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by jnmandal 589 days ago
That was going to be the case either way. In fact we have pretty much already blown through that
2 comments

Well yes but thats not a binary situation, is it. We can fuck up future of our kids a lot, a lot more or way a lot more. And so on.

Anyway, our descendants will hate current generations for what we have 'achieved' with the only place we can realistically live en masse for next 1000 years at least, almost all in in past 20 years, I'd say rightfully.

But as long as their stocks are up many folks here properly don't give a fuck. Tells you something too, don't put automatic morality into folks just because they have above-average intelligence, selfishness is a very powerful emotion from which none of us is completely immune from.

Everything you say is true. However it's bizarre for me to read you lamenting as if this election somehow had any bearing on that trajectory.

Under a continued Biden regime or a renovated Harris regime the climatic trajectory was similarly in overshoot. Like if you pay attention to what scientists, or even just general NGO representatives are saying... You should know that we are far off the rails.

Id encourage you to read the world meteorological organization's report from just last week; we are no where near what is manageable for a stable and prosperous future for our descendants. The climate has absolutely destabilized and we now have left a dismal future laced with intermittent catastrophe. Our generations greed and myopia means we have also left a momentous task to our descendants who might seek to try and restore the planet to equilibrium. Trump or Harris at the helm --it makes no difference-- the ship is going down.

Future generations will inherit a ruined biosphere, food insecurity, resource wars, etc. Humand can obviously mitigate tha somewhat but there's not a single political entity in the US or perhaps even the West as a whole that is currently engaged in doing so.

Well you are just saying the same what I've reacted to - its all same. I disagree from my limited viewpoint - trump was super eager to open drilling oil in Alaska in natural reserves, downgraded env protections for parks etc.

Environment aint just directly co2 or temperature raises, its everything. And everything is connected.

Just because the ship has sort of sailed it doesnt mean giving up and ignorance is the right course, especially when vuewed on really long term scale

Ultimately I'm not giving up, and I would say being aware of this fact is the opposite of ignorance.

The very first step here is to phase out extraction of fossil fuels. Kamala Harris was not going to even stop fracking, which is by far the most environmentally damaging extraction, let alone phase out drilling.

Basically no state/country nor any politician is going to save us. Currently it's up to regular people to work on building a better world, restoring the biosphere, coming up with ways to adjust our manner of living towards a sustainable course and one that will be resilient to catastrophic climate events and even social upheaval.

Instead it seems a lot of people want to just cast a ballot and then forget about it, but this will be a fundamental lifestyle change, and it's going to involve sacrifice.

So, screw the planet?
In the words of George Carlin: “The planet will be fine. The people are fucked.”

Perhaps that was the problem with the messaging from the start, it didn’t appeal to people’s selfish nature enough.

"The planet" has always been about humanity. Of course floating rocks in space will be fine for billions of years.
> "The planet" has always been about humanity.

No, no it has not. It has been about a multitude of subjects like the oceans and forests and preserving habitats from human interference. Humanity mishandling those has consequences for humans, but that has historically not been the crux of the message.

It has never been about “floating rocks” either, but the life in it, nature as a whole.

Quite the opposite really, but I think it's naive to pretend that was on the ballot here.

Both the candidates were in favor of a continuation of the petroleum based industrial society that will inevitably collapse in on itself.

In fact an argument can be made that this election and it's result are a symptom of that.