The World Is Not Ending
August 13, 2023 11:58 AM Subscribe
In “The World Is Not Ending,” [2:21:28, CW] video philosopher Sophie from Mars discusses what is to be done and her recent attempts at growing culinary mushrooms at home.
What really resonated me with me in this was when she was talking about Communities of Care, and building systems to resist capitalism and share resources and supporting each other, even while we're currently oppressed by capitalism, and how that's a powerful revolutionary act on its own.
I'm going to be thinking about that for a while, and how (if?) I can make that a part of what I'm doing.
posted by aurynn at 5:06 PM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm going to be thinking about that for a while, and how (if?) I can make that a part of what I'm doing.
posted by aurynn at 5:06 PM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
At work and can't watch the video right now, but I will check it out later. I feel kind of bad for making a post this long when I haven't watched the linked video yet but it's a subject I really care about. I've made it a personal hobbyhorse to remind people of the (inadequate, but) SIGNIFICANT progress we've made in decarbonizing the world economy.
I have been extremely heartened by massive climate investment the US has made the last two years. People may recall reports that the Inflation Reduction Act would achieve over 40% of the emissions reduction needed to meet our Paris goals - that wasn't BS political spin! It was accurate, and the legislation is actually performing even better than expected, taking more carbon out of the future atmosphere than expected.
We're far closer to achieving our Paris benchmarks than most people realize - granted, the US meeting its goals is only a small part of the accords succeeding, but we are on the verge of a huge achievement.
Emissions are still rising globally, yes. (They've been falling in the US for almost 20 years - I wonder how common that knowledge is?) But if you'll excuse a little extended analogy, with some undergrad-level math thrown in - do people remember during the Great Recession, when economic news would try to find a silver lining in the "first derivative" of our economy's freefall slowing? The economy was still getting worse, but it was getting worse at a slower and slower pace - which was, of course, a mandatory step on the way from getting worse to getting better. (The "second derivative" improving would be a slowing of the rate that the rate of change is getting worse, and once you are looking for that silver lining you should probably stop looking for silver linings.)
Well, the first derivative of global emissions has been falling for the last twenty years, at a fairly decent (though as of yet, inadequate) pace. In the 2000s, emissions rose about 30%; in the 2010s, they rose about 6%; in the 2020s they are expected to increase by less than 3%. We are doing this, just not as quickly as we need to be. (The worst case scenarios in "An Inconvenient Truth" [one of the most important movies of all time] assumed that emissions growth continued uninterrupted - that means we have already avoided the worst outcomes!)
(Side note, derivatives are cool and everybody should try to learn at least a little bit of the calculus. A lot of stuff in the world makes more sense with some understanding of it.)
Why is it important to recognize these achievements? I can understand the concern that it might make people lose their sense of urgency. But if people think that everything we've done, in terms of developing alternative fuel sources and improving the efficiency of our transportation and manufacturing, has barely done anything to address the problem, then of course they will consider the problem to be so massive that it is politically impossible to solve. Balderdash. There's no need for a radical reshaping of our society (well, maybe there is, but not to address climate, anyway). Keep Republicans out of office, keep pressure up on the Democrats and we will get through this.
And remember that some doomsday switch doesn't get flipped at 2C or 2.5C. Every extra hundredth of a degree makes the problem logarithmically bigger, but it's unlikely to grow too large for the mind-bogglingly insane (and, IMO, underappreciated) productive capacity of the modern world to handle - although we will suffer some major (and often deadly) economic setbacks. Even in +3C worlds, we will still have a civilization of several billion people. Continuity will not be broken. Many more generations of our descendants will remember Charlemagne and Shakespeare and George Washington and LeBron James. There will be places human beings call "The United States" and "China" and "Europe" for the indefinite future.
The impending "end of the world" is such a common (ubiquitous? constant?) theme in human thought throughout all of history that it's hard to regard it as anything but a psychological coping mechanism for knowledge of one's own death. There is some part of our subconscious that cannot imagine the world continuing without us, and thus suspects everybody else is going to die with us.
posted by mellow seas at 8:27 AM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I have been extremely heartened by massive climate investment the US has made the last two years. People may recall reports that the Inflation Reduction Act would achieve over 40% of the emissions reduction needed to meet our Paris goals - that wasn't BS political spin! It was accurate, and the legislation is actually performing even better than expected, taking more carbon out of the future atmosphere than expected.
We're far closer to achieving our Paris benchmarks than most people realize - granted, the US meeting its goals is only a small part of the accords succeeding, but we are on the verge of a huge achievement.
Emissions are still rising globally, yes. (They've been falling in the US for almost 20 years - I wonder how common that knowledge is?) But if you'll excuse a little extended analogy, with some undergrad-level math thrown in - do people remember during the Great Recession, when economic news would try to find a silver lining in the "first derivative" of our economy's freefall slowing? The economy was still getting worse, but it was getting worse at a slower and slower pace - which was, of course, a mandatory step on the way from getting worse to getting better. (The "second derivative" improving would be a slowing of the rate that the rate of change is getting worse, and once you are looking for that silver lining you should probably stop looking for silver linings.)
Well, the first derivative of global emissions has been falling for the last twenty years, at a fairly decent (though as of yet, inadequate) pace. In the 2000s, emissions rose about 30%; in the 2010s, they rose about 6%; in the 2020s they are expected to increase by less than 3%. We are doing this, just not as quickly as we need to be. (The worst case scenarios in "An Inconvenient Truth" [one of the most important movies of all time] assumed that emissions growth continued uninterrupted - that means we have already avoided the worst outcomes!)
(Side note, derivatives are cool and everybody should try to learn at least a little bit of the calculus. A lot of stuff in the world makes more sense with some understanding of it.)
Why is it important to recognize these achievements? I can understand the concern that it might make people lose their sense of urgency. But if people think that everything we've done, in terms of developing alternative fuel sources and improving the efficiency of our transportation and manufacturing, has barely done anything to address the problem, then of course they will consider the problem to be so massive that it is politically impossible to solve. Balderdash. There's no need for a radical reshaping of our society (well, maybe there is, but not to address climate, anyway). Keep Republicans out of office, keep pressure up on the Democrats and we will get through this.
And remember that some doomsday switch doesn't get flipped at 2C or 2.5C. Every extra hundredth of a degree makes the problem logarithmically bigger, but it's unlikely to grow too large for the mind-bogglingly insane (and, IMO, underappreciated) productive capacity of the modern world to handle - although we will suffer some major (and often deadly) economic setbacks. Even in +3C worlds, we will still have a civilization of several billion people. Continuity will not be broken. Many more generations of our descendants will remember Charlemagne and Shakespeare and George Washington and LeBron James. There will be places human beings call "The United States" and "China" and "Europe" for the indefinite future.
The impending "end of the world" is such a common (ubiquitous? constant?) theme in human thought throughout all of history that it's hard to regard it as anything but a psychological coping mechanism for knowledge of one's own death. There is some part of our subconscious that cannot imagine the world continuing without us, and thus suspects everybody else is going to die with us.
posted by mellow seas at 8:27 AM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
What's the deal with young gender non-conforming people putting out so much dynamite philosophical and critical theory content? I don't know, but I'm all here for it. So glad to be introduced to her!
posted by treepour at 7:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by treepour at 7:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting this. I watched the whole thing
It was rough, it was good, it was tough. Ultimately, though, there was too much "reading from other's books" and not enough definition of terms.
posted by rebent at 5:16 AM on August 16, 2023
It was rough, it was good, it was tough. Ultimately, though, there was too much "reading from other's books" and not enough definition of terms.
posted by rebent at 5:16 AM on August 16, 2023
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