houseofleft

I think that's a really good point to be fair. Would be interested to see what it was on a consumption basis - like other people are pointing out, the lifestyle of the ultra rich is definitely pretty carbon intensive.

I think there's a lot of focus on minimizing individual's impact, and don't get me wrong, that's a great thing to do, but it puts burden and guilt on people for things that are out of their control

If your government (wherever you are) held fossil fuel companies and the agro-industrial complex to account and encouraged investment in renewables, public transport and ground sourced heating, you would be living a low impact lifestyle just by going to work, buying your groceries and living normally.

If you have the money to invest in solar panels, EVs etc, that's fantastic, but don't feel guilt for not being priviledged!

The most impactful thing you can do is put pressure on your government to recognise the impact we're having on our ecology. Sign petitions, write to your representative, fund and/or join activist groups.

Importantly, try not to feel shamed, as an individual you didn't cause the situation (unless maybe you are a fossil fuel lobbyist, or oilcompany CEO) - go easy on yourself and just do what you can.

Thanks for such a detailed response! I'm planning on mainly using it for smallish trips, say heading into my local town. I've recently move to being just outside walking distance but it's very short distance to drive for.

I also live around a lot of woods and it'd be good to be able to ride on a dirt path now and then.

From what I can see a 'hybrid' sounds like it'd be a good fit?

Thanks! Relieved it sounds easy enough to figure out

This is the dumbest bet you can make and more or less the definition of lose/lose- if we fail to move off greenhouse gasses, what kind of mad max style future are you hoping to be rich in?

By the power invested in me by, well, nobody whatsoever, can I just take a minute to say, let's all cool down a little in the comments!

There's a lot of arguing against:

• The idea that acknowledging the tragic reality of climate change makes you defeatist
• The idea that because we have had some great advantages in green tech we can sit back and let climate change fix itself

I don't see anyone making those arguments here though! Just lots of people concerned about climate change with different skews of how positive/negative we should feel.

Personally, I swing between powerful optimism and waking in terror at 3:00am for the future we're hurtling towards. I'm sure other people are the same, so let's just be friendly to the fact that other people are in different vibes to us.

There are some people working together very well right now to dismantle the climate, so let's all remember that when we're talking with each other.

Peace and love!

A lot of the comments here are, pretty fairly, sceptical of whether this is a viable idea.

My question is, what's the advantage meant to be over just having an electrical railway and seperately some solar panels plugged into the grid? Especially since the article mentions the solar railway would be grid connected?

Very cool! There's a lot of inertia towards moving off of oil, but the more I read, the more convinced I am that there really aren't many technical limitations at all to a less destructivist future. It's just oil companies and politicians who won't take them on hilding us back.

Does anyone have link to some more information on the science of why this is happening?

The article references a bunch of causes, like deforestation, ocean poisening affecting the ocean carbon pump, extreme heat etc. Are there any studies/data that try to break down where the impact comes from?

Gonna skirt right round the serious discussion about oil company based misinformation here and point out that his suit is an extreme act of terror on the seeing.

It doesn't split, but I'd guess 99.9% of those online meets are dating apps (rather than other ways of meeting online).

That's kind of sad, not because there's any one way people should meet, but because meeting people is now mostly mediated through for profit companies.

How much CO2 does AI use compared to other industries? I know it's a horrific use compared to all other software, but have no idea how it factors in global carbon emmissions?

Also, just to be clear, I'm genuinely curious and not defending burning huge amounts of carbon for profit if the AI sector is comparatively small. That kind of backwards "but it just a small amount of everything else" logic would be a great way to accelerate our already too fast death spiral.