So - the world is on fire.
Like, literally.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released this week, is bleak.
The outlook on climate change is bad. Humans are the cause.
We may already be too late to fix some of the affects, we're running out of time to stop others.
We need governments and industry to make massive changes. Fast.
We're already seeing the extreme weather that climate change brings - extreme floods, extreme storms, extreme heatwaves, and Texas freezing over.
And as aforementioned, the world is on fire.
Greece. Turkey. Italy. The USA. Canada. Algeria. Iran. Spain. Freaking Siberia.
Siberia is on fire. You know - the famously utterly freezing place in Russia? Yeah, that.
And you know who can make the biggest changes most easily and quickest? The super rich.
No, really!
I promise that this time it's not my hippie and socialist upbringing (well... not just that. Although, you know my mother is always good for an anti-Capitalist rant,) I have statistics and evidence!
The top 10% of the world's earners use 75% of the world's air travel emissions.
They use 45% of the world's road transport emissions.
If the rich make some serious lifestyle changes - especially related to air travel - then we can do this.
If they don't... well, let's hope they do.
But on the (more than slightly considerable) chance that the super-rich do what the super-rich tend to do and cover their own butts while leaving the rest of us to literally burn, we all need to keep doing what we can.
While on a moral front, I'd love to be able to say, 'f**k it, let the rich do the heavy-lifting this time' - it's the world's poorest who will suffer most if we let everything go to hell.
So we all need to do what we can, when we can, because there's no guarantee anyone else will.
So all the stuff we've been hearing for years about turning lights off when we leave the room, walking or taking public transport when possible instead of using the car, etc. is stuff we still 6000% need to keep doing.
And there's also other stuff we need to consider:
As I've mentioned more than once before, the Internet produces carbon emissions.
So doing things like logging out and closing apps and tabs that you aren't using helps to save energy.
As does unsubscribing from e-mail newsletters we aren't opening (we all have them - they like, spawn or something,) and not sending that 'K, thanks' e-mail if it's not necessary.
Also, a significant threat to global carbon emissions moving forward is actually BitCoin and other crypto currencies.
The way BitCoin and similar currencies are generated uses the same amount of CO2 as a small country.
So, yeah, lay off the BitCoin (...apologies if a BitCoin ad displays while you're reading this - AdSense tends to pick up on the word and go to town. Don't buy BitCoin.)
(I feel like this is also something the super-rich can contribute by not doing - but I have no evidence for that, it's more of a vibe 😅)
I don't know what the future holds for us and for this planet - but I do know that we all have to do our best to fix as much of this as we can.
...And the people who need to do the most are the people who are, right now, doing the least.
Were you aware of these statistics?
Are you being/Have you been affected by our extreme weather? (Stay as safe as you can!)
Talk to me! 😊💬
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I had no idea that Bitcoin had an affect on climate change. This is yet another perfect example of the super rich encouraging us middle class folks to use paper straws, when their priorities are in all the wrong places. It's like how Leonardo DiCaprio preaches climate change but takes a private jet everywhere. Great post, Cee!
ReplyDeleteThanks Em!
DeleteAnd yes! BitCoin uses enough energy to light circa 4 million homes - which would light the whole of Wales and then some.
Unfortunately, it's down to the 90-99% to do the work right now, but the super-rich need to realise that they can make the biggest difference here!
"As does unsubscribing from e-mail newsletters we aren't opening (we all have them - they like, spawn or something,) and not sending that 'K, thanks' e-mail if it's not necessary."
ReplyDeleteOMG. I wasn't aware of that. Or of the BitCoin issue either.
Yep, Italy was on fire this summer. And we were forced to use more fans and more air conditioning, and...it's an endless circle ðŸ˜.
All of the internet uses power - not just on our device-usage end, but on the end of the servers hosting the websites and processes. So the process of sending an e-mail pings off several servers to get the message to go where it's gotta go, using more energy. Simply put - more web actions = more energy usage. So doing the little things makes a difference!
DeleteBitCoin uses a *lot* of power to generate, because it uses loads of servers to do calculations in order to create BitCoin. It's a massive problem.
Hope you're all safe. We're used to mountain fires set by stupid kids here, but, fingers crossed, we're wildfire-free so far. Just the normal mountain blazes. *sighs* We've had to use our air con a few days this year - homes don't come with air con as standard here, so we have a portable unit for when it gets unbearable. We hold off on using it as much as we can, but sometimes you just *have* to. We all need to do our bit, but the super-rich need to get their butts in gear!