There’s just too much going on for any one person to understand it all. Never mind accounting for the geopolitical, economic, and cultural factors of every situation. Than there’s the rapidly changing contexts. New technology, new science and physics, new species of bacteria/fungai. Rediscovering of ancient practices. Regional problems and solutions. I could go on and on.
I advocate for “futuristic solutions” but I acknowledge that transition will not be overnight or always linear.
So what is going on out there? That’s what I’m asking c/climate@slrpnk
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What’s going on in your local region / etc and what is the political or economic context.
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Which solutions are being implemented or developed
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Who is organizing and leading their community towards solutions
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As a Canadian I’m aware that we’re expanding our LNG/Fracking, mineral mining, and oil… First Nations groups are providing some pushback against those projects, but we can’t expect them to hold the line on ecological protection (There’s a clear fiscal incentive for them to give in).
https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/top-10-reasons-to-say-no-to-lng-in-b-c/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/leaders-french-debate-indigenous-pipelines-1.7513421
Canada also has and ongoing protest to stop old growth forest logging, which has gotten out of control. I honestly don’t know what to think about our forest management, because I’m under the impression that logging can be done in an environmentally friendly way; but it isn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Creek_old-growth_logging_protests
Canada also has a lot of old hydro-electric dams which are bad for the rivers and their immediate environment. https://www.ucs.org/resources/environmental-impacts-hydroelectric-power
I’m hopeful Canada’s growing role as a global commodity supplier will allow us to set higher international environmental standards.
I’ve also read online that there are already climate refugees from both rising oceans and regional droughts upending agriculture in the middle east.
https://www.climate-refugees.org/why
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/from-bad-to-worse-climate-migration-in-middle-east
The big picture:
What we need to do
- Generate all electricity without burning stuff
- convert things that currently burn stuff to run on electricity
- stop doing the things we can’t electrify
- substitute a few industrial gases
How we are doing
- we know how to do the electric generation, with wind, solar, storage, and a bit of geothermal and nuclear
- we aren’t making that switch fast enough, and the US in particular now has policies to slow things down even more
- weve figured out how to do transport and steel making without fossil fuels and it works
- same as above, not moving fast enough in much of the world
- emissions are increasing more slowly than they would have without the effort, but we are ona trajectory which makes loss of major ecosystems quite likely and threatens the viability of agriculture as a basis for civilization
stop doing the things we can’t electrify
Or eliminate the problem in the first place. For instance walkable cities reducing transportation demand overall.
substitute a few industrial gases
What and why?
steel making without fossil fuels and it works
This is interesting! Can you please elaborate or provide a link? Where is it being adopted?
emissions are increasing more slowly than they would have without the effort, but we are ona trajectory which makes loss of major ecosystems quite likely and threatens the viability of agriculture as a basis for civilization
This is where I’m coming from. Outdoor agriculture is both harming the planet and about to become significantly less viable as the planet heats up.
As far as industrial gases, there mostly ones with fluorine in them. SF₆ and refrigerant are the biggies.
For steel, the big one that exists at pilot scale is the use of hydrogen to reduce ore instead of carbon. Seems to work OK and makes a good enough product for most use.
Indoor farming only really is viable for specialty crops like drugs and a few vegetables. I dont expect to see it used for the grains that feed most of the population. The room to lower the amount of agriculture comes from reducing meat consumption and the use of food crops as motor vehicle fuel.
technical readiness level for hydrogen production is lacking. adoption is slowed down by chicken egg problem (steam methane reforming vs pyrolysis/electrolysis)
but yeah. I sign your points.
pilot scale is the use of hydrogen to reduce ore instead of carbon
Ooh it’s being done in Canada! https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/arcelormittal-dofasco-decarbonization-update-1.7309360
Indoor farming only really is viable for specialty crops like drugs and a few vegetables.
Yes and no. I garden. Hydroponically grown produce in my experience is higher quality, has long shelf life, and grows significantly faster. While cash crop commercial scaling may not be viable outside select crops, smaller household grows certainly are.
I fully agree though that mitigating livestock cultivation and biofuels are our biggest opportunities at present.
Without addressing anything you have put here (sorry), I think this addresses the big picture:
“Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
While I don’t disagree with that quote it’s not what I’m looking for. Philosophical economic theory is talked about ad nauseum on literally every other community.
I posted on c/climate because I want to hear specific cases and incidents from a scientific and ecological perspective.
Tell me what you know is going on locally, nationally, internationally. I could list 10 or so things from the USA but I’m not from there so I’ll let locals chime in.
That wasn’t a philosophical economic theory. It was a very concise assessment of the conclusion drawn of tens of thousands of papers in the ecology and related fields. It is correct and succint. The Stockholm Centre’s Planetary Boundaries framework is a little more detailed if that is what you are looking for.
I get that it’s not what you wanted. But I find your request convoluted. Are you really trying to crowdsource a list of local environmental activities from a little used sub on a little used platform? You think these fractured and limited insights will help you understand the “Big Picture”? Big pictures don’t come from microscopes.
Perhaps rethink your wants and reformulate the request to something more coherent.
It’s not what I was looking for but at least it was a positive contribution. Unlike this comment of yours.
No, seriously. I have no idea what you are asking for.
And yet you inserted yourself into the conversation anyways.
Asking for clarification? Are you just a bad faith poster picking fights?
That’s some projection mate.
