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‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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World is too busy deciding whether to kill minorities or tax the rich an extra few percent to make any progress on this.
We desperately need a socialist revolution.
No we don't.
What we really need is people to stop fantasizing about spherical revolutions in frictionless societies and do the boring, unfun, hard things that actually make a difference.
It requires people not doing nothing until magically the perfect thing comes along and realizing they'll have to wade through and actively support shit, until they've successfully reformed or composted said shit into something that is finally able to grow the first leafs of anything resembling a society they want.
I'm just so tired of people rejecting the facts of the political systems they live under in order to pretend to chase some other system they won't see within their life time.
We have to pick the least bad option and then try to make them better because that's just the way shit works. Acknowledging that doesn't mean you are complicit or any other such nonsense in the same way acknowledging climate change doesn't mean you don't want a climate that isn't rapidly deteriorating.
"But if x, y, and z people just..." yeah well they won't, and we know they won't, so we have the constraints we have.
Not super directed at you, I've just been seeing entirely too many naive, in my opinion, fake socialists that seem to only value socialism as far as they can use it as a weapon to brandish against liberals and other socialists who simply see reality and acknowledge that doing anything requires getting your hands dirty.
No we don't, and no it isn't. That's how the suppression of radical change works. I am not saying that anything short of utopia is not worth pursuing, just that I don't see why we shouldn't start from that and then work down to a realistic compromise, rather than starting from the bad options that are given to us. There are other choices, if you can look further than your nose.
You aren't doing jack shit of this radical change you spout on about. You don’t actually want to help, so you come up with excuses to do nothing while feeling better than those who do because your ideas all start with someone else moving first.
Because you don't have the leverage or organization to start there. Instead you must start by slowly working to put out the fire and getting your fellow countryman to see the benefits of socialist policy.
You exist in this system, not outside of it. You start here for that is reality, not fantasy. Id love to start from the position of being the rich using my wealth to sway policy. It's not reality though.
List one that doesn't start with some fantastical revolution you aren't organizing and aren't willing to risk your life in as a first mover
If the answer is about forming a new party in a country that has winner takes all or first past the post, I fear you've not thought it through.
Uh, source? Do I know you?
The leverage is numbers. 8 billion humans against what, a stadium of people? And the organization at this point is just basic survival instinct?? We're on a burning planet and being told that yes we need change, but we also need to wageslave while doing it. I do agree on the "teaching" part btw.
The system is something that monkeys invented. I "exist in it" in the sense in the sense that I am contemporary to it, yes. I exist in what you could call the universe, nature, or reality.
Nice try glowie. I just know what has already happened in the past and can try to extrapolate. And again, I don't know what basis you have to speak of my character.
Jesus christ, is that the most radical, outside-of-the system take you could think of for global policy change?
The idea that 8 billion people would be on your side is the forefront of showing why what you're suggesting is closer to fantasy than reality. More people than you care to admit are straight up fascist
It is not a "my side" thing. I do believe that 8 billion humans have tackling climate change in their best interest, whether they know it or not.
Of course they do. But what's in their best interest doesn't matter for leverage. For leverage, it matters how many truly believe that. And you'll find that the amount of people who truly understand how bad it's getting is vanishingly small. Even most liberals and hell, even leftists only care about it on a surface level. They're not willing to lose the benefits they get from not caring about the environment.
You don't. That's why its up to you to make your point when making statements like this.
I've seen no such actions so without any particular claims, this is just fantasy posting.
I literally address the fact that you don't have said leverage and wont get it any time soon in the very thing that you quote.
No one is being convinced by your angsty, snarky, online leftist purity raging.
If you think basic survival instincts are in any way conducive to long term goals... I don't even have a clever retort. That's just an insane thing to think.
You aren't told, thats the reality.
People stop doing their jobs, without tremendous planning ahead, and they die.
That's reality.
You are nowhere near having the capacity for a general strike, and you're losing capacity as the tech feudal lords clamp down on the means of communication, and as people on decentralized platforms are notoriously completely impossible to deal with and hyper idealistic.
See, it's childish bullshit like this which means we can't make progress.
My point is clearly that nothing remotely like these fantastical ideas of an underground revolution are actually happening. We've seen these grumblings online for fucking decades.
You'd think you'd have literally anything, like non personally, to show for it. Instead its nothing but talk.
Some random not hyper online dude shooting a healthcare ceo in the back because his back hurt and he was hard done by them is the closest you've come to that, and it wasn't you.
You are remembering selectively, and remembering out of context, because the US is not WW2 germany. They're WW2 germany with nukes and a military multiples of times more formidable than the next multiple combined.
There is no coalition of countries currently equipped to take them on.
More than that, those countries are all having similar problems with right wing groups flaring up.
More than that still, in recent history, when there have been revolts, they haven't switched to socialism, or even just more socialism than before in notable ways. They've mostly just switched to more capitalism, supported by the US.
Because once again, the online fringe you represent simply has no track record to speak of. They simply have not done anything for decades, and if they had any teeth, there would be something, anything to show for it.
No, it isn't the previous thing you absolutely do not have the guts or organization for is. This is the accomplishable thing that would not accomplish the final goals and instead would be handing right wing fascists the long term victory on a silver platter.
We’re talking about a socialist revolution here. The electoral process of the capitalist rulers of the United States is hardly relevant.
Its completely relevant to anyone who isn't a child.
You can't magically have this whimsical revolution you dream of.
Its 100% a "you first" type of deal where you absolutely are not willing to be first, and don't realize you have a whole lot of the population you'd need to convince first, and until you do, you need to face the hard realities of the system you live in, and mitigate the damage.
Taxes and levies to incentivise behavior don't work. People will eat shit salads before they give up their F150s. We can't just let people pay to avoid responsibility.
Bullshit. Costs absolutely influence shopping behavior. If you drive it out of an affordable range while providing viable, more environmentally friendly, alternatives. People will be forced to change
Have you ever considered taxes to pay for collective goods and services, making peoples lives easier, them smarter, building trust in the idea that government can work and giving the government more teeth?
The F150 people were sold on the ridiculous trucks by the automotive industry. Theyre also much smaller as a part of the problem.
The people who make decisions we all feel forced to live with are the ones whose businesses choose the path of least resistance
F150s are a significant part of the entire emissions of the united states. Cars in general are one of the largest single categories.
How do you change that though? By beating down the people who have the least damage per person? Or by beating down the companies that push these products, and more importantly the ownership class that owns them and casually use private jets to chauffeur their poodles around?
You cannot do one or the other to stop climate change. You have to do both. Again, cars are one of the single largest polluters in the world, and especially in the usa. The working class will need to make changes in their life styles as well. The problem is not solveable just by having companies change, consumers also need to be willing to accept changes in purchasing habits
I feel you misunderstand my point.
I'm saying consumers are way less responsible for their purchasing decisions than many people think.
Car centricity is a societal problem. The big trucks are a car company propoganda problem.
Consumers are not babies. Most are not children. They can take full responsibility for their own choices and failure to research when it's available. There is a reasonable extent that can be forgiven from lack of information. But most is still their fault. See people drinking bottles water when they have perfect access to safe drinking water. See people driving to work when they're easily within public transit areas. See people buying slave labor made trinkets off temu, shein, amazon, AliExpress, and many more, or buying constant new shitly made polyester clothes because "fashion".
Society is created by those who participate. Hand waving "it's a society problem" denies the individual responsibility of everyone to guide society.
All the information is easily accessible and clear to everyone. They are making a conscious decision to pollute more for their own convenience. This is not saying companies are not also responsible for massive amounts of waste. Do not take it like that. But people need to also understand lifestyles cannot stay the same and still fight climate change. People need to give up their trinkets, fast fashion, cars, etc, if they want to actually fight climate change and pollution
This is an attitude that seeks to attribute blame rather than practically solve the problem.
This is evidenced by you continuing to say:
Which only deals with this from thinking about this as a "who do I blame" rather than a "How can society solve this problem".
We've seen that consumers for instance, don't choose excess packaging, companies do.
In that same way, with things like the CAFE standards, Chicken tax and other ways that trucks are incentivised not to mention propagandized, its easy to see how this consumer "switch in preference" was manufactured, in the same way that the consumer switch to eating 4 times the amount of cheese within a few decades was a manufactured choice by teams of lobbyists.
We could all simply choose to consumer less animal product, be healthier and leave the environment in a much better position, but yet schools are still forced to feed kids milk with every meal due to lobbying.
Basically always, the root cause lies somewhere with some lobbyist group pushing their interests over that of the consumer.
You can handwave that away and choose to focus on personal choice, but to do that is to ignore the fact that for every issue you care about a whole lot, many people have issues they care about more, even if you're just talking about fellow climate appreciating folks. What I'm saying is people can't put all of their energy into every issue all at once. No human can. They'd burn out and be unable to move. That's why these things matter and can only really be solved at the policy level.
You ever stop to think of the long history of car companies actively and successfully lobbying to ruin public transits image and efficiency in the US?
This didn't just put up over night. People didnt just magically have these conclusions. Great video on this topic by a pretty awesome edutainment channel.
I guarantee you there are areas of life you are blind to as well, where someone equally as idealistic to you and equally looking for someone to blame rather than solving the problem, is screaming at the top of their lungs angry you don't do something about it thinking the same as you "the information is all there!!!"
Yada yada yada, but they won't, and until you get the reasons why they won't, and how humans have finite focus, and do burnout, or become apathetic, often due to literal people whose jobs it is to get them to, you won't be trying to solve the problem, but instead you'll be trying to pin the blame to the least powerful people in the scenario.
Attribute responsibility. People need to take responsibility for their own decisions, and change them.
I'm not. I mention it in response to people's attempts to claim it's never their fault. It's always someone else's fault. That there's nothing they can do, it's always everyone else.
And society would be better off for that change anyways.
People who are in areas with public transit and refuse to use it because it's a minor inconvenience are specifically who I'm talking about that with. And yes, people's votes helped cause that change.
They don't need to. They can make multiple small choices and lifestyle changes to great benefit. A literal world ending threat should be the most important issue.
I'm sure there are. I know there are. Every year I strive to improve. To consume less. To eat less meat. To bike and rid myself of the car I drove for far too long. Improvement takes time. It's not a one second thing, it takes decades of effort. But it makes a difference, one little step, one person at a time, makes a difference. However, I can be sure I'm actually trying.
No rain drop thinks it caused the flood. Every, single, bit matters. A response needs to come from all sides. From the top down, regulating companies to use electric, tax heavily on plastic waste. From the bottom up, encouraging people to take public transit and bike, partly through public awareness campaigns and partly through increased bike and train infrastructure. You can't solve it by only focusing on companies. You HAVE to get the consumers to be willing to change their habits as well. People need to be aware that they DO have an impact, and their individual changes will make a difference.
A lot of people's apathy is driven by the false perception that they cannot make a difference with their own power. That their vote doesn't matter. These false perceptions are what need to be changes so that society can move forward, and push the companies, through laws, punishments, and boycotts, into being environmentally sound.
You're just playing word salad here.
It's still about attributing blame because you refuse to account for how people operate and how effective lobbying/propaganda groups are on regular people who aren't as aware on any given topic as you are.
This is a made up strawman. No one is saying that here, and people aren't typically saying that without a large amount of nuance and less absoluteness on this topic.
You say this like you're making a point when instead you make it clear you udderly missed my point. The point was that its "technically" peoples choice, but it clearly isn't with how heavy the lobbying is.
The hope was that this would moove your opinion and help you culture an appreciation for the extremely strong effects of propaganda and lobbying such that something people think is choice, is far less choice than they think.
Perhaps I'm milking this point now, but I really thought it persuede you to think more about how people who aren't in your specific bubble think and are affected.
People's votes after what though? People didn't just randomly form these opinions.
People in Europe have completely different opinions in general, and you know what the major factor is? A lack of the massive inertial propaganda that the US has had. Did you check out my link? I encourage you to watch it.
It's just not as simple as you make it out to be.
It sure does, now how can you say all that, but miss my point entirely that there could be someone putting the exact same amount of effort into being a better person yet not have their issues align with yours on this at all?
Do you not see why policy is the major way to change their habits?
You aren't arguing against me. You just aren't reading my points at all.
That is literally impossible for the very same reasons that you said "I’m sure there are. I know there are." above. If you can't, how the hell are you expecting other people to for the issues you find most important?
Quite frankly, you absolutely could. If the propaganda influencing consumer choices was stopped, you'd have a good enough solution.
Manufacturers would be making smaller vehicles due to regulations, people couldn't choose monstrosities, roads would get slimmer in new development, public transportation would be built better.
Its completely possible from a top down approach, but utterly impossible when trying to focus from a bottom up approach.
Partially because there are so many folks like you who without realizing they are doing so, expect everyone to understand and care about every topic, even while you yourself obviously could not live up to such an unrealistic standard.
But also partially because of propaganda.
Why do you think BP loves telling people to take personal responsibility over climate issues? They know its a dead end.
This part I absolutely agree with and constantly argue with people on lemmy about. So many people believe the only way out is some whimsical fantastical revolution that will never come, or a third party that would actually secure a victory for the enemies.
I expect them to care about the potential mass death of most humans and environments that has been blasting on the news and taught to most for decades .. and I think that's reasonable.
If someone tells you to kill a guy and you do, does it make sense to exclusively blame the person who told you? No. They've been given the information and tools to find more information.
The standard I want is "trying" to do better. I want people to actually try to reduce their impact. That's it. It's not a high standard.
And simply, if you think propaganda can influence everyone enough that it makes changing individuals impossible, why do you think that convincing them to vote differently is possible?
It is a tad ironic that you talk about the influence of propaganda and are still stuck on the idea that people need cars.
Climate change is the single most important issue, bar none. There's no reasonable argument that can be made that the vast majority of humanity dying is the worst possible outcome, unless you go for an anti human perspective. I don't expect people to be perfect. I expect them to try.
I did not watch your video as I'm already well aware of the history of car lobbying in America. How people allowed car companies to do away with public transit. How they allowed propaganda to perpetuate. I don't believe people blindly believing clearly false propaganda are faultless
I promise you there are topics more important to other people than that.
Many, reasonably, care about the wave of fascism poised to severely harm them, their families, their loved ones or their fellow countryman, a more immediate threat.
Many, reasonably, care about the insane unaffordability of housing due to corruption, corporate landlords, landlords in general, and houses being treated as investment vehicles.
Many, reasonably are worried about the massively accelerating wealth inequality and the disaster this spells for them and their future generations.
Many....
The point is, every single one of these points is more not less important than the point you care about primarily to many people. They aren't wrong or stupid for having different priorities to you.
I would even go so far as saying that I think it's foolish to value something so large scale and existential like global collapse over the next few hundred years due to climate change than a lot of the societal elements that contribute to it.
What does it matter what climate future humans live in if they're enslaved or being murdered by fascists?
What does it matter if your descendants don't exist because they can't afford to live.
Again, many people think the same thing for you, and they're just as right, yet completely uselessly so as you are.
This is purely a self masturbatory blame assignment rather than a useful piece of information to accomplish goals.
Worse than that, it chooses to ignorantly fundamentally misunderstand how people work, yet expect to change what it doesn't understand.
There you are again, missing the point and it feels like it has to be purposeful at this point.
Many people try to do better but can't be as focused on this as you are because they're being better in areas you are not being better in.
This is an obvious and silly strawman.
I literally list why directly convincing people on this topic is less important and likely to work than impacting political systems that are used to uphold the propaganda points that cause these problems in the first place.
You're slamming into a brick wall rather than trying to pick the lock on the door.
Its crazy to be this ignorant and with a bad faith point to boot.
Carcentricity has made it such that many people do in fact need cars.
This is not a problem. that can be solved quickly.
You pretending that acknowledging this reality means that I can't conceive of anything else despite that obviously not being the case is you being dishonest in discussion, which at that point, why are you arguing? Why bother?
An extremely naive and privileged perspective.
You're worrying about the future of the species like that is an entity that can feel pain. No, it's an idea, a prediction. It's something that absolutely is not the top concern of the people struggling and facing real issues to their lives right now at this very moment. Just about the only people I can imagine could possibly hold this opinion are out of touch well to do people.
You are clearly missing a lot, so if you actually walked the walk, you'd watch it and see what you're missing, because in this conversation alone you've made it clear you don't understand how deep or effective it has been, what policies have been put in place due to it, etc.
North American roads are the way they are due to it.
You are so impossibly stuck up your own ass, sniffing your own farts.
There are literally thousands if not millions of you people on every conceivable issue under the sun, and you'd all hate each other if you met, because you all are so lacking in empathy and perspective that you'd all be befuddled and enraged you didn't all center around the single issues you all think are most important bar none. You'd all be irrate that the others dare "blindly believe this" and "foolishly follow that".
Until you people realize what a problem this mentality is, you'll literally never make substantive change.
Good to know you have no idea what you're talking about. Climate change is already causing serious deaths, now. It's not just some future issue. It's genuinely horrifying that you don't understand that. It isn't just Future generations. It isn't abstract concepts. It's my generation that will be dying because of this.
Because climate change won't.... ??
Yes, fascism is important. But not nearly as important as fighting climate change. There isn't a future to fight for if climate change isn't blocked, you do understand that, right?
It could be solved in under a decade if people cared.
You don't seem to actually understand how dangerous climate change is presently. You still see it as an abstract future rather than an awful and worsening present
I see what happened when voters and people actually cared. The cities changed, improved. It proves that propaganda is not some magical convincing force that forces people to think one way, the way you pretend it is.
Far less than the issues listed to the people affected.
Climate change deathes currently are largely avoidable and it comes up as a relatively small source of death.
You're nitpicking here to try to ignore the point.
Nope. No one alive today will witness any kind of apocalypse generation killing event.
You must worry about your house fire first before you fear the flood next month.
This is the type of "I'm a priveleged cisgendered straight white person so the marginalized people can be fed to the machine" ass comment I would expect from you.
They'll come for you eventually too bud.
Hysterics don't make you right. That is in more than 100 years when anyone talking right now is long dead.
Fascism could have you or I in a death camp within our lives, or trigger nuclear war, given it actually did the last time it flared up this seriously, except this time a shit ton of countries have nukes. Nukes? Talk about climate changing.
You continue to think from a perspective of blame rather than pragmatism.
People are the biggest hurdle for literally every major problem. Learning how the general public is propagandized too, what regulations reinforce and or strengthen the problem, how and which politicians are bought and paid off for to fight the problem and more.
The root cause and key is making the Overton window shift left. It is therefore the biggest problem, even to you, by being in the way for solving your problem as the actual biggest problem.
I completely understand it. You clearly do not understand how bad the other problems I listed are.
You care far more about the rock we float on, than the people on said rock. Everything you say is in service of the rock rather than the people. What has more influence in peoples lives right now? All the things I mentioned.
Other people have good reason to be focused on those first.
Oh which American cities are these? Are they per chance small mostly urban areas with progressive leaders?
I mean fuck it, I won't be coy, we all see Mamdani. Somehow you won't connect the dot's though.
This is once again you doing mental gymnastics to pretend that blaming people will solve the problem any at all. Blaming people does not work.
I'd like to see you "avoid" a wet bulb event in a 3rd world country. These have started becoming an increasingly common occurrence in the last decade or so. Climate change also disproportionately affects poorer countries, the ones no one cares about. Entire archipelagos projected to disappear in decades. So fuck off with your "caring about climate change is for privileged people".
You do realize that there's people alive today that will live in 2100 right? And that they will be in their 80's (those who can talk today), not 100+. Have you seen any graphs on what the temperatures and water levels will be at the current pace? Even optimistic scenarios are hellish.
You are factually wrong, no matter how confidently you say it. I am not insulting your intelligence for your opinions like you seem to do in almost every comment, just informing that you do not understand climate change like you claim to "completely" do. I guess what you actually mean is that it will get bad after you are dead, so it doesn't really matter.
We're clearly at a unproductive point in this conversation where you are slinging accusations and we clearly are at an impasse. I think your position ignores the valid perspective of others, you think it outweighs every other position even from people who try to do better just as you claim to.
That seems to be it. I can't convince you, and you certainly haven't convinced me.
Ah. So you don't actually understand the reality of extreme heat and cold events. That... That makes sense how you wouldn't care. You've failed to do basic research.
If I meant it as "welcome fascism" , which I don't. Fascism should still be fought. You pulling out the "privileged" bullshit again is hilarious when you don't understand basic science
There was no substance in this reply. You haven't shown knowledge of anything, and havent addressed any criticisms levied.
The "boring, unfun, hard things that actually make a difference" have already been tried in the last 50 years. It has not made a difference. The only thing that can make a difference, as history has shown us time and time and time again, is a revolution
If you can't see the difference where we have gay marriage, for a while had notably less discrimination, a massive improvement in workers rights, improvements to social security nets etc, I don't know what to tell you.
More than that, this childish opinion misses that you haven't tried this.
You've constantly swapped between democrats and republicans, and purity tested so hard that democrats have basically stopped seeing you as a real force for change within their party.
You have only tore down your chances while actual progressives keep trying, only to be disappointed that you're there as a roadblock to your shared goals.
To top this all off, you clearly do not understand that you not only need 3 of 4 branches of government and definitely need a super majority senate (Which you haven't had usably in 25 years) but you also need enough progressives within the party to sway their goals away from just the wishes of their corporate donors.
You want to pretend that we have tried this, but we haven't tried jack shit, because of folks like you.
More than that, you haven't tried any other method either, so your comment ends up boiling down to "lets try nothing because I don't like, nor do I want to try the 'boring, unfun, hard things that actually make a difference'"