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from the calling-for-compulsary-education-by-skipping-education dept.
Across the world Friday, students skipped class to protest their governments failure to take sufficient measures to curb climate change.
It all started with 16 year old Greta Thunberg of Sweden:
who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year. Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, fueled by dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change during the students' lifetime.
Thunberg has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize for her efforts.
The protestors are calling for a list of anti-climate change actions and solutions including:
Our Demands
- Green New Deal
- A halt in any and all fossil fuel infrastructure projects
- All decisions made by the government be based on the best-available and most-current scientific research.
- Declaring a National Emergency on Climate Change
- Compulsory comprehensive education on climate change and its impacts throughout grades K-8
- Preserving our public lands and wildlife
- Keeping our water supply clean
Our Solutions
- The extraction of Greenhouse Gases from the atmosphere
- Emission standards and benchmarks
- Changing the agriculture industry
- Using renewable energy and building renewable energy infrastructure
- Stopping the unsustainable and dangerous process of fracking
- Stop mountaintop removal/mining
In a speech Friday outside the United Nations HQ in New York, Alexandria Villasenor, one of the founders of Youth Climate Strike U.S. said:
world leaders weren't listening. "Our world leaders are the ones acting like children," she said. "They are the ones having tantrums, arguing with each other and refusing to take responsibility for their actions while the planet burns."
At one of these planned protests a year or two back, permission forms were sent home in advance so kids could get parental permission to participate in skipping school and protesting. Kids who didn't participate were taunted and harassed by the other kids.
How does your school treat such events?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:59PM (21 children)
Because that's the problem, right? The US, for a glaring example, used to have an awful pollution problem in 1950s and 1960s. But it got fixed, because of those adults who supposedly don't give a fuck about the planet. Hopefully, some day you'll see that just saying something doesn't make it real. A real thing is the vast improvement in the human condition since the beginning of the Industrial Age, including pollution. An imaginary thing is the idea that certain vague parties are holding us back with their bad attitudes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 16 2019, @05:44PM (17 children)
It got "fixed" mostly by outsourcing it to the third world, shithead. And, this may surprise you, but up in the atmosphere there aren't any national borders, and things like osmosis and the jet stream don't respect those anyway. We no more "fixed" the problem than a child who shoves all her laundry and toys under her bed has "cleaned" her room.
The one major example of something we DID fix, the CFC issue, was brought to awareness this way as well. Why, oh why, do I have a feeling that if you'd been around and politically active in the 80s you'd be spouting the same shit about people trying to get the Montreal Protocol passed?
And to top it all off, you have the utter, concentrated, Pyrex-corroding *gall* to accuse THEM of selfishness, inaction, naivete, and ignorance. Go to Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:40PM (14 children)
Ah, yes. There's that irrelevant talking point. It remains true that pollution was vastly reduced in the developed world despite what the peanut gallery says. And as more of the world achieves developed world status, contrary to the narrative, the places that heavily pollute will continue to decline.
While it doesn't take much courage to oppose the minor evils of the world, truth is still an absolute defense against your accusations.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:54PM (13 children)
You're beyond redemption. It was outsourcing that pollution to the underdeveloped world that made the developed world less polluted. That was mainly in the form of manufacturing. Where will the developing world outsource ITS manufacturing pollution to to become developed, huh? How do you propose to make the entire world "developed?" The places which continue to pollute are doing it at the behest of other places, "developed" places, which are cynically taking advantage of their lax pollution and workers' rights laws to get the goods without the consequences. Which, as we are seeing, doesn't work. And yet you blame them. You may as well have blamed the slaves in the 19th century for getting captured.
Truth would be a defense against my accusations, *If you had the truth.* You do not, and so you stand not only accused, not only a liar, but perhaps incapable of telling truth from falsehood any longer. Irredeemable. And I will continue to point this out in excruciating detail for anyone who has the misfortune to stumble across your self-serving horseshit on this forum.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:57PM (12 children)
Your coin is worthless! I do what I feel is right. Not what will get me ahead in some imaginary karma piggy bank.
[...]
There's been a remarkable global trend towards greater wealth, lower fertility, better health, lower pollution, etc throughout the world. These don't all happen at the same time and same rate, but every part of the world is seeing these improvements. When there's no more places for pollution to be "exported to" because everyone has become developed world? Then there's no more of that pollution. It's pretty simple.
Their lax pollution and worker's rights laws happen because they are poor not because of some exploitation which actually makes the situation better. Being "exploited" by a multinational business means that one is tapping indirectly into the wealth of the developed world and more quickly improving one's circumstances than being "exploited" by the local, poorer businesses. That in turn means that the society is more rapidly approaching the time when they too can have good pollution and workers' rights laws among other things.
Funny how you have zero evidence for your blathering. I'll continue to point that out for the hapless reader as well.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 17 2019, @05:36AM (11 children)
You're, again, irredeemable. You're another self-serving thoughtless hack who thinks the way to end poverty is to keep overstuffing the already gluttonous, crapulent rich so that maybe, maybe, MAYBE, a few more table scraps will fall to the ground for the poor to fight over, conveniently ignoring the fact that the rich simply build larger tables, as it were, when this happens. You are deliberately ignoring what is being said to you and simply restating the very talking points that have already been debunked.
We get it, "my coin is worthless" and "you do what you feel is right." Thanks for at least admitting that "muh feelz" is the start, end, and middle of your epistemology. I mean it's not like that wasn't already completely obvious, but thanks for saying it explicitly anyway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:14AM (10 children)
The very definition of moral bankruptcy. You continue to spend and I continue to not care.
The pattern of unfounded accusations continue. Worthless.
When the "debunking" is nonsense, then there really isn't anything else to do.
The difference between us is that I thought about it. My feelings line up with my rationality. That's why you have so much trouble with morality beyond the reach of your arms. You're just an animal who happens to know how to type. I think you can do better, but the real challenge is for you to think to be and do better.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:39AM (9 children)
You may have actually outdone Uzzard for the All-Soylentil Projection Championships with that one. You are fooling no one but yourself; just because you've managed to convince yourself that you're correct doesn't mean you are. In any insane asylum there are people who believe as fervently as you do, and they are equally deluded. You haven't lined your feelings up with your rationality; you've *justified them to yourself* using your own self-serving bullshit.
I cannot imagine being that self-absorbed, that selfish, that utterly self-involved. Your mind must be like a black hole. I leave you with a warning: the saying "hell is other people" is 100% completely antipodally wrong, and you are going to find out all too soon why this is so.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:53AM (8 children)
And yet, there you are. You went through the effort of constructing this imaginary khallow straw man. It wasn't for our benefit. Did you even bother to read a word I wrote?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:51PM (7 children)
What strawman? It's your own words. Anyone who reads your posts and peruses your post history will come to the same conclusion. This place is infested with human Klein bottles and you're one of the type specimens.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 18 2019, @05:27PM (6 children)
You didn't quote me even once. It's not my own words.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday March 18 2019, @09:35PM (5 children)
Your own words are what are condemning you. I don't need to quote you, because this is a text forum and people can read your bullshit the first time. Why would I waste the space? Keep it up, jackoff.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 19 2019, @12:28AM (4 children)
Then there's not much going on.
Meanwhile I quote you so those same people know which bit of bullshit I happen to be referring to.
Argue rationally and on topic. Present a more convincing argument. Even make it so that the reader doesn't even need to read the "bullshit" the first time, if they so choose.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 19 2019, @12:40AM (3 children)
You're an endless fountain of masturbatory bullshit. No one is going to out-argue you, because you've decided ahead of time that they won't. I'm not engaging with you for your sake, you worthless sack of crap; I'm doing it, as has been stated many times before, for the sake of anyone unfortunate enough to stumble across your corrosive idiocy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 19 2019, @05:14AM (2 children)
Well, remember you weren't trying, and apparently never have tried. So how would you know?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 19 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)
Oh, is *that* what you tell yourself? My God, you really are a living, breathing (your own jenkem), walking Klein bottle.
The upside to your permanent case of rectocranial inversion is that, like the others on this site who suffer from it, you don't comprehend the amount of damage you do to yourself just by posting. Really, nothing I say or do damages you more than you do; I'm just running a highlight reel, basically.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday March 20 2019, @01:07PM
Let's look at that post again.
You're just making a bunch of noise because the reader somehow will be impressed by that. That's what you said, not what I'm telling myself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:42PM
Recycling is mostly a sham. We are swimming in a sea of plastic one use containers. Then pretend we are recycling by putting them in the green bin. I saw this years ago and people would get very angry at me for pointing it out. I was not 'environmentally conscious' for pointing out we ship our garbage to china and africa.
What I used to buy my coca cola in
https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_9de8872b-bd33-4793-b6eb-f58de3d3e90a?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg [scene7.com]
What I buy my coca cola in now.
https://previews.123rf.com/images/kornienko/kornienko1512/kornienko151200005/51774341-chisinau-moldova-november-12-2015-photo-of-coca-cola-plastic-bottle-isolated-on-white-background-coc.jpg [123rf.com]
I picked that example because they are the ones who funded that campaign in the 60-70s with the crying italian actor dressed as an indian. We are manipulated at a vast scale. The advertising agencies can control what we think. They do not even really mean to do it. They just want to make a buck. Coca cola did it because their bottle reuse program cost a fortune. By getting us to pick up the trash they can save billions. We just get to pay for it with pollution.
trying to get the Montreal Protocol passed
Calm down you are creating a hallucination and then attacking it. It is easy to get worked up. We have no idea how that person would have acted. Even if getting rid of that stuff helped us quite nicely.
I was in high school. To call these kids naive or anything is silly. There were a few nutters in the crowd that were really into it. The vast majority saw these things as skip days. Hopped in their cars and hit the malls. We want to pretend as we get older that somehow these kids are stupid or whatever we make up. But they are just people like us. They have the same motivations (mostly selfish). For a kid in school a basically sanctioned skip day they are going to be all over that. I know me and my friends would have. You may think I am a terrible person because of that. It may be true. But it is true what I say wither you like it or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:16AM
It got fixed By catylitic converters and increased combustion efficiency, also hydroelectric and nuclear power and scrubbers on coal plants. Now we switched largely to natural gas power. There's some wind power, in areas too. We are not using less power.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 16 2019, @09:29PM (2 children)
Some don't give a fuck, but I'd say the more serious problem is that sense of helplessness and futility, and the lack of good options. What can one person do? There's a lot that can't be be changed quickly.
I switched to compact fluorescent lighting, and now to LED lighting. I went for low power computers, first going for the 80plus power supplies, and setting them to sleep and hibernate (and fighting the problems of PCs having buggy hibernate functions that were not tested under Linux). I pushed the family to accept higher indoor temperatures in the summer and lower ones in the winter. There was lots of whining and pushback about that. However, it worked. I cut my parent's annual energy usage from 10,000 kWh to 5200 kWh.
I've thought of getting solar for the roof, but I don't feel comfortable with the numbers. A 30 year payback is just too long. A solar water heater is a great idea, but I have found none at a reasonable price anywhere within 1000 miles of where I live. I hear solar water heating is real common in Israel, and California of course has that sort of stuff. But here? One business was asking $15k to convert a home. That's just crazy, when I can buy a new water tank for under $500, and 20 years worth of energy for heating water for $5000.
Commute to work by bicycle, in America? Likely to get your ass run over if you try that. Seriously, the transportation system in America is majorly hostile to all forms of transport other than the almighty car. Biking lanes and sidewalks have gaps. Biking takes longer, and everyone is always in such a big hurry. And you'd arrive at work all sweaty and stinky. Maybe you could do grocery or pizza runs by bicycle? It's bad enough trying to dodge cars while riding an unencumbered bike. Try that while carrying a load of groceries. There are even hostile drivers who think bicycles shouldn't be allowed on streets and they will purposely run you off. When I was a kid, an old lady who must've been going senile did that to my brother. Would have seriously injured or perhaps killed him if he had not jumped the curb and leapt off his bike. She yelled at him through her opened window to get out of the way and stay off the streets, as if she hadn't attempted vehicular assault and the whole incident was his fault. Those sorts of considerations are what makes it so tough to quit the car.
Many times I have tried to walk only to be thwarted by a bridge that has no room at all for pedestrians. One bridge I walked had a shoulder, but no curb, and damned if a senile old fart didn't nearly take me out by accident. You know, the kind of old man driver who can't take a corner very well any more, misjudges his speed and goes way too fast, and not only crosses inside the white line on the inside of the curve, but even gets 2 of his wheels completely off the pavement and into the dirt, and just keeps right on motoring ahead, oblivious. He almost scraped the side of his car on the bridge railing as I was approaching on foot. Since that incident, I've gotten a lot more picky about the sort of bridge I'll attempt on foot. And that, by the way, was in Austin, Texas, a city which has a reputation of being a teensy bit more environmental. Feels like we have little choice but to wait for baby boomers and their deeply ingrained car habits to die off.
Attitudes about cars are especially exasperating. Okay, fine, for now it's impractical to eschew the car. However, we could at least have better cars, starting with much, much better aerodynamics. But you can't even get people to let go the oversized front grill opening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @12:06AM
Where I live, every now and then, there is a campaign to promote changing heaters or HVAC systems to more efficient ones... but fixing the insulation, installing heat exchangers for air and water... those have way less campaigns, sometimes zero (exchangers? what is that?). When the proper thing is to fix the insulation first, and any new houses be built with best insulation possible, best general orientation (not possible in cities, but fine in single houses) and other things that cost zero like selecting window size based in Sun.
But you probably know why: because those measures could mean a house that has even less consumption. Same about longer lasting things or small gardens for self consumption. Economy, or better said "must grow at all costs market" is between the sword and a hard place. After the automation factor, it gets even worse. If you don't push the crap of your field (let's say toys), you don't eat or get clothes, and the neighbour will lose the job too later when you can't buy his crap (say shirts). Death hug.
BTW, last LED light we are getting here fail worse than crappy CFLs of years past, and those were already worse than first CFLs. Price is similar, but we are buying them faster, so more money... and more waste. Last batch even stopped liying about duration, down from 40000 to 15000 hours, but diying in two years (always on would be less than 18000h). Last CFLs I remember were marked as 10000, and lasted around that. The circuits and general soldering of LEDs are crappier (one lamp flicks for first 10-30 secs when cold), and the designs seem to be infradimensioned for heat output and uncapable of limiting current once one part fails, when with LEDs those factors are key (one I opened had chips with black dots). And no, I am not imagining it, I started marking lamps when transitioning to CFLs, so I know when they were installed and can estimate daily usage.
Some cars of the 80s had aerodynamics (Cx) as good as current, and they were smaller too (Cx per surface), making them better. The 90s or 00s had worse Cx, and the size has gone up, so they are worse in general. Past week I saw a modern 5 door (hatchback) VW Polo [wikipedia.org]... as I don't follow cars much I thought it was a Golf, because it was as big as 90s ones [wikipedia.org] (it looked bigger, probably optical effect, they are becoming "visually heavier" as time passes, and until recently, also "fatter in kg"). The front grill was small, mostly closed, some European brands just use colors to fake the size.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:38AM
If this were in the US, you'd be speaking of somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 per year, which includes cost of resources and human labor, but probably not all of the externality of the power. Even in a place like Germany which supposedly has factored in those externalities , it's still $1000-1500 per year. That's just not much return on a considerable imposition.
If there was nothing more important than the conservation of physical resources, then human extinction would be a reasonable strategy. No humans to consume resources is optimal after all.
But since we don't want that, we have to consume resources in order to survive and to do the things we want to do. It turns the easy problem into a hard one.
And one thing to remember about optimization is that one can only optimize so far. For example:
Much, much better aerodynamics isn't much better than the present aerodynamics. Even perfect aerodynamics will experience wheel friction loss and similar things.
I find it telling, for example, that Ford and GM are planning to abandon all vehicles subject to CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy). The economics of mandating very high levels of fuel efficiency are backfiring in this ending of significant parts of the US economy.
Another example is from the AC replier to your post:
But if you're look for larger vehicles, because you want or need one, then it's no longer better to get a small vehicle. Larger vehicles haul more stuff, are more comfortable, and do better in crashes, for example. "Better" is relative.
My view is that extreme conservation of resources is misguided. We don't use resources merely because we want to waste resources or we hate Gaia. It's because we do things that are more valuable than those resources which are consumed. Even modest impositions can be more costly than they're worth. Getting a car that doesn't do what the driver needs it to do is an even bigger waste of resources.