I had pretty much this same thought just the other day. It’s so disheartening how oil companies and other industries managed to delay any significant changes that might have prevented this.
still delaying, gaslighting, distracting and greenwashing. i wonder how they find people who are okay with doing this. that’s some super villain level evil right there
Mitch McConnell has entered the chat
Republicans.
I wish there was something the average person could do to force the change, but most of the world has people so desperate to work for and consume from the very industries killing the planet so we can eat and shelter ourselves, that change is nearly impossible.
So instead, I’m not having kids (also too broke for this anyhow), and consume as little as possible by buying things used, sell/donate things I don’t use etc. I may not be able to change the system, but I can refuse participating as much as possible!
I’m sure the thought of the people who are okay with it is “the major effects will be after I’m dead and in the here and now I’m rich”
People insisting on flying halfway across the world for fun every year and on buying crap quality clothes that get thrown out after wearing them five times also doesn’t help.
Screw capitalism etc etc but let’s not forget that to a certain degree everyone is voting with their wallet. It’s neither people’s fault, nor corporations, nor politicians. It’s all of the above.
I acknowledge I’m still a small part of the problem. Without abstaining from meat and oil products, I still contribute a small portion to the greenhouse gas problem that my child will have to deal with. Is it on the level of megacorps and millionaire and billionaire classes? No, but I’m not at a net zero yet.
Removed by mod
With a plastic lid…
I know, hence the quote on my profile:
“It’s not the end of the world but you can see it from here.”We’re doomed to die a horrible death by asphyxiation aren’t we
Don’t forget all the disease, starvation, exposure, and once in a millennia weather events. Those will be equally big hitters.
Is this a shop or are the fortune cookie people becoming uncomfortably honest?
Yes
So like… what actually should one be doing to prepare for this kind of stuff? Is the average emergency prep kit good enough or are there other things that can/should be done? (short of fully relocating because in this economy that’s not possible either)
You should vote for candidates who support sudden drastic changes to climate policy at every level of government.
Depends on local hazards. Here in Western Europe the main worries are rising sea levels, floods, water scarcity, and hot weather.
… So basically don’t live too close to sea level (or hope the government will get real good at building dykes), become a homeowner and insulate as much as you can. At that point heat pumps and a solar setup should be enough to take the load off extreme weather events even if the economy goes to shit.
If you can’t own your own home… well there’s little you can do besides hope that rent remains affordable and that maybe sometime down the road enough people die that landlords are legally forced to insulate their properties (here in the EU some countries already freeze rent for badly insulated properties, but that was basically a reaction to the fear of freezing to death due to gas shortages…).
For other weather hazards like wildfires, tornadoes, and hurricanes… IDFK. There’s some ways to protect your property, like fire breaks, tornado shelters, etc. but of course little incentive for slumlords to make an effort there either.
Just solar panels on your roof might not be enough. In my country it’s a standard practice to wire things in such a way that when grid power goes out PV panels won’t work either. Apparently ability to keep power during grid blackouts is significantly more expensive. So you might have solar setup and still be fucked during extreme weather.
Yep, it’s the law everywhere AFAIK. It’s an extremely important safety feature because if it’s missing, linemen working to fix the issue would not be able to power down the line, or worse, would disconnect it from the grid and start working on it without realizing YOUR house is still energizing it.
The inverter does that job, and it will also shut off your solar if the mains voltage is too high for instance (this prevents “solar neighborhoods” from driving the line voltage unreasonably high, and even then I’ve heard of people seeing 250V+ in their homes on really sunny days). A “funny” side-effect of that is that the most sensitive inverter in the neighborhood will always be the first one to trip, so that guy always gets shafted when solar production is at its peak.However (while I haven’t looked into detail into this yet), I believe it should be perfectly legal to have a closed system with solar panels and a heat pump, as long as they never touch the mains.
Besides, even if your power goes down when disconnected from the grid:
- That’s not exactly unavoidable. Inverters have web interfaces nowadays, so I’m pretty sure you could easily tell it “this is an off-grid installation now”. Yeah, it’s illegal, but in the extremely unlikely case for my area that I’m without power for several days (that’d be WWII levels of “oh shit” for me), I’m flipping that breaker to cut myself from the grid and jailbreaking that bitch.
- Assuming no societal collapse (which is the argument I’m really considering here, the rest is mostly fun hypotheticals), having a regular solar setup is still a huge asset because it can easily offset your A/C bill in the summer, and (part of) your heating bill in the winter. You might not live completely off-grid, but it greatly smooths out the financial aspect, and means not every hike in electricity/gas prices will be a “oh shit can I heat myself this winter?” moment.
The economy is a social construct. It can be reconstructed if we have the will. Either that or it will happen on it’s own and recreate itself with what ever is left of society. If we want to have control we need to change.
Wow it’s like perfect timing to say it in this meta but learn how to grow beans dawg. You can grow up to 2000lbs of beans per acre. Dry beans don’t lose all their nutritional value until about 5 years on the shelf. Protein dawg. Carbs dawg. Good start to the whole not dying thing should food insecurity hit your area.
I mean a bunker with replacement parts for a good sump pump ain’t such a bad idea either if you can keep the power going.
Look at it like leveling up, with a list of worse and worse events that you’re prepared for. Start small, prepare, then go one step bigger.
Ex: High winds, then lightning, then excessive heat or cold, then move to things like tornados, floods, etc. I don’t think this exercise is ever completed.
i do love inclement weather though. storms are cozy [until the power goes out]
Can only pray that nuclear fusion** becomes possible so we don’t need any oil companies anymore. And improved battery tech won’t hurt
Dummy edit
Fusion. Fusion becoming physically and commercially viable is the only thing that will save us as a species.
That being said, capitalism will ensure that it’s a long fucked up road.
it’s raining beans here
I read something the other day how people in charge are considering geoengineering- altering the atmosphere to reflect a little more sun, “significantly cooling the Earth in only a few years”. Obviously more research needs done but it’s not necessarily hopeless, the dog-fucking oil companies could continue to rape the Earth for generations to come.
literally the basis and canon for the matrix movies
Not exactly, the humans burned the atmosphere to block all sunlight to try to starve the machines of energy. It will only get that bad after we royally fuck up our attempt to only block a little bit of sunlight.
Cave party at my place!
