Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
We're barreling headlong toward global famine but, sure, it's the environmentalists that want to make you eat bugs.
I suppose they are, in the sense that they want everyone to be able to eat...
The reason doesn't matter. It's an emotion thing.
Reading to children is great. Drag Queens reading to children is horrible!
Adopting children is great. But if it's gay couples it's terrible!
Environmentalists want you to eat legumes.
Green capitalists want you to eat insects.
“Who benefits [from renewables]?” thundered United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet. “The globalists benefit! You don’t benefit. The Chinese Communist Party benefits!
My favorite is how they can spout absolute bullshit and never have to defend it. Their supporters make no demands of them other than to feed their fears.
"They're gonna make me eat bugs! Now let me enjoy this shrimp scampi appetizer before I have a lobster."
Shrimps is bugs reference?
Shrimp are arthropods and so are bugs
That's not how it works, but if it will encourage people to be less squeamish about eating bugs.... Sure.
How is that not how it works? Insects are arthropods. So are crustaceans, including shrimp. Is it because they live on land that makes people squeamish?
Insects are arthropods but it doesn't mean all arthropods are insects. Much like how squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.
"Bugs" is a generic term for everything from insects to arachnids and other things like Pillbugs - a crustacean and close relative of shrimp. Aquatic crustaceans may not typically be included, but the point is the distinction is arbitrary.
You're really stretching here.
Is there any argument to be made that edible crustaceans aren't bugs that doesn't boil down to 'ew gross'? I simply don't see how this is a stretch in any way.
Absolutely. 'Bug' refers to insects (and, more colloquially, some other small invertebrates such as spiders and centipedes). Crustaceans are not insects.
Crustaceans are as closely related to insects as spiders and centipedes are. You're splitting antennae here.
I doubt that pill bugs taste like lobster, despite the minor similarities.
150 years ago Lobster was considered disgusting trash food only eaten by the poorest Americans. This isn't about taste, it's about perception and the availability of meat. The main difference between a Pillbug and a shrimp (in terms of edibility) is the size. Most small bugs don't have enough meat to be worth preparing in a way where it's not obvious you're eating a bug. It's pretty much just aquatic arthropods that can escape the limitations of air breathing to get large enough to be a more appetizing food source.
That's a highly exaggerated myth.
Yes, but if some arthropods are edible then it makes sense that others are edible.
So they are going to make us eat bugs!
And that's why we can't wait for boomers to die.
You are going to be sorely disappointed when that doesn't solve our problem and people remain people. Ever spoken to a young liberal?
And that’s why we can’t wait for boomers to die.
You are going to be sorely disappointed when that doesn’t solve our problem
No, see... we'll get to eat the boomers.
Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump are boomers, yet they are basically as different as people can be.
Much is being made of the climate denialists, anti-vaxers, anti-trans, and white supremacists. Take a look at their membership and the people who show up to the marches. The vast majority are younger than boomers.
To put some more names on the non-boomers seemingly intent on destroying society: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Pierre Pollievre (looking like he might be Canada's next Prime Minister).
I'm under no illusions regarding the damage that my generation has done, but let's be clear: it's the stupid and the rich, powerful, greedy, and just generally miserable excuses for human beings in every generation ever that have wrecked the world and continue to do so.
Whoever came up with "generational psychology" must have been intent on finding yet more ways to divide and conquer. We need solidarity of purpose, not infighting based on artificial or statistical constructs.
Bugs are alright man, I've had several different preparations and enjoyed most of them. The ice cream was particularly good! Though I am not enthusiastic about trying the roach bars from Snowpiercer the way these fearmongers would like you to conceive of entomophagy. A total ecological collapse would have many more things to worry about than just your nutritional sources.
aye, no idea what the fuss is about. had grasshoppers and mealworms as snacks. nothing mind-blowing but surprisingly tasty for all the infamy. salty snacks, so went great with beer. turn them into flour and use for falafel/köfte, I'm thinking it'd probably build very well with the slight umami. bad side though would be that if you're allergic to seafood, you're probably allergic to these critters as well
WaaaaaaAa!
My only problem with insects as a necessary part of our nutrition is that it's basically the last stop before all we have left are vats and mats of algae.
When Europeans came to the east coast of what is now Canada, they were in awe of the cod. They said things like "we can walk across the sea on their backs" as a way of helping to visualize the teeming billions.
Where are the cod now? The fishery collapsed because of over harvesting. It will likely never be restored to anything like its original state, despite the pressure to kill the nonhuman predators that feed on them.
"The fishery should have been better managed" you say?
Pray tell, what were we doing with the cod? Were we killing them the way we killed bison, to make way for high-speed, high-volume transportation of freight and people, favoured species, and starve the native populations? No, unlike with bison, we were shipping cod "home" and then across the country and around the world to feed an ever growing population.
"Better management" would have meant making decisions about who got to eat and who didn't. Unlike with bison, nobody set out to destroy anything.
We're busy destroying insect populations right now, both deliberately and as a side effect of other activities. We have not yet added them to our food supply. What do you think will be the outcome of becoming dependent on them to meet our nutritional needs?
How about a prediction? As with every natural resource, some species will be favoured and farmed to the detriment of every other species. Eventually, that won't work anymore, and we'll be living off algae. And when that doesn't work anymore?
I'd rather eat algae from the get go. They're plants, greens. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a big future for algae for both food (way too high in protein) and fuel. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.1029841/full
Of all the conspiracies. Like we live in a nightmare dystopia and are still largely unfree. you have to keep running to stay in place and everything is set up for the bourgeois.
But yeah sure, the kinda ineffective body begging people to not destroy the world is a malignant shadowy conspiracy pulling all the strings for... something?
We have never reduced year or year emissions so far, some conspiracy lmao.