5 ms·

> Future generations, who will be dealing with long, dry summers, would probably be shocked at the profligate way clean tap water was used to flush toilets, wat

> Future generations, who will be dealing with long, dry summers, would probably be shocked at the profligate way clean tap water was used to flush toilets, water gardens and run washing machines. Climate change means societal change. There was a time that Northern Africa was one of the best places in the world to grow crops. They were at the top of civilization for thousands of years. Climate changed, what people could grow and do changed too. The difference this time is that we did this to ourselves. Even worse that we continue making our future prospects worse on purpose so a few oil countries can squish some extra money from earth. It is baffling the lack of foresight.

chii 1y ago
> so a few oil countries can squish some extra money so none of the users of those oil, who paid for it willingly, had any responsibility at all then?
- lofties 1y ago
  [flagged]
- tankenmate 1y ago
  although a good point, there is obvious surface level nuance though; oil companies hid the research of climate change for a decade or two, they also lobbied (and still do) against subsidies for renewable energy and for oil and gas subsidies (in development in most countries, and even end customer price subsidies in others). and of course there's further nuance below the surface as well.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    An interesting thing that happens here is also the conflation of company and country. You mention the oil companies blocking and obscuring the research, but GP was putting the blame on the shoulders of the "oil countries." Something to be aware of with the rise of weaponised xenophobia and general background islamophobia.
    - daseiner1 1y ago
      That's hardly a "conflation". If you can meaningfully distinguish Aramco policy and Saudi policy, please do.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        I would more readily distinguish Aramco from the people who live under the Saudi regime, which was installed by outside forces. The country is not just it's government.
    - tankenmate 1y ago
      Corruption and undue political influence stemming from a large source of extractive income isn't a an issue particular to Islam as I can see it; in fact I'd say it's something endemic to the human condition. But, when it comes to oil production what I would say is that due to the overlapping geography of the foundation and consequent spread of Islam and largest and easiest to extract oil resources in the world being very large combined with human tendency to overfit pattern matching that it is all too easy to see why some would conflate the two. But Islamic majority nations aren't the only "oil countries", and not all "oil countries" are corrupt (but I'd guess the overwhelming majority of "oil countries" are corrupt, not least because of Dutch Disease).
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        Your sentences are quite difficult to read so I apologise if I'm misunderstanding, but I think it's good to remember cases like Saudi where religious fundamentalists were placed into power by Western powers. These days we see them as representative of the Islamic world but it's largely our own doing. I'm aware that there are non Islamic "oil countries" of course and I don't think the GP comment was equating oil with Islam. It's just something that does happen in other contexts and that we should be aware of when speaking, because there are very real real would consequences.
        tankenmate 1y ago
  - Theodores 1y ago
    The research wasn't entirely hidden as they did not have a monopoly on it. In the 1980s, as a child, I remember learning at school about the greenhouse effect, or whatever we called it then. It was not difficult to understand, and neither was the 'nuclear umbrella' that we also had to contend with. In the mid 1990s I was working in TV weather. We self-censored ourselves regarding global warming, or whatever we called it then. None of us were paid by big oil. The euphemisms for 'climate change' tell their own story, it seems we need to downgrade the wording for the inevitable catastrophe every decade or so, I think we are on 'climate emergency' now. As a result of what I learned in school, I genuinely adopted a low-carbon lifestyle which was quite hard to do when everyone was going the other way. If you step inside a car (when you have chosen to not own one) then you are deemed a hypocrite. If you don't eat those cows that create so much methane then you will be called a hypocrite for owning a leather belt. If you read a book then you will be called a hypocrite since trees had to be pulped. Be green and those stuck in the past will get all passive aggressive on you even if you aren't preaching to others. When all is done we could collectively blame the oil companies for obfuscating the evidence of climate change. Similarly, when all is done with the current genocides going on, we can blame the politicians or the media for not letting us know the truth. Yet we are all a few clicks away from seeing how our alleged enemies 'report our crimes'. Yet, consciously or unconsciously, we censor ourselves.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      > We self-censored ourselves regarding global warming Care to elaborate what you were doing?
      - Theodores 1y ago
        I looked after the IRIX boxes. I made small talk with meteorologists and presenters whilst fixing their machines. When the adverts that go with the weather are for the likes of Land Rover or British Airways, you know the deal.
        1718627440 1y ago
        So you were rounding down temperatures, or colouring maps deceivingly or what?
  - IncreasePosts 1y ago
    Once the hidden research was revealed to the public, we all started curbing our carbon emissions, right?
    - yesfitz 1y ago
      Have you not?
    - scubbo 1y ago
      I did. Didn't you?
      - IncreasePosts 1y ago
        I did. Did 99% of the population of earth do the same thing?
- rhubarbtree 1y ago
  Too right, this is why I have switched to green hydrogen for my household heating. Sure, for now I’ve had to jerry-rig a hydrogen storage tank in my back yard and I’m piping the stuff over the roof, but I’m sure the govt will catch up soon. I’ve converted my car to run on renewable wood pellets, stop moaning start fixing. It’s all about individual choice, the oil companies are simply responding to demand. My next step is to build a railway through our local high street so I can decarbonise my commute. Take responsibility for your own actions, stop expecting governments to do everything for you. The oil companies aren’t the problem, you are.
  - derriz 1y ago
    Why hydrogen? It has an extremely potent greenhouse effect and is obviously the leakiest of gases - the leakage alone could make it more environmentally damaging than actually burning natural gas. And have you seen how hydrogen burns or how easy it is to trigger an explosion? I wouldn’t live anywhere near a “jerry rigged” hydrogen storage facility.
    - gpderetta 1y ago
      I think the parent was extremely sarcastic.
      - derriz 1y ago
        Doh!
  - abenga 1y ago
    Yes, the people are to blame. The only way this changes is if governments that believe it is an issue to be fixed are elected and actually work to attempt to fix the problem. Do you get the sense that such governments are gaining ground politically anywhere in the first world?
  - TomasBM 1y ago
    Sounds like real-life Factorio.
- noduerme 1y ago
  Meanwhile, the average lifespan in the UK has shot from 46 years in 1900, when the primary heating and power source was coal, to 81 years now. It's easy to forget how much worse things were before.
  - autoexec 1y ago
    I wonder what Sweden was doing differently > Take for example this distribution of age at death in Sweden in 1900. You will see, that in 1900, life expectancy was 52 years. However, the median age at death (the age above and below 50% of the population die respectively) is 63 years. Although the life expectancy is only 52 years, an individual has thus a chance of 50% to live past 63 years. Thus, if you went across a Swedish graveyard from 1900 (I'm not sure if the data relates to people born in 1900, or mortality data from 1900, but this is not the point of my comment), you would see that more than half reached an age past 60 years. (https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/zzy2bh/no_average_human_life_expectancy_in_the_past_was/j2yfhes/ https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/zzy2bh/no_avera...)
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      UK industrialisation started earlier, is my guess. Crowding and horrible working and living conditions. Swedish cities were horrible too but smaller.
  - nine_k 1y ago
    This is right. The discovery of antibiotics and many other medical advances somehow influenced this, too, though.
    - dredmorbius 1y ago
      General social welfare (housing, food, public health), basic sanitation, food and water quality regulation, and a few very early vaccines had far more to do with this. Antibiotics weren't widespread until after WWII, as were most of the vaccines we currently consider standard. Medicine as a whole is an astounding example of diminishing returns to innovation.
- Frieren 1y ago
  >so none of the users of those oil, who paid for it willingly, had any responsibility at all then? - Ecologists and native-right defenders being killed in many countries. - Politicians being paid off by corporations to fight against wind and solar energy. - Newspapers paid to mislead the public. But you blame the guys that cannot make ends meet and buys the only thing that they can afford. Stop blaming the victims. This is something that needs to be solved at the state level, blaming citizens for the crimes of oil producers is false, morally wrong and unproductive. To blame others than the oil producing companies that bribe politicians and lie to the public is just a stalling tactic to continue destroying the world while most people is actually trying to stop that destruction.
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    Instead of blaming oil users, you think the producers should restrict the supply to them, forcing them to reduce or stop their use? But you just said they cannot make ends meet - will they die if they can't afford or aren't allowed oil? How can oil producers do anything at all about climate change besides producing less oil?
MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
[flagged]
- defrost 1y ago
  https://www.britishmuseum.org/learn/schools/ages-7-11/ancient-egypt/timeline-ancient-egypt https://www.britishmuseum.org/learn/schools/ages-7-11/ancien...
SapporoChris 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown An absurd satirical play. Due to extreme water shortages, private toilets are unthinkable, public toilets are managed by a corporation. Yes, it's pay to pee...
alt227 1y ago
> we did this to ourselves I would argue that a small minority of the human race did this to the rest. > the lack of foresight Everybody on the planet is well aware of what is happening and why. Its not lack of foresight, it is pure ignorance and apathy of those who are making money off the backs of these tragedies.
- anon191928 1y ago
  [flagged]
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  > > we did this to ourselves > I would argue that a small minority of the human race did this to the rest Yes, just the people that use fossil fuels to drive, heat their homes, power their electrical lines, and so forth. /s You can't dodge responsibility by pushing the blame upwards on everything. Are you posting these comments from a computer powered by solar panels?
  - scubbo 1y ago
    No, the people who made it so that there was no way for humans to enjoy those reasonable comforts without contributing to pollution. > Are you posting these comments from a computer powered by solar panels? That's precisely the point. It shouldn't be individual responsibility to improve our infrastructure (though, in point of fact, I actually _am_ posting using solar power). A good society is one in which everyone _is_ using solar power _without realizing it_, because those responsible for providing power to society do so responsibly.
    - ajmurmann 1y ago
      I am not sure about you, but me and many other commenters here, live in Democracies and in places where capitalism offers choice. Yet, most people weren't voting for the green parties. Oversized vehicles are very popular. Even people who voice their concerns about climate change have complained to me about gas prices. When I tell people they should celebrate high gas prices I get treated like I am insane. We've been voting literally and with our wallets for the status quo. The vast majority of citizens is not without blame.
HPsquared 1y ago
Flushing a toilet will always be cheap. Desalination costs somewhere around $1 per tonne of water.
- mr_toad 1y ago
  You could flush a toilet with salt water, the problem is you’d have to pump it all the way from the sea. That’s the expensive part.
  - verzali 1y ago
    All of England is pretty close to the sea though. But you'd need to build a separate set of pipes to carry all the salt water.
Kenji 1y ago
[dead]
BrtByte 1y ago
Future generations are going to look back and wonder how we let it get this bad while patting ourselves on the back for recycling plastic bottles

chii 1y ago

> so a few oil countries can squish some extra money so none of the users of those oil, who paid for it willingly, had any responsibility at all then?

lofties 1y ago
[flagged]
tankenmate 1y ago
although a good point, there is obvious surface level nuance though; oil companies hid the research of climate change for a decade or two, they also lobbied (and still do) against subsidies for renewable energy and for oil and gas subsidies (in development in most countries, and even end customer price subsidies in others). and of course there's further nuance below the surface as well.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  An interesting thing that happens here is also the conflation of company and country. You mention the oil companies blocking and obscuring the research, but GP was putting the blame on the shoulders of the "oil countries." Something to be aware of with the rise of weaponised xenophobia and general background islamophobia.
  - daseiner1 1y ago
    That's hardly a "conflation". If you can meaningfully distinguish Aramco policy and Saudi policy, please do.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      I would more readily distinguish Aramco from the people who live under the Saudi regime, which was installed by outside forces. The country is not just it's government.
  - tankenmate 1y ago
    Corruption and undue political influence stemming from a large source of extractive income isn't a an issue particular to Islam as I can see it; in fact I'd say it's something endemic to the human condition. But, when it comes to oil production what I would say is that due to the overlapping geography of the foundation and consequent spread of Islam and largest and easiest to extract oil resources in the world being very large combined with human tendency to overfit pattern matching that it is all too easy to see why some would conflate the two. But Islamic majority nations aren't the only "oil countries", and not all "oil countries" are corrupt (but I'd guess the overwhelming majority of "oil countries" are corrupt, not least because of Dutch Disease).
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Your sentences are quite difficult to read so I apologise if I'm misunderstanding, but I think it's good to remember cases like Saudi where religious fundamentalists were placed into power by Western powers. These days we see them as representative of the Islamic world but it's largely our own doing. I'm aware that there are non Islamic "oil countries" of course and I don't think the GP comment was equating oil with Islam. It's just something that does happen in other contexts and that we should be aware of when speaking, because there are very real real would consequences.
      - tankenmate 1y ago
- Theodores 1y ago
  The research wasn't entirely hidden as they did not have a monopoly on it. In the 1980s, as a child, I remember learning at school about the greenhouse effect, or whatever we called it then. It was not difficult to understand, and neither was the 'nuclear umbrella' that we also had to contend with. In the mid 1990s I was working in TV weather. We self-censored ourselves regarding global warming, or whatever we called it then. None of us were paid by big oil. The euphemisms for 'climate change' tell their own story, it seems we need to downgrade the wording for the inevitable catastrophe every decade or so, I think we are on 'climate emergency' now. As a result of what I learned in school, I genuinely adopted a low-carbon lifestyle which was quite hard to do when everyone was going the other way. If you step inside a car (when you have chosen to not own one) then you are deemed a hypocrite. If you don't eat those cows that create so much methane then you will be called a hypocrite for owning a leather belt. If you read a book then you will be called a hypocrite since trees had to be pulped. Be green and those stuck in the past will get all passive aggressive on you even if you aren't preaching to others. When all is done we could collectively blame the oil companies for obfuscating the evidence of climate change. Similarly, when all is done with the current genocides going on, we can blame the politicians or the media for not letting us know the truth. Yet we are all a few clicks away from seeing how our alleged enemies 'report our crimes'. Yet, consciously or unconsciously, we censor ourselves.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    > We self-censored ourselves regarding global warming Care to elaborate what you were doing?
    - Theodores 1y ago
      I looked after the IRIX boxes. I made small talk with meteorologists and presenters whilst fixing their machines. When the adverts that go with the weather are for the likes of Land Rover or British Airways, you know the deal.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        So you were rounding down temperatures, or colouring maps deceivingly or what?
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  Once the hidden research was revealed to the public, we all started curbing our carbon emissions, right?
  - yesfitz 1y ago
    Have you not?
  - scubbo 1y ago
    I did. Didn't you?
    - IncreasePosts 1y ago
      I did. Did 99% of the population of earth do the same thing?
rhubarbtree 1y ago
Too right, this is why I have switched to green hydrogen for my household heating. Sure, for now I’ve had to jerry-rig a hydrogen storage tank in my back yard and I’m piping the stuff over the roof, but I’m sure the govt will catch up soon. I’ve converted my car to run on renewable wood pellets, stop moaning start fixing. It’s all about individual choice, the oil companies are simply responding to demand. My next step is to build a railway through our local high street so I can decarbonise my commute. Take responsibility for your own actions, stop expecting governments to do everything for you. The oil companies aren’t the problem, you are.
- derriz 1y ago
  Why hydrogen? It has an extremely potent greenhouse effect and is obviously the leakiest of gases - the leakage alone could make it more environmentally damaging than actually burning natural gas. And have you seen how hydrogen burns or how easy it is to trigger an explosion? I wouldn’t live anywhere near a “jerry rigged” hydrogen storage facility.
  - gpderetta 1y ago
    I think the parent was extremely sarcastic.
    - derriz 1y ago
      Doh!
- abenga 1y ago
  Yes, the people are to blame. The only way this changes is if governments that believe it is an issue to be fixed are elected and actually work to attempt to fix the problem. Do you get the sense that such governments are gaining ground politically anywhere in the first world?
- TomasBM 1y ago
  Sounds like real-life Factorio.
noduerme 1y ago
Meanwhile, the average lifespan in the UK has shot from 46 years in 1900, when the primary heating and power source was coal, to 81 years now. It's easy to forget how much worse things were before.
- autoexec 1y ago
  I wonder what Sweden was doing differently > Take for example this distribution of age at death in Sweden in 1900. You will see, that in 1900, life expectancy was 52 years. However, the median age at death (the age above and below 50% of the population die respectively) is 63 years. Although the life expectancy is only 52 years, an individual has thus a chance of 50% to live past 63 years. Thus, if you went across a Swedish graveyard from 1900 (I'm not sure if the data relates to people born in 1900, or mortality data from 1900, but this is not the point of my comment), you would see that more than half reached an age past 60 years. (https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/zzy2bh/no_average_human_life_expectancy_in_the_past_was/j2yfhes/ https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/zzy2bh/no_avera...)
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    UK industrialisation started earlier, is my guess. Crowding and horrible working and living conditions. Swedish cities were horrible too but smaller.
- nine_k 1y ago
  This is right. The discovery of antibiotics and many other medical advances somehow influenced this, too, though.
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    General social welfare (housing, food, public health), basic sanitation, food and water quality regulation, and a few very early vaccines had far more to do with this. Antibiotics weren't widespread until after WWII, as were most of the vaccines we currently consider standard. Medicine as a whole is an astounding example of diminishing returns to innovation.
Frieren 1y ago
>so none of the users of those oil, who paid for it willingly, had any responsibility at all then? - Ecologists and native-right defenders being killed in many countries. - Politicians being paid off by corporations to fight against wind and solar energy. - Newspapers paid to mislead the public. But you blame the guys that cannot make ends meet and buys the only thing that they can afford. Stop blaming the victims. This is something that needs to be solved at the state level, blaming citizens for the crimes of oil producers is false, morally wrong and unproductive. To blame others than the oil producing companies that bribe politicians and lie to the public is just a stalling tactic to continue destroying the world while most people is actually trying to stop that destruction.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  Instead of blaming oil users, you think the producers should restrict the supply to them, forcing them to reduce or stop their use? But you just said they cannot make ends meet - will they die if they can't afford or aren't allowed oil? How can oil producers do anything at all about climate change besides producing less oil?

MrBuddyCasino 1y ago

[flagged]

defrost 1y ago
https://www.britishmuseum.org/learn/schools/ages-7-11/ancient-egypt/timeline-ancient-egypt https://www.britishmuseum.org/learn/schools/ages-7-11/ancien...

SapporoChris 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown An absurd satirical play. Due to extreme water shortages, private toilets are unthinkable, public toilets are managed by a corporation. Yes, it's pay to pee...

alt227 1y ago

> we did this to ourselves I would argue that a small minority of the human race did this to the rest. > the lack of foresight Everybody on the planet is well aware of what is happening and why. Its not lack of foresight, it is pure ignorance and apathy of those who are making money off the backs of these tragedies.

anon191928 1y ago
[flagged]
IAmBroom 1y ago
> > we did this to ourselves > I would argue that a small minority of the human race did this to the rest Yes, just the people that use fossil fuels to drive, heat their homes, power their electrical lines, and so forth. /s You can't dodge responsibility by pushing the blame upwards on everything. Are you posting these comments from a computer powered by solar panels?
- scubbo 1y ago
  No, the people who made it so that there was no way for humans to enjoy those reasonable comforts without contributing to pollution. > Are you posting these comments from a computer powered by solar panels? That's precisely the point. It shouldn't be individual responsibility to improve our infrastructure (though, in point of fact, I actually _am_ posting using solar power). A good society is one in which everyone _is_ using solar power _without realizing it_, because those responsible for providing power to society do so responsibly.
  - ajmurmann 1y ago
    I am not sure about you, but me and many other commenters here, live in Democracies and in places where capitalism offers choice. Yet, most people weren't voting for the green parties. Oversized vehicles are very popular. Even people who voice their concerns about climate change have complained to me about gas prices. When I tell people they should celebrate high gas prices I get treated like I am insane. We've been voting literally and with our wallets for the status quo. The vast majority of citizens is not without blame.

HPsquared 1y ago

Flushing a toilet will always be cheap. Desalination costs somewhere around $1 per tonne of water.

mr_toad 1y ago
You could flush a toilet with salt water, the problem is you’d have to pump it all the way from the sea. That’s the expensive part.
- verzali 1y ago
  All of England is pretty close to the sea though. But you'd need to build a separate set of pipes to carry all the salt water.

Kenji 1y ago

[dead]

BrtByte 1y ago

Future generations are going to look back and wonder how we let it get this bad while patting ourselves on the back for recycling plastic bottles