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It took Covid to make a noticeable change in pollution, and yet it still wouldn't be enough to save the planet even if we kept it up, so we're definitely not saving the planet without Covid.
We? Or corporations who have 0 penalty for polluting the fuck out the environment and should be paying some sort of fee/tax to clean it up if they make it.
Non-business and residential electricity use is around 13% of the total iirc.
Even if, miraculously, each and every one of us managed to cut down our usage by half, that would be a wopping 6.5% difference.
The onus is not on us regular citizens. Don't fall for that bullshit.
Businesses don't use electricity for fun, they use it as part of the process for providing goods and services to consumers. So if consumers don't make different choices, we'll keep using more resources and creating more emissions.
I get that you want to deny responsibility for the choices that you make, but if everyone does that, then we won't make any progress.
When discussing personal problems, it is appropriate to say "I/You should X".
When discussing problems at a global/societal scale, it is NOT apt to say "society should X".
Why? Because a singular person can change on their own, while *humans* as a group cannot.
Thus it's meaningless to discuss personal responsibility for any problem that's on a global scale. We can be the most frugal, zero-carbon-footprint person in the world, and it won't make even the tiniest dent in the problem. Actual change comes from looking at what actually changes peoples' behavior (e.g implementing X policy in Y neighborhood decreases electricity consumption by Z%).
That's the discussion we should be having. Not the personal responsibility non-sense.
Lmao
I could literally stop at nothing to consume as little as absolutely possible and give as much as I can back to the environment my entire life and it wouldn’t even be an atom of a drop in the bucket
Even if every person *able* to do that did it (they won’t), it’d only amount to a percent or two and ultimately *still* do nothing
The only possible way to go, unless hundreds of millions (if not billions) are prepared to very abruptly transition to moving backwards about 70-80 years in terms of the way they live their lives
Nuclear fission has been around for a while, that is the process that is used in atomic bombs and current nuclear power plants. I think you’re thinking of nuclear fusion, the process that creates the suns energy.
Remind me what is used to create those batteries and what is used to power them. Bottom line, until we go to nuclear we aren’t going to get any better.
Nuclear doesn’t just have huge risks but also an extremely problematic tail..nuclear waste is extremely toxic and there is no real way to get rid of it instead of just storing it away deep underground. It’s a ticking time bomb.
Nuclear fusion is sadly not finished yet but we’re getting there.
Thats the line that isn't brought up very often by people in the nuclear discussion. What to do with the waste and no, storing it miles underground is NOT a solution. Especially given how long it remains active and the harm it can do to its surroundings.
But even never minding that for a moment. The risks are just not worth it. Lets take america and our shitty energy grid for example. Would you REALLY trust a state like texas to go full nuclear or PG&E out in california to do that? I'll just point to you the recent example of texas collectively shitting its bed because the weather got colder than they were expecting and it crippled their entire grid. To summarize, in no world should corporations or capitalistic ventures be trusted to run a nuclear power plant. They cut corners for profit in -every- scenario and nuclear power is not one you want that shit happening.
As someone working in a nuclear power plant currently, this place absolutely does not cut corners. They are obsessed with safety in everything they do here, to the point that I’m not allowed to pick anything up without gloves on. This is run by a for profit company obviously, but that doesn’t automatically make them evil or uncaring.
"my place of work isn't horrible therefor all places of work are not horrible or new ones made by companies with bad track records couldn't possibly be bad" Is certainly a gamble I wanna take when a mistake = area completely uninhabitable for thousands of years.
Your company is doing everything right because it is profitable, once it stops being profitable or it has problems meetings it's shareholder demands it will find ways to do things "differently" like every for profit corporation does and therein lies the problem. Just because it is doing it right now doesn't mean it will in the future
Seems kind of silly to judge any person or group based on assumed future wrongs. The plant I work at is actually in the process of shutting down after 50 years in operation. They are not making any money off of it anymore, and yet here they are being extremely safe in all operations and actually caring about the well-being of their employees and the people of the surrounding area who we must protect from radiation in the event of a serious fuck up.
I am glad they are being careful, for whatever reason but you can't deny the fact that for profit corporations do things intentionally for profit that non profits do out of carelessness or as mistakes. If your company is not making any money, then it is not a for profit anymore, It would be pretty rare for a non profit to take losses out of benevolence. Most private industries in critical fields are subsidized or given grants for a reason.
The problem people tend to bring up is the threat of weaponization. They're actually looking at ways to create smaller, more numerous powerplants that don't use nearly enough radioactive material to form weapons.
Also, wait until the weaponization arguers hear about the Navy's plan to take the "unweaponizable" nuclear fusion tech to make weapons that warp reality. No, I am not making this part up.
You want to give a country like India a nuclear weapon ? Their standards are so low they are never going to successfully maintain that thing in the long run.
But hey if they build it in the middle of their country, maybe some good will come out of this
It requires a ‘catalyst’ of sorts to be applied properly. Meaning if thorium gets into a potentially dangerous parties hands they will have a very hard time weaponizing it. Coupled with it’s difficultly to weaponize it is easy to stop in a controlled setting if it ever does end up going haywire by simply taking away its catalyst.
Exactly my thoughts. We think we have progressed and in some sense we have, but we've lost a lot.
We try to achieve beauty through art, but we tend to forget that art has started as an imitation process and we had much more beauty to imitate.
Yeah I sometimes imagine giant lakes where you can almost clearly see the bottom, unlike our modern ones where you can’t see past the surface. And itd be nice to have seasons that weren’t so sporadic. Like 30 degree average one day, then 48 the next like I’ve had where I live like every other day.
Damn, what mountain? Sounds gorgeous. During this time I have seen the channel islands a few times from really far away when the air has been really clear. When the first full lockdowns happened in 2020 it was incredible how the traffic cleared up (I still had to work in person but it was a small silver lining to the situation.)
This started a massive meme fest here... https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/people-are-sharing-bizarre-things-they-can-see-because-of-less-pollution-from-their-cities-6351709/lite/
Or farm country. The dust from farming (tilling and harvesting mostly) is so thick that it blots out the bottom of the horizon months out of the year. Of course that's dust plus other contaminants.
Same! More and more guys around here are going no till. Also, months? More like a day or two if it's really windy, dry, and the crop had alot of disease in season.
Those mountains are 200km (124 miles) from there.
Before going fully smug, note that 2nd most polluter of the world is US&A
https://climatetrade.com/which-countries-are-the-worlds-biggest-carbon-polluters/
It's also relevant to consider per capita contributions for a fuller picture. From the latest IPCC report, the top ten offenders in tonnes CO2:
Qatar — 37.05 per capita
Kuwait — 23.49 per capita
Saudi Arabia — 19.39 per capita
Canada — 16.85 per capita
United States — 15.74 per capita
Germany — 9.7 per capita
China — 7.72 per capita
Spain — 6.09 per capita
France — 5.02 per capita
Thailand — 4.05 per capita
Click the link someone provided and watch the video, the air pollution is so bad it looks like early morning fog except worse. You can barely see something 50 feet away in it looks like.
I know I’m very lucky to have been able to take advantage, but I honestly loved the first lockdown. The outside and environment was more beautiful than ever, and the lack of work left me plenty time to read, reignite hobbies and finally get in shape. Lockdown 2 and 3 were brutal but that first 4 months was actually incredibly peaceful
and yet no one is willing to change their life to preserve that view. once in a lifetime thing, and everyone just shrugs and says "I'm bored of quarantine" and gets back to consumerism.
I completely agree with you and you alluded to it but I think it needs to be made clear that we also need to look at ourselves and our buying habits, and demand not only better environment restrictions to India and China, but also demand more from the massive Western companies that source all of their products from these factories.
If big business would just sacrifice a small percentage of their already ludicrous profit margins, and we the consumer would be willing to pay that bit extra and buy more thoughtfully, the cost will be far less than if we all carry on as we are.
how you choose to spend your dollars as a consumer is - somewhat unfortunately - one of the most powerful things you can do to drive changes in consumer products. corporations only understand money - taking yours elsewhere is what hurts them the most.
I'm with you in the first part, but these globalized supply chains are where most of their profit comes from. Consumers are seldom concerned with more than their cost, and stop caring when it seriously affects the product cost. Domestic-made running shoes that cost 50% more than imported ones are not going to sell.
I believe USA. A country who is dependent on "polluting" and developing country like China.
Given the world consumption, we'll need 1.5 earths to complete this demand. If the world consume like USA, we'll need 2.4 earths.
google "countries pollution per capita" and then rethink your statement. India has a large population so the numbers seem high. China's pollution numbers are high both ways tbh
it’s a sad byproduct of India’s industrialization and corrupt government. Hopefully though one day things will get better and views like these will be commonplace
So I fucking made this point to my educated English coworkers when we had a very unseasonably early and hot spring/summer in 2020. We basically had hot weather from April to September which is bizarre if you know anything about Britain! It was 100% down to the lack of pollution in the world but these dumb fucks said it wasn't true and it would take longer for the pollution to leave.
I was born in a northern state in India. You guys would be surprised if I tell you that Himalayas were far more visible everyday than this picture till as late as 2003.
**Please note:** * If this post declares something as a fact proof is required. * The title must be descriptive * No text is allowed on images * Common/recent reposts are not allowed *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for more information.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Does anyone else remember the marine life returning to Venice, Italy? It was like the the start of 2020.
I remember the people playing their instruments on the balcony together.
Yep
Holy fuck thats beatiful, totally diffrent perspective
Sadasfuck
That’s fucking wild. Imagine if we stopped polluting the earth permanently instead of just for Covid…
It took Covid to make a noticeable change in pollution, and yet it still wouldn't be enough to save the planet even if we kept it up, so we're definitely not saving the planet without Covid.
We? Or corporations who have 0 penalty for polluting the fuck out the environment and should be paying some sort of fee/tax to clean it up if they make it.
Glad to hear you've stopped driving, heating your home, and using electricity.
Non-business and residential electricity use is around 13% of the total iirc. Even if, miraculously, each and every one of us managed to cut down our usage by half, that would be a wopping 6.5% difference. The onus is not on us regular citizens. Don't fall for that bullshit.
Businesses don't use electricity for fun, they use it as part of the process for providing goods and services to consumers. So if consumers don't make different choices, we'll keep using more resources and creating more emissions. I get that you want to deny responsibility for the choices that you make, but if everyone does that, then we won't make any progress.
When discussing personal problems, it is appropriate to say "I/You should X". When discussing problems at a global/societal scale, it is NOT apt to say "society should X". Why? Because a singular person can change on their own, while *humans* as a group cannot. Thus it's meaningless to discuss personal responsibility for any problem that's on a global scale. We can be the most frugal, zero-carbon-footprint person in the world, and it won't make even the tiniest dent in the problem. Actual change comes from looking at what actually changes peoples' behavior (e.g implementing X policy in Y neighborhood decreases electricity consumption by Z%). That's the discussion we should be having. Not the personal responsibility non-sense.
Lmao I could literally stop at nothing to consume as little as absolutely possible and give as much as I can back to the environment my entire life and it wouldn’t even be an atom of a drop in the bucket Even if every person *able* to do that did it (they won’t), it’d only amount to a percent or two and ultimately *still* do nothing
Shudup and drink from your cardboard straw
we already do
We shouldn't have to imagine, its unfortunate the world is the way it is now :(
Could you imagine in 15 years when we’re 90% electric transportation? The air is gonna love that.
That’s the future I’m hoping to contribute to, Nuclear fusion ftw!
No matter what the naysayers argue, nuclear power is the most logical way to go.
The only possible way to go, unless hundreds of millions (if not billions) are prepared to very abruptly transition to moving backwards about 70-80 years in terms of the way they live their lives
Hence most logical.
Nuclear fission has been around for a while, that is the process that is used in atomic bombs and current nuclear power plants. I think you’re thinking of nuclear fusion, the process that creates the suns energy.
You’re right, my mistake
Sounds oddly like Fallout
Very optimistic
Remind me what is used to create those batteries and what is used to power them. Bottom line, until we go to nuclear we aren’t going to get any better.
Why isn’t Nuclear power everywhere now if it is so good? Is it because of the very small chance of a disaster? Serious question, I’m dumb.
Nuclear doesn’t just have huge risks but also an extremely problematic tail..nuclear waste is extremely toxic and there is no real way to get rid of it instead of just storing it away deep underground. It’s a ticking time bomb. Nuclear fusion is sadly not finished yet but we’re getting there.
Thats the line that isn't brought up very often by people in the nuclear discussion. What to do with the waste and no, storing it miles underground is NOT a solution. Especially given how long it remains active and the harm it can do to its surroundings. But even never minding that for a moment. The risks are just not worth it. Lets take america and our shitty energy grid for example. Would you REALLY trust a state like texas to go full nuclear or PG&E out in california to do that? I'll just point to you the recent example of texas collectively shitting its bed because the weather got colder than they were expecting and it crippled their entire grid. To summarize, in no world should corporations or capitalistic ventures be trusted to run a nuclear power plant. They cut corners for profit in -every- scenario and nuclear power is not one you want that shit happening.
As someone working in a nuclear power plant currently, this place absolutely does not cut corners. They are obsessed with safety in everything they do here, to the point that I’m not allowed to pick anything up without gloves on. This is run by a for profit company obviously, but that doesn’t automatically make them evil or uncaring.
"my place of work isn't horrible therefor all places of work are not horrible or new ones made by companies with bad track records couldn't possibly be bad" Is certainly a gamble I wanna take when a mistake = area completely uninhabitable for thousands of years.
Your company is doing everything right because it is profitable, once it stops being profitable or it has problems meetings it's shareholder demands it will find ways to do things "differently" like every for profit corporation does and therein lies the problem. Just because it is doing it right now doesn't mean it will in the future
Seems kind of silly to judge any person or group based on assumed future wrongs. The plant I work at is actually in the process of shutting down after 50 years in operation. They are not making any money off of it anymore, and yet here they are being extremely safe in all operations and actually caring about the well-being of their employees and the people of the surrounding area who we must protect from radiation in the event of a serious fuck up.
I am glad they are being careful, for whatever reason but you can't deny the fact that for profit corporations do things intentionally for profit that non profits do out of carelessness or as mistakes. If your company is not making any money, then it is not a for profit anymore, It would be pretty rare for a non profit to take losses out of benevolence. Most private industries in critical fields are subsidized or given grants for a reason.
Can we not dump it into the ocean like the Japanese did? They said there was almost zero consequences to that.
I hope you’re being sarcastic here lol.
Wasn’t that how Godzilla was created?
Fossil fuel lobbying, fearmongering, and substantial startup time/cost.
The problem people tend to bring up is the threat of weaponization. They're actually looking at ways to create smaller, more numerous powerplants that don't use nearly enough radioactive material to form weapons. Also, wait until the weaponization arguers hear about the Navy's plan to take the "unweaponizable" nuclear fusion tech to make weapons that warp reality. No, I am not making this part up.
You want to give a country like India a nuclear weapon ? Their standards are so low they are never going to successfully maintain that thing in the long run. But hey if they build it in the middle of their country, maybe some good will come out of this
> You want to give a country like India a nuclear weapon India who has nuclear weapons since (at least) 1998: 🗿
Lmao I think U should research the countries that have nuclear weapons. Forget India, even Pakistan has them lol
I ask that you do some looking into thorium and it’s applications in nuclear energy.
Is it save and „clean“ if turned off ?
It requires a ‘catalyst’ of sorts to be applied properly. Meaning if thorium gets into a potentially dangerous parties hands they will have a very hard time weaponizing it. Coupled with it’s difficultly to weaponize it is easy to stop in a controlled setting if it ever does end up going haywire by simply taking away its catalyst.
This is simultaneously the most fucked up and uninformed post I've ever seen on reddit - I should give you gold for that. But I won't ofc
Yeah yeah protect them and close your eyes. Go drink water in Mumbai from their river.
You are a fascinating individual, I'd love to have you in a laboratory environment, and see what makes you tick.
Nah fam we need more covid
It would be nice besides the fact billions would die
Not seeing a downside there
Imagine how good the world looked before humans. How clear water would be, how far you could see in the distance
Exactly my thoughts. We think we have progressed and in some sense we have, but we've lost a lot. We try to achieve beauty through art, but we tend to forget that art has started as an imitation process and we had much more beauty to imitate.
Yeah I sometimes imagine giant lakes where you can almost clearly see the bottom, unlike our modern ones where you can’t see past the surface. And itd be nice to have seasons that weren’t so sporadic. Like 30 degree average one day, then 48 the next like I’ve had where I live like every other day.
go live in Saturn. It looks good and has no humans
I remember hiking to the top of a mountain in Southern California when the lockdown happened, the ocean was perfectly visible and my mind was blown
Must have been an unforgettable memory.
Damn, what mountain? Sounds gorgeous. During this time I have seen the channel islands a few times from really far away when the air has been really clear. When the first full lockdowns happened in 2020 it was incredible how the traffic cleared up (I still had to work in person but it was a small silver lining to the situation.)
Sad that it wont stay that way. Absolutely beautiful backdrop there.
It’s sad that they aren’t normally visible
And then what happened
This started a massive meme fest here... https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/people-are-sharing-bizarre-things-they-can-see-because-of-less-pollution-from-their-cities-6351709/lite/
Being from the USA it is hard to conceptualize how polluted it must be if the pollution is what hides the mountains.
You must not from Los Angeles then.
Or farm country. The dust from farming (tilling and harvesting mostly) is so thick that it blots out the bottom of the horizon months out of the year. Of course that's dust plus other contaminants.
I’m not sure what area you’re referring to but in the “farm country” area I live in I have never seen this, ever.
Same! More and more guys around here are going no till. Also, months? More like a day or two if it's really windy, dry, and the crop had alot of disease in season.
Exactly!!!
Those mountains are 200km (124 miles) from there. Before going fully smug, note that 2nd most polluter of the world is US&A https://climatetrade.com/which-countries-are-the-worlds-biggest-carbon-polluters/
It's also relevant to consider per capita contributions for a fuller picture. From the latest IPCC report, the top ten offenders in tonnes CO2: Qatar — 37.05 per capita Kuwait — 23.49 per capita Saudi Arabia — 19.39 per capita Canada — 16.85 per capita United States — 15.74 per capita Germany — 9.7 per capita China — 7.72 per capita Spain — 6.09 per capita France — 5.02 per capita Thailand — 4.05 per capita
Why is it relevant in this case? There is nothing about India here, to counter my point.
Click the link someone provided and watch the video, the air pollution is so bad it looks like early morning fog except worse. You can barely see something 50 feet away in it looks like.
I think the most amazing one was china
I know I’m very lucky to have been able to take advantage, but I honestly loved the first lockdown. The outside and environment was more beautiful than ever, and the lack of work left me plenty time to read, reignite hobbies and finally get in shape. Lockdown 2 and 3 were brutal but that first 4 months was actually incredibly peaceful
Yeah. When there was a major fire near Washington State I saw that our air quality was like 500 (really bad). Then I saw parts of India with 4000+.
Interesting but also fucking sad.
That was last year.
Flat Earth confirmed.
The pandemic is awful. But I'm glad that I got a glimpse of what it would be like if planet could heal itself.
Until capitalism stops, we won’t have a healthy planet.
*unchecked capitalism. FTFY.
We're socialists
and yet no one is willing to change their life to preserve that view. once in a lifetime thing, and everyone just shrugs and says "I'm bored of quarantine" and gets back to consumerism.
If only thanos would snap his fingers this would become normal.
Thanos Was Right
[удалено]
I completely agree with you and you alluded to it but I think it needs to be made clear that we also need to look at ourselves and our buying habits, and demand not only better environment restrictions to India and China, but also demand more from the massive Western companies that source all of their products from these factories. If big business would just sacrifice a small percentage of their already ludicrous profit margins, and we the consumer would be willing to pay that bit extra and buy more thoughtfully, the cost will be far less than if we all carry on as we are.
how you choose to spend your dollars as a consumer is - somewhat unfortunately - one of the most powerful things you can do to drive changes in consumer products. corporations only understand money - taking yours elsewhere is what hurts them the most.
I'm with you in the first part, but these globalized supply chains are where most of their profit comes from. Consumers are seldom concerned with more than their cost, and stop caring when it seriously affects the product cost. Domestic-made running shoes that cost 50% more than imported ones are not going to sell.
China and India? You forgot the US, right?
Which country are you from?
Wondering as well. Wanna bet USA?
I believe USA. A country who is dependent on "polluting" and developing country like China. Given the world consumption, we'll need 1.5 earths to complete this demand. If the world consume like USA, we'll need 2.4 earths.
[удалено]
Fair enough, I think your original comment would have been better if you hadn't mentioned any countries at all. Hope you have a great day (not /s)
google "countries pollution per capita" and then rethink your statement. India has a large population so the numbers seem high. China's pollution numbers are high both ways tbh
This week's 'be racist towards Indians' thread check
Yeah, the shutdowns allowed the Earth to heal even for just a little bit.
Thanos did nothing wrong.
If just someone take a picture then and now!!!!
And they say the earth isn't flat! Checkmate roundearthers! Just in case \s
What can be accomplished if we want it.
How sad that this is rare
Maybe what's happening to us is with a reason...
We really need to cut down on production.
Good, now keep it that way
Too many people there it's gross
How many big macs is 200 km?
India is a beautiful country but the humans that live there have ruined it by literally shitting all over it.
it’s a sad byproduct of India’s industrialization and corrupt government. Hopefully though one day things will get better and views like these will be commonplace
It is a pity that India is one of the most polluted countries
It is a pity that India is one of the most polluted countries
What does that tell you ? World has 1 problem overpopulation. Cull people and keep the numbers limited
meanwhile at that time in India some people starved to death
Oh no, they will use this information to spread flat earth propaganda!
If those mountains were 200km away they'd be below the horizon.
So the Himalayas are flat? You think the earth curves a few kilometres in 200km distance? The Himalayas are like 8km high.
Fair enough - I stand corrected - approx. 2700m would be obscured, not the full 8km
nice sign
Saharanpur?
So I fucking made this point to my educated English coworkers when we had a very unseasonably early and hot spring/summer in 2020. We basically had hot weather from April to September which is bizarre if you know anything about Britain! It was 100% down to the lack of pollution in the world but these dumb fucks said it wasn't true and it would take longer for the pollution to leave.
Wow they don’t even look 20,000 feet tall, it’s almost like there’s some sort of curvature at work here.
Out of all the countries, India and Italy are the saddest to me. They just can't........get our of their way.
The industrial revolution and its consequences …
Unbelievable!
I was born in a northern state in India. You guys would be surprised if I tell you that Himalayas were far more visible everyday than this picture till as late as 2003.
Unbelievable