The Antarctic used to have a giant ozone hole. In the late 1960’s, Lake Erie was dead from pollution. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted it caught fire. Rain was so acidic that statues in cities were dissolving.
Read history instead of following social media hype. Despite Trump turning back the clock a few years, the environment has improved dramatically over the past 50 years.
Those examples you mention are pretty insignificant compared to the global warming crisis we are experiencing now. Reading history won’t really help, because we have never faced what we have faced now in human history: manmade global warming in an industrialised, highly specialised society.
50 years ago most waterways in the US were so polluted as to be dead to wildlife. Cities buildings were black with pollution.
Global warming is actually minor compared to the immediate death people were facing decades ago. For example unchecked ozone depletion could have resulted in the destruction of all rice crops on Earth. An analogy that comes to mind is the Black Plague vs Covid. It’s not that Covid wasn’t (isn’t) a problem. And like Covid we are deploying modern technology to fix the problems. Solar is being installed everywhere. The US is going backwards temporarily. But the US isn’t the world. Europe and China are getting things done.
People who see the problems are the absolutely not the ones who should be killing themselves. They’re the only ones that can contribute to the future.
Difference is that, those problems had relatively easier solution which was being worked on. This does not hold for global warming, we are not even trying!
Honestly, it’s pathetic that you try to look at things rose-tinted. Is it that hard to accept imminent crisis?
Difference is that, those problems had relatively easier solution which was being worked on.
It required global cooperation to ban CFC’s and restore the ozone layer. It required destroying large corporations so the the rivers could be clean again. These things were done and can continue to be done.
This does not hold for global warming, we are not even trying!
Absolutely not true. 1.08 terawatts of power are solar in China. 1.6Terrawatts in US. 107.6 GW in Germany. France has always been Nuclear. Massive EV adoption in China and Europe.
it’s pathetic that you try to look at things rose-tinted
I grew up in the 1970’s when you couldn’t swim or fish in the rivers. The city was filthy, and not in today’s sanitized “oh there’s some trash”. Every surface in the city was covered in black grime. Moths in cities evolved into black variations because cities weren’t white concrete- they were black grime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
Climate change isn’t the same as cleaning up litter? It’s on a global scale of gigatons of emissions, involving every industrialized nation all interacting together with the environment.
This is bigger than anything in human history. Stop fucking comparing it to cleaning up some fucking tires in a river.
Lake Erie was dead from pollution. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted it caught fire.
I misunderstood the examples given, I figured they were filled with trash, looking it up I see trash was only part of the problem.
But that doesn’t actually change my point! Cleaning up toxic waste at a single lake or river site isn’t the same as cleaning the atmosphere of the entire fucking planet. It’s absurd to put these on the same scale as climate change.
We don’t even have the technology to clean the atmosphere on a human timescale, and it might not even be possible.
I already mentioned CFC’s which required global cooperation on a scale never seen before.
CFCs were only emitted from a few specific industries and could be eliminated with existing alternatives, and they weren’t the basis for the entire economy. CFCs are also not present in the atmosphere for very long and they decay very quickly, and were only present at a little over 1 part per billion. They’re already falling because eliminating them was easy.
We’re at 415 parts per million in CO2 concentrations. That’s orders of magnitude in difference, and the carbon that is already present will take multiple human lifetimes to be removed via natural means. And it’s still getting worse.
CFCs were baby shit compared to this crisis of civilization.
Cleaning up toxic waste at a single lake or river site
It wasn’t a single river and single lake. It was everywhere. There wasn’t a clean river, large lake or bay in the US. The examples I gave were only the most publicized.
The air in all cities, everywhere, was so polluted the moths evolved to be black.
We’re at 415 parts per million in CO2 concentrations. That’s orders of magnitude in difference, and the carbon that is already present will take multiple human lifetimes to be removed via natural means.
Unchecked CFC’s would have resulted in the sterilization of the entire planet. In the 1970’s pollution was at a level where all life was destroyed in many local ecologies. It wasn’t “It’s too hot here so native species died out and were replaced with desert species.” It was complete annihilation of all life in the area.
Global warming means a few billion die. It’s an extremely serious problem but we are improving.
I grew up next to the Cuyahoga in the '70s and I don’t think people today could even begin to understand how nasty it really was. Old tires everywhere, rusting steel barrels full of god knows what, and a thick oily scum over any part of it that wasn’t moving. Factories along the edge had big drainage pipes that just emptied directly into the river (one of these factories made Oasis foam, that green shit florists stick flowers into). The real shocker was not that the river caught fire from time to time, but that it wasn’t on fire all the time.
This is a local observance and an expression of your privilege. That trashed environment didn’t disappear or get rectified, the pollution and heavily polluting industries necessary to support our lifestyles were offshored and exported to poor countries.
What makes now a million times worse than the 70s is the immense global destruction of habitat that had only started gaining serious momentum in the 70s.
Your premise is that it’s going to get a lot worse. But the past 50 years has been improving. It’s therefore reasonable to believe we will keep improving.
Also the past 50 years has not been all improvement, the global warming crisis has steadily grown worse to name the most obvious. The economic crisis following the results of that global warming is also just going to get worse. This will lead to more political crises as politics will get steadily radicalised and authoritarian.
The Antarctic used to have a giant ozone hole. In the late 1960’s, Lake Erie was dead from pollution. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted it caught fire. Rain was so acidic that statues in cities were dissolving.
Read history instead of following social media hype. Despite Trump turning back the clock a few years, the environment has improved dramatically over the past 50 years.
Those examples you mention are pretty insignificant compared to the global warming crisis we are experiencing now. Reading history won’t really help, because we have never faced what we have faced now in human history: manmade global warming in an industrialised, highly specialised society.
50 years ago most waterways in the US were so polluted as to be dead to wildlife. Cities buildings were black with pollution.
Global warming is actually minor compared to the immediate death people were facing decades ago. For example unchecked ozone depletion could have resulted in the destruction of all rice crops on Earth. An analogy that comes to mind is the Black Plague vs Covid. It’s not that Covid wasn’t (isn’t) a problem. And like Covid we are deploying modern technology to fix the problems. Solar is being installed everywhere. The US is going backwards temporarily. But the US isn’t the world. Europe and China are getting things done.
People who see the problems are the absolutely not the ones who should be killing themselves. They’re the only ones that can contribute to the future.
Difference is that, those problems had relatively easier solution which was being worked on. This does not hold for global warming, we are not even trying!
Honestly, it’s pathetic that you try to look at things rose-tinted. Is it that hard to accept imminent crisis?
It required global cooperation to ban CFC’s and restore the ozone layer. It required destroying large corporations so the the rivers could be clean again. These things were done and can continue to be done.
Absolutely not true. 1.08 terawatts of power are solar in China. 1.6Terrawatts in US. 107.6 GW in Germany. France has always been Nuclear. Massive EV adoption in China and Europe.
I grew up in the 1970’s when you couldn’t swim or fish in the rivers. The city was filthy, and not in today’s sanitized “oh there’s some trash”. Every surface in the city was covered in black grime. Moths in cities evolved into black variations because cities weren’t white concrete- they were black grime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
Statues were crumbling from acid rain.
The world is so much cleaner than 50 years ago.
This is what has been done recently:
Past improvements don’t mean we need to stop!
Climate change isn’t the same as cleaning up litter? It’s on a global scale of gigatons of emissions, involving every industrialized nation all interacting together with the environment.
This is bigger than anything in human history. Stop fucking comparing it to cleaning up some fucking tires in a river.
I didn’t mention cleaning up litter at all! In fact I specifically said it wasn’t.
I already mentioned CFC’s which required global cooperation on a scale never seen before.
Everything is bigger than anying human history because we have more people.
WHAT THE FUCK? QUOTE ME.
I misunderstood the examples given, I figured they were filled with trash, looking it up I see trash was only part of the problem.
But that doesn’t actually change my point! Cleaning up toxic waste at a single lake or river site isn’t the same as cleaning the atmosphere of the entire fucking planet. It’s absurd to put these on the same scale as climate change.
We don’t even have the technology to clean the atmosphere on a human timescale, and it might not even be possible.
CFCs were only emitted from a few specific industries and could be eliminated with existing alternatives, and they weren’t the basis for the entire economy. CFCs are also not present in the atmosphere for very long and they decay very quickly, and were only present at a little over 1 part per billion. They’re already falling because eliminating them was easy.
We’re at 415 parts per million in CO2 concentrations. That’s orders of magnitude in difference, and the carbon that is already present will take multiple human lifetimes to be removed via natural means. And it’s still getting worse.
CFCs were baby shit compared to this crisis of civilization.
EDIT Oh I forgot, wanna know something funny? Those CFC alternatives we’re using actually contribute to climate change.
That also means we have more enemies, and at the moment those enemies are controlling the US government.
It wasn’t a single river and single lake. It was everywhere. There wasn’t a clean river, large lake or bay in the US. The examples I gave were only the most publicized.
The air in all cities, everywhere, was so polluted the moths evolved to be black.
https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/signs-recovering-harbor#%3A~%3Atext=In+the+1970s%2C+43+communities%2Cof+Shame”+in+the+1980s!
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/baltimores-swimmable-harbor-movement#%3A~%3Atext=Until+the+1970s%2C+inland+industries%2Cfilter+and+refresh+the+water.
https://www.californiasun.co/photos-when-l-a-smog-was-so-bad-people-suspected-a-gas-attack/
Unchecked CFC’s would have resulted in the sterilization of the entire planet. In the 1970’s pollution was at a level where all life was destroyed in many local ecologies. It wasn’t “It’s too hot here so native species died out and were replaced with desert species.” It was complete annihilation of all life in the area.
Global warming means a few billion die. It’s an extremely serious problem but we are improving.
https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-greenhouse-gas-estimates-for-2024/
I grew up next to the Cuyahoga in the '70s and I don’t think people today could even begin to understand how nasty it really was. Old tires everywhere, rusting steel barrels full of god knows what, and a thick oily scum over any part of it that wasn’t moving. Factories along the edge had big drainage pipes that just emptied directly into the river (one of these factories made Oasis foam, that green shit florists stick flowers into). The real shocker was not that the river caught fire from time to time, but that it wasn’t on fire all the time.
This is a local observance and an expression of your privilege. That trashed environment didn’t disappear or get rectified, the pollution and heavily polluting industries necessary to support our lifestyles were offshored and exported to poor countries.
What makes now a million times worse than the 70s is the immense global destruction of habitat that had only started gaining serious momentum in the 70s.
Here’s another local observance: you’re a pompous windbag.
Fine. Until relatively recently, like before mass industrialization.
Your premise is that it’s going to get a lot worse. But the past 50 years has been improving. It’s therefore reasonable to believe we will keep improving.
That is silly logic.
Also the past 50 years has not been all improvement, the global warming crisis has steadily grown worse to name the most obvious. The economic crisis following the results of that global warming is also just going to get worse. This will lead to more political crises as politics will get steadily radicalised and authoritarian.