We've all just got to do our part! : memes

[–] ilikecats@iusearchlinux.fyi 286 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

That's a standard problem with ecology. I can't use a plastic straw which has negligible impact but fishing industry can dump 640,000 tonnes of plastic every year and that's fine. Let's just ignore that.

You go on holiday once a year with the efficient normal flight - bad guy. Ritch person uses private jet for no good reason - that's normal. Let's ignore those emissions and create special rules for the airlines so they don't have to worry about it too much.

Private jets pollution doubled during one year and it's probably the worst way to travel for the environment but I hope you have spent your life savings for a slightly better car to compensate that. We can't inconvenience ritch people, right?

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 146 points 8 months ago (7 children)

It is this way because the rich people control everything. They won't lift a finger to change if they think they can scam 10,000,000 people into lives of utter inconvencience and guilt to "offset" their own pollution. Hint; every one of us could live in caves and recycle our everything with stillsuits and the rich's portion would just expand to fill the voids we left. This isn't a game with a high score. The hands of the many must join as one to cross the river of life.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 84 points 8 months ago (9 children)

I have a plan. Bear with me here. Requires only a cursory understanding of basic construction and late 18th century French revolutionary methods.

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm a woodworker by trade! Would my skills be of any use in this endeavor?

[–] MrVilliam@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A woodworker who actively dislikes the hypocritical and predatory exploitation of lower class people and who is willing to do his part to save us? Are you Jesus?

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[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 9 points 8 months ago

I didn't think the wood part is the problem. The big metal bit is a real head scratcher.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago

Why not have fun a make a YouTube video of a Rube Goldberg machine that ends with a recreation of Itchy and Scratchy scene.

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[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

It's why all carbon should be a currency distributed to all people like an UBI. Let's say sustainable amount of CO2 emissions is 8 billion ton and there are 8 billion people, so everybody gets 1 ton per year. You want to pull oil it if the ground, pay in CO2 coin and ask the buyer to pay in turn. Rich guy wants to fly a private jet, they pay the oil producer. Not enough coin, buy with dollars from someone poor that drives a bike and has excess CO2 coins.

It seems fair to me. Everybody is equal, it keeps the market intact while keeping capitalism within sustainable emissions and distributes some wealth.

Of course no rich guy or oil producer is going to accept that, at least not until some people figuratively start building the wooden platform and sharpen the blade to a razor edge.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The environment does not take markets into account and it never will. This consumption will never be sustainable. Our entire ecosystem did not evolve with capitalism or industrial needs in mind. There will be a point where we cannot extract anymore resources without every system collapsing. You can't tie all your resources up into consumer products and military industrial complexes without major drawbacks to everything else. And we will always need more in this current system, and there is never a point where more is enough. You'll never hear "okay, everyone has a smartphone, shut the factory down."

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[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

How to make Carbon Taxes even more worthless.

Make it so the poorest homeless Junkie can make $5 to sell his "Carbon". Drive the price of Carbon down to nothing because rich people can always make you more desperate.

How about we don't involve the system that is actively destroying the planet - into the system meant to save it.

[–] psivchaz@reddthat.com 7 points 8 months ago

It's not entirely unlike my plan: No more externalities. That's the big problem with the environment and with a bunch of other things. Economists call it an "externality" when the things you're doing have side effects that you don't have to account for, such as pollution.

The thing is, we let industry and capital get away with it for a long time. And there's no doubt that fixing it would also impact people. If the cost of properly disposing of a tire was built into the price of the tire, it would be passed along to customers. But it's the only way to rehabilitate ANY system that uses currency.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The hands of the many must join as one to cross the river

Nature, nurture, heaven and home

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[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yeah let's not do anything because something else is worse.

In just the U.S. alone, one estimate suggests 500 million straws are used every single day. One study published earlier this year estimated as many as 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the world's beaches. In the U.K., at least 4.4 billion straws are estimated to be thrown away annually.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Imagine all of those straws in a single pile. 3000 tons of straws.

Now imagine a pile 200 times larger. That's what the fishing industry is doing.

We're moving sand piles while they're building pyramids.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The fishing industry is a fucking eldritch abomination. It puts everything else to shame. Fun fact, we kill roughly a hundred billion land animals for food every year across the world. But if you want an estimate on how many animals we kill total, you can just ignore that entirely because the answer is around 1 to 3 trillion fish, depending on how you estimate it.

[–] Azteh@lemmy.world 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

That means an average U.S. citizen uses 1,46 straws a day. What the fuck are you guys doing? Compare that to the U.K. where it's 0,18 by your own numbers.

[–] Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 12 points 8 months ago

We use them as single shot spit ball launchers. It’s common to settle disputes lining up like a napoleonic army and blasting at each other. We need gun violence, but don’t always want someone to die.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm going to guess fast food is a large portion of that here in the US. Idk how other countries serve fast food, but here every "meal" comes with a drink, and that drink not only has a plastic straw but also a plastic lid the straw goes into.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

After opening the plastic container with my pancakes in it, I open three individually plastic wrapped teaspoons of butter and one plastic tub of high fructose corn syrup to pour onto them. I begin eating with my plastic knife and fork, before getting thirsty and reaching for my plastic cup with a plastic lid. I throw the plastic straw that they gave me away, and pull out my trusty stainless steel straw. I am saving the environment one breakfast at a time.

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[–] ilikecats@iusearchlinux.fyi 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing. You're wasting time and money and not solving any problem in the process.

You also have a nice distraction while the actual source of the problem is getting worse.

UK has banned plastic straws in 2020 and guess what. Nothing has changed. We're still drowning in plastic. UK doesn't dump plastic waste in the ocean so the straws you see on the beaches aren't from here anyway. Never were. No problem was solved

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Private jets is a very small part of airplane pollution and four people travelling in a Chevy Suburban with a big V8 actually use less fuel per km per passenger than the big passenger airplanes use per km per passenger. That's not even taking non CO2 pollution into consideration.

People in general rely on airplanes way too much, may it be for personal travel or to get shit shipped to them ASAP, it's not just a rich people issue.

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

That's part of why we need viable rail travel in the US.

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[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 89 points 8 months ago

The solution is obviously another coup in Guatemala to reduce their power usage

[–] ExfilBravo@lemmy.world 42 points 8 months ago

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 36 points 8 months ago (4 children)

the vast majority of pollution is created by the richest people in the world.

99% of the planet could produce zero pollution for the rest of our lives and it wouldn't even make a dent in the amount of pollution created by the billionaire class.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is just not true, unless you're counting manufacturing as part of the pollution from the billionaires. We consume the products produced in those factories, so we're not free from that blame.

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[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Take a look at the Cargill family, 14 billionaires. From the wiki about the current CEO:

In 2019, former U.S. Congressman Henry A. Waxman, in a report by Mighty Earth, called Cargill "the worst company in the world" and noted that it drives "the most important problems facing our world" (deforestation, pollution, climate change, exploitation) "at a scale that dwarfs their closest competitors."

Do you think that is because they use every cent to burn coal and oil in their backyard, or

do you think it is because they produce and sell products to consumers which can not be produced without harm to the environment?

99% of the planet could produce zero pollution for the rest of our lives and it wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount of pollution created by the billionaire class.

How do you think they would create that damage to the environment if nobody would buy their products?

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[–] DarthFrodo@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'd be very interested in the source for this...

America’s richest 10% are responsible for 40% of its planet-heating pollution

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/17/business/rich-americans-climate-footprint-emissions/index.html

The emissions of the middle class are also a huge problem and will have to drop to 0 as well.

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[–] ULS@lemmy.ml 33 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Marketing is everyone's common enemy.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 14 points 8 months ago

With a cheap crappy product and a high ratio spent on marketing you can successfully sell absolute garbage to a large number of people and still turn a calculated profit. That shouldn't be possible. Taxation on advertising should be high enough to crush businesses that are almost exclusively marketing machines (I'm looking at you sugar drink industry).

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In the end we are just gonna have to eat these billionaires wont we

[–] xenoclast@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I'd be happy if they were just dead. The real question is how do effectively wipe out their wealth..

We don't need to take it. Just make it not exist. I've been thinking about this a bunch lately.

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[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please delete this, this is not a meme, this is real life.

:,(

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

For real. I thought I was in NotTheOnion.

[–] kromem@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

I mean, there are good uses as well. Just as an example:

Providing helpful information: People are looking for information to reduce their environmental footprint. Fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps uses AI to suggest routes that have fewer hills, less traffic, and constant speeds with the same or similar ETA. Since launching in October 2021, fuel-efficient routing is estimated to have helped prevent more than 2.4 million metric tons of CO2e emissions — the equivalent of taking approximately 500,000 fuel-based cars off the road for a year.

Predicting climate-related events: Floods are the most common natural disaster, causing thousands of fatalities and disrupting the lives of millions every year. Since 2018, Google Research has been working on our flood forecasting initiative, which uses advanced AI and geospatial analysis to provide real-time flooding information so communities and individuals can prepare for and respond to riverine floods. Our Flood Hub platform is available to more than 80 countries, providing forecasts up to seven days in advance for 460 million people.

Optimizing climate action: Contrails — the thin, white lines you sometimes see behind airplanes — have a surprisingly large impact on our climate. The 2022 IPCC report noted that contrail clouds account for roughly 35% of aviation's global warming impact — which is over half the impact of the world’s jet fuel. Google Research teamed up with American Airlines and Breakthrough Energy to bring together huge amounts of data — like satellite imagery, weather and flight path data — and used AI to develop contrail forecast maps to test if pilots can choose routes that avoid creating contrails. After these test flights, we found that the pilots reduced contrails by 54%.

https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/report-ai-sustainability-google-cop28/

Even something like household phantom power currently uses more energy than AI at data centers.

I'm all for putting pressure on corporate climate impact and finally putting to rest the propaganda of personal responsibility dreamt up by lobbyists, but I don't know that 'AI' is the right Boogeyman here.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

AI isn't the boogeyman, the corpos using it for dumb shit is.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 9 points 8 months ago

Exactly: replace AI with "crypto mining" or any other waste of processing power in this paragraph and it is just as relevant...

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I agree with your overall sentiment, but I personally find googles fuel savings optimistic and/or flat out misleading. "Hey, you could turn off your usual route here and get there in a similar time.... Or you could stay on your usual route and save 2% on gas" seems to be a very frequent occurrence for me.

I also don't think that needs AI. The pathfinding algorithm just needs to apply different weights to the choices based on things like changes in elevation, number of stop signs, total distance, etc. Navigation systems from yester-year could do this well before the prevalence of AI. That said, AI can be used to develop and/or tune these algorithms instead of having a dedicated team of humans focused on this specific area.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 8 months ago

So fucked. I can't even make a sarcastic joke (I tried) about how fucked we are.

[–] DeathbringerThoctar@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago

I'm laughing because if I don't I'll cry

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 15 points 8 months ago

Original link for posterity: https://mastodon.social/@jimray/112133920866875045

[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wait... Wait... Is this just idiocracy? Like... We all joke, but now we have computers that will automatically lay off workers like in the movie?

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 22 points 8 months ago

Nah its actually dumber than they predicted: the manager asks the computer what to do today and the computer tells the manager to lay people off.

[–] Safipok@lemmy.ml 11 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I upvoted, but is c/Memes just Lemmy general now?

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[–] set_secret@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

these two things aren't mutually exclusive, your can play your part and eat billionaires.

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