could write up an e-mail to your friends with the climate policies of relevant political candidates, "just FYI!". There's a middle ground between "I'm buying local produce for myself" and "I'm quitting my job and chaining myself to an oil tanker."

graenxa 7y ago

CCL https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ in the US is working towards something, albeit in a mild and incremental way. They're pushing a carbon tax policy in the house right now https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbo.... It's a little silly since it seems like there's little appetite for a bill like this with conservatives. I still think it's important to try. I'd say there's a lot of opportunity to do things on a state or local level. Reducing your state's carbon emissions has a real impact. Push for renewable energy sources. Fight to make the process of rezoning for higher density housing easier in your community and improve public transit.