Ask Lemmy

This response is focused on the US since that's the place I already have a very good idea of the current laws and challenges affecting climate action. I'd start by passing the following legislation immediately:

• Mandate remote work options for all positions that can be performed remotely. We saw during the pandemic how much commuting to the office negatively impacts the environment as well as people's lives.
• Carbon tax with a gradual but short (say 4 year) implementation period where it rachets up to the full tax value for carbon emissions directly created by the industry. The carbon tax is intended to make polluting and wasteful choices far more expensive than cleaner alternatives as well as raise tax dollars for significant infrastructure redevelopment
• Create new taxes and tax breaks plus subsidies for rental properties with poor insulation to encourage updating all rental properties to have modern insulation (and similar tax breaks and subsidies for homeowners to upgrade their insulation)
• Federally allow the construction of ADUs in all residential zone types (likely also creating a more relaxed permitting process and building code for ADUs to reduce cost and encourage their construction)
• Federally allow 2 family housing in all single family zoning (meaning a single family zoned lot can now have the main dwelling converted into a duplex plus an ADU constructed, tripling the permitted density)
• Federal tax break and subsidy for the purchase, maintenance and use of bicycles including ebikes and bike trailers (many places are bikable but people just don't choose to bike. For example, every small town is mostly bikable within town save for any highways that cut through them, and residential streets are very safe places to bike even if they don't contain dedicated bike infrastructure)
• Gradually but significantly increase annual vehicle registration fees, racheting them from the current ~$120 per year to ultimately cost several thousand dollars per year, with some discounts available to those who do not live in an incorporated community, NEVs and classic cars, thereby greatly discouraging vehicle ownership and car commuting. Also instituting significantly higher registration fees for heavier vehicles

In the longer term I'd also take the following steps:

• Use carbon taxes to fund a massive transit shift away from private cars to build more railroads and better bike infrastructure
• Nationalize the north American freight rail network and turn all railroads into rail operators, and either an existing federal agency or a new agency takes over maintainance, dispatching and expansion of the rail network, significantly lowering the bar for new railroad services and companies to be created
• Massively expand Amtrak services with many new routes and expanded service on existing routes

And for an even longer term cultural shift to encourage slower growth I'd pass the following legislation:

• Impliment UBI as an eventual replacement for all social safetynet programs. Probably a value of around $1k/month per adult and $3k/month per retiree/disabled adult would make it enough that creative individuals could live entirely off of the UBI but low enough to still encourage working. Most importantly this UBI would be decoupled from the stock market so stock market crashes would not affect people's ability to retire. This fits into climate legislation as it removes one of the primary incentives for infinite economic growth (saving for retirement)
• Strong right to repair legislation combined with minimum warranty terms of 5-10 years (plus minimum expectations for warranties such as limiting how long a repair/replacement may take to receive) for products to ensure higher quality construction
• Greatly expand the EPA's powers so that a nimble agency can forcibly stop companies from finding new ways to legally pollute our world, as well as providing a second mandate to the EPA to help consumers live more sustainably (this could come in the form of EPA-funded repair workshops and tool libraries for example, probably also EPA-funded vehicle rentals including ebike and ebike trailer rentals so that people can more easily go car-free)

And that's what I have off the top of my head. Start with the changes that will make a big impact without requiring individual lifestyle change, and in the longer term financially encourage a more sustainable lifestyle. Removing the financial forces that encourage wasteful resource consumption can be all of the incentive needed for people to live much more sustainably and can be enough to put the world's climate goals within reach

Die off.

The simple fact is, we buy what's available on the market. If we want to phase out fossil fuels...the government needs to step in and ban using them. Then, car companies will all be forced to switch to cleaner alternatives, and that's what consumers will start buying.

This goes for every single product on the market. Regulate the shit out of it, and the market will shift. But if you leave it up to the market to decide...it will always choose the cheapest, most profitable option.

We, as consumers, have almost no say in the matter. We buy what we need, based on the available options.

No plastics but natural materials, wood, leather stuff like that Renewable energies, reduce consumption, public transport everywhere instead of cars. Higher density of living together.

PUNISH THE COMPANYS! NO PRIVAT JETS OR IN LAND FLYING!

Go vegan/vegitarian. Not just for the enviorment but personal health! And when meat then not mass produced meat. Butcherm if you cant afford it then maybe dont. Its not neccissary

Not possible. In order to be effective we need a global generational commitment that is beyond our current capacity for cooperation.

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China, US, India, Russia. 1, 2, 3, 4. Guess who is least likely to take part in a global agreement?

Russia and China signed on to the Paris agreement, but largely ignore it. Trump famously pulled the US out of the agreement. Twice.

India has been making the right noises about hitting goals by 2030, but I'm not sure how they're actually progressing, not that it means much without Russia, China and the US.

We need an agreement that commits our people not just now, but for multiple generations into the future without regard to who the individual rulers of the countries are. Won't happen.

For collective action, vote. Let yourself be known.

For individual action...I personally dont think we will get our collective shit together. So moving to an area that will not experience or have very little experience in climate change is the goal. This might not be possible for a lot of people. But it is for a number of people. So those will do well generations from now. My ancestors moved to get a better life. That is what will be done again.

I'm doing my part by not having children.

If there's no humans there cannot be pollution.

Eliminate cattle agriculture. No more growing alfalfa in the desert.

Carbon capture in the form of mass re-forestation.

Zoning out single-family homes.

Increased taxes on rural residents. Decreased taxes in urban areas.

Nurembergesque trials for oil company executives.

Refocusing the Department of Homeland Security on fighting forest fires exclusively. ICE agents will be sent to forest fires all over the globe and tasks with putting them out or die in the attempt.

Every citizen gets 4 flight credits a year. 1 credit needed per flight. These roll over if you don't ude them.

Removal of Trump supporter's reproductive organs for population management

My proposal... this is a "long con", so this seem more like a political proposal rather than something that can quickly fix up our society to be less polluting:

1. Start/contribute to a political party that is catered towards young voters, with somewhere between center-left to full left-wing orientation. Note that sadly this party cannot be "far-left" so no eating billionaires or drastic corporate taxes... yet. Climate change will be a core part of the agenda, but at this point the party has to only focus on low-hanging fruit options (improve recycling & waste management, fines on recycling, taxes on cars, company cars, and high-consumption households, etc). Very important that intermediate steps such as nuclear is accepted (in contrast to some Green Parties), we can't afford to ruin the economy at this point
2. Try to pre-emptively rule out serious cases of corruption and/or nepotism, and try to base party focuses and decisions on politically unbiased scientific outputs; might need to hire a good scientific panel
3. Use whatever means possible to try and gain popularity without changing the party's principles. Ads... yes. Social media... yes. Paid influencers... have to swallow a hard pill here but also yes
4. Try to win enough seats to form a majority coalition government with left-leaning and/or green parties. This is where point 1's not being far-left yet comes into place as the party will need to be at least somewhat popular with most voters and most other politicians
5. Work with the coalition to reduce tax loopholes, try to classify more forms of rich-people "income" into regular taxable income, and shift the main beneficiaries of party politics to focus on the working class. So no more tax loopholes for the rich as much as we can try... and the "no corruption" part from point 2 becomes very important here as otherwise the plan can go to waste
6. The government should have a healthy tax base at this point. Now start giving tax incentives to perform more serious individualistic environmentally-friendly options (for example, subsidized high-speed rail instead of plane, install solar panels, biking instead of driving), and heavily tax or penalize situations that are polluting with no particular upsides (one-time use plastic, private jets, ,,,)
7. Now THINK BIGGER. Invest tax money to public transit and green energy infrastructure; the population might be accepting of more radical interventions such as banning private jets or prison time for some execs now so we can start doing that

... Frankly, if anyone actually carries out this plan until like step 5 or 6, I think the exact details regarding combat climate change would be trivial, since the government would have very sufficient resources/good will/power to do so at that point

I don't think I can. I try and make the least impact I can for my own moral reasons. Essentially I want to know I did as much as I could when I leave this existence. I accept that there are forces beyond me that I can only influence indirectly and that despite my efforts can and have gone in a massively opposite direction of reducing climate change.

Physically destroy oil and gas production and storage facilities. Seems like the most straightforward method. If Ukraine can reduce Russian oil production 20% in a matter of months then people who care about the planet should be easily capable of doing the same.. I have been looking into producing a google maps style overlay of global infrastructure that anyone who wants to contribute could use as a target list.. but there might be others out there more au fait with mapping technology who could do it better. I’ve been inspired by the book How to Blow up an oil pipeline by Andreas Malm.

Locally with your community. None of these governments are prepared to bite the corporate tit that feeds them.

With all the world (at least western nations) drifting backwards at least into nationalism (some countries even at full throttle into fascism), this could be used as an advantage: Why not shifting the narrative into the direction, that a stable, clean and healthy enviroment is pinnacle of patriotism (like the narrative of a healthy body was used in national-socialist propaganda 90 years ago in Germany), along with renewable energy that makes each nation independent from others. Wind turbines and solar power for freedom, so to say. Things like coal rolling or similar acts like wasting resources will be deemed as un-patriotic then.

CO2 seems to be the main problem, so why don't we just burn it. Powerstations powered by burning CO2 would be good for the atmosphere while providing heat and power for communities. And CO2 is abundant so it should be cheap, too!

Move to renewable energy. We have the necessary capacity, just keep installing renewable sources and phasing out the rest. Keep nuclear plants operational as long as they're safe, too, but don't waste too much resources building new ones.

Keep on moving electric storage from lithium ion to pumped hydro/sodium ion/other technologies depending on scale. Leave lithium ion for portable electronics and specialized cases only.

Develop better public transit networks, ideally make it free like in some cities. Also, make bicycle lanes mandatory for new neighborhoods, and convert old roads to have bicycle lanes whenever possible. With that, you won't need to ban cars as they'll grow less relevant (although you can increase tax on car sales to raise money and further disincentivise car ownership).

Also, develop high-speed rail whenever it makes sense, as an organic and much more ecological replacement for planes. Make sure they are modular enough to scale for demand, to avoid dragging extra.

Plant more trees and algae to help scrub the extra CO2. Intensify marine plastic collection efforts to assist the natural growth of marine ecosystems.

Ban petroleum-based plastics whenever possible. For most applications, there are more friendly biologically produced options; they are fairly cheap, too, it's just that regular plastic is even cheaper.

Extend reduce-reuse-recycle. Make more places serve into your own tare, make use (on a personal level) of what you normally throw away, and for what you do throw away, make sure it gets into recycling. Get creative! For example, did you know some used plastic bottles can be turned into a 3D printer filament? You can go wherever from there!

Reduce beef production/import and consumption. For what you do consume, make sure it comes from milk breeds, because otherwise you don't share the ecological footprint with the dairy, which skyrockets the footprint of a steak. In any case, beef is the single most terrible food source in terms of ecological footprint, being several times worse than pork, poultry and dozens to hundreds times worse than plant foods.

Oh, and the AI centers currently in construction by tech giants are becoming one extra major point of concern. We should review which of these are actually necessary, because this thing doesn't seem to stop scaling up, with some planned centers consuming as much energy as a major city.

I'm a gardener, and focus first and foremost on building soil, through composting and using aerated compost teas. I plant and maintain areas that are supportive of wild pollinators. I ride my bike or walk to most places I need to go. And I drive an EV, which is mostly powered from the solar panels on my roof. Yes, this was a significant expense to do so. I eat a diet that is primarily vegetarian. I've been doing all of these things and more for most of my life.

We would have to go all-in on a climate focused economy and lifestyle, invest heavily on clean energy, technology and degrowth. Outlaw anti-climate lobbying of any kind, and hunt the billionaires for sport

Do it like China, handle it, the hard but effective way.

Invest in nuclear energy. Invest in R&D to make energy storage for renewables cheaper at scale.

There were a lot of comments hallucinating about humanity coming together and cooperating towards lowering emissions. We can't. It's better to think of solutions that could work in practice.

Seize political power at every level. Do what you can. Compromise. Tell voters the stupid shit they wanna hear about kitchen table issues, or whatever it takes

Shift away from consumerism and go back to a more local economy. Yes, that's going to be very bad for the western world's way of life. I forfeit my extra points because there's no way to change without some disruption.

I see an opportunity with rising electricity costs due to AI infrastructure building. People are getting angry about their high bills. If enough out solar panels on their houses and install batteries, we’ll be off the grid in short order.