htrayl

Money. Donate. There isn’t a near term world where money won’t matter in giving you a voice, so you should use it.

73% of Americans are overweight. They’ll be just fine if they eat out less.

I mean, you can say the same about every form of entertainment. Music? Majority is crap. Movies? Crap. Sports? Crap. Books? Crap. Video games? Crap.

Disingenuous attribution of a local environmental variable to a national crisis is pretty pathetic. Oregon isn’t even exceptionally high on the opiod death rate.

Oh fuck off dude.

That’s why the vast majority of people who lose weight either fail or end up regaining the weight in less then a couple years.

Seriously, you have a better chance of quitting heroin than losing significant weight and keeping it off.

What. No. We drive far more, and have more cars. In 1960 nearly a quarter of households didn’t even have a car. Now that is only 10%.

Here is a study on occupational movement, which has decreased significantly (100 kcal a day - which is roughly a pound bodyweight energy lost per month).

In addition, people had far more incidental and leisure movement - considering that hours of TV watched nearly doubled.

Of course, our trash diet is a huge aspect, and probably the lions share - but the lack of movement is not insignificant

If you mean “point and click” level of proficiency, sure.

Meh, maybe 10% of a single generation at most know how to use computers. Technically savvy millenials vastly overestimate how technically savvy other millenials are.

Environmental nihilism only serves to make the world a worse place.

It’s the same thing with recycling, companies trying to sell the idea that climate change is a personal failing of every single person even though said companies are responsible for like 90% of carbon emissions.

God I wish this talking point would die.

1. Companies emit on the basis of your consumption. This is not arbitrary, emit out of no where.
2. Individuals being unwilling to tolerate even minor inconveniences or adjustments to their lifestyle makes systemic change impossible. Government and industry won’t change until collective individuals are willing to deal with it.
3. Meat consumption, housing size, housing location, voting patterns, vehicle choice and use, are all individually driven decisions.

Not the Southeast - Southwest-west. Honestly mostly California.

I would say more California than Tex - Tex Mex has heavier emphasis on fried foods. The company is headquartered in California. It looks like the owner got most of the inspiration in San Francisco, and then moved to Colorado.

Meaningful legislation follows collective individual conviction - this mindset that the individual does not matter is simply an excuse to resist change, which means that government will basically never feel the mandate to make any meaningful legislation. People must be willing to be better, and that starts with personal investment in the problem. For example, if you bike more and use transit more, even when it is mildly inconvenient, local politicians and authorities are far more likely to invest in those modes.

Further, there is a lot that people can do to their effective emissions, regardless of external emissions. Quitting meat, for example, is an individual action that can have enormous benefits collectively. Buying solar panels and home investments, even at a slight loss, drastically reduce emissions. When you talk about externalized emissions, you fail to admit that a massive portion of the global emissions are due to the individual consumption of resources. Period.

Additionally, individual political action - donating, campaigning, and running, are all individual actions that contribute to the greater collective action. The idea that this is fundamentally different than other type of individual action is wrong.

As far as I am concerned, the mindset that the individual doesn’t matter is an immensely toxic and dangerous one: it is escapism, denial, and a transparent effort to assuage one’s personal guilt toward responsibility.

The level of zealous dogma in this thread is pretty sad. Carbon offsets are an enormous field - and definitely there are a lot of low effort scams - but simultaneously there are many opportunities for it to be an extremely valuable part of the climate response. We do need it to be highly regulated, and by itself it really isn’t enough. But, for example, buying low value land that was never a real factor for climate change is not the same as, say burning biomass for biochar or removing refrigerants, or subsidizing renewable energy.

An alternative to direct carbon offsets is political contributions - you have an immense amount of power locally in particular. That can help drive more sustainable construction, cleaner transit, and renewable local generation.

Additionally, the claim that individual action is not important or valuable is also pretty pathetic and honestly just an excuse to not make any personal changes. The reality is systemic change follows personal change. Government needs a mandate to make important investments and regulations, but it cannot do it if people are completely unwilling to change their lifestyle.

The idea that a monoculture can easily fail due to disease is not a conspiracy, and has and will happen.

Probably soon it will be some form of single cell protein like methanogen. Being able to grow with less sunlight is pretty valuable.

Meh, this is not a great take. Resistance training is unambigiously great for the heart, nearly as good as aerobic in isolation. A runner who doesn’t do resistance training is in roughly the same position as a weight lifter who doesn’t run (both seem to reduce risk by 30-70%)

However, aerobic and resistance together seem to be better than either in isolation.

Additionally, resistance training has a number of additional health benefits outside of cardiovascular health, to the point that I would say that doing resistance training in isolation is functionally a better use of time for your health than aerobic exercise.

Ideally, you should do both.

The only time this is not true really is when the individual is taking PEDs which do increase risk of heart failure.

False dichotomy is humanity’s favorite logical fallacy.

Your comment is even more frustrating.

There is no collective will to “put pressure on companies” if people don’t individually recognize that their cultural consumption practices, behaviors, and expectations are not sustainable and that, INDIVIDUALLY, their behaviors must change.

For example, the only real way to put pressure on companies is through government action through something like a carbon tax.

If we, collectively and individually, don’t realize that such an action will have significant impact on your day to day behaviors that action is politically untenable and will immediately get voted out.

If there is no government pressure or individual pressure (since we refuse to acknowledge individuals as participants in climate change), then the companies who are most willing to reduce their costs and increase their profits will thrive and the climate is fucked.

Even on a very essential level of “it requires government action” requires vast amounts of individuals to work and sacrificial to make that a reality. How much are you willing to sacrifice to help candidates who will take this seriously? If you don’t believe you have an culpability, probably nothing.

I am about 75% sure that “It’s all the companies emitting” is an immensely clever astroturfing campaign that preys on people’s desire for their to be a big bad and to not believe that they should suffer even the slightest inconvenience.

Guess what? A large majority of what you would need to do to survive in a “there is external pressure on companies” world are things most can do today. Start spending money in companies today who are at least attempting to make sustainable practices work. Reduce your regular consumption today. Start spending money today to support research and development for solutions. Stop eating meat today. Start looking into alternative sources of energy personally, today. Look into increasing your home insulation today. Start organizing, talking, supporting, volunteering, today.

Stop pretending that you are not part of the problem. You are.

The real irony with that statement is that even if 70% is some “disconnected from the reality of our consumption and economic practices and can simple be shut of magically”, that still leaves an enormous amount of carbon emissions that are individual, and guess what, those still count and are just as real.

Some facts:

• 17% of emissions in the US are light road vehicles (aka cars). Aircraft are another 8%. Are you advocating in your city for true alternatives?

• 6% is residential. Are you supporting and seeking smaller, highly efficient homes, financially? Homes built with more sustainable materials?

• 10% is agricultural, the large majority of this is meat. Are you eating less meat?

We could keep going.