this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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The memes of the climate

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The climate of the memes of the climate!

Planet is on fire!

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This is exactly the messaging of the oil companies and others who oppose climate action now that it’s too hard to deny. They want us to think it’s hopeless and give up trying to change anything. It’s not too late. Green energy is growing exponentially and has been possibly the fastest technological adoption in history. Millions of people are working on the science and technology to solve these problems. We just need some more collective action at the local and national levels. Carbon taxes, funding for green initiatives, local agriculture, and support for alternative transportation like e-bikes or other PEVs to start

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (9 children)

Did you miss the memo that current AI is already using more power than everything we've managed to save with green energy in the last decade? We ARE fucked, the only thing we're still debating is the exact timespan. Which is asinine, the result will remain the same either way.

The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war, becausing nothing else will convince people. We've been trying (and failing) for decades.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago

The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war

Good news! The odds are looking pretty high for both of those!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Carbon taxes fix the problem of using energy for dumb things. Climate change isn't caused by us using energy, it's caused by the fact that carbon pollution is free.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Bingo. Power usage isn't the central problem, it's the sources of power.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

I need some anon to write me a virus that will wipe out all datacenters in one go, something that will irrevocably fry all enterprise hardware beyond repair. Let's start over, with decent trust busting and without the plastic this time.

(edit: I guess it's not entirely clear but I'm expecting such a virus to hit the reset button on civilisation. Mass death, yes, but we won't fuck the world beyond being liveable.)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The world will be fine

It will take a long time in our timespan, and we won’t be fine, but the world will. Just a minor blip in the history of this marble

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

The world will be fine.

People are fucked.

  • George Carlin
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

This but for humans.

12 monkeys were right

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

And with ipv6!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If the power is renewable, who cares how much it uses? Things are far from hopeless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Because that power could have been used by someone else who's depending on coal instead. You cannot separate power sources when on the grid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

That's why we're working to get rid of fossil fuel power generation entirely.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war, becausing nothing else will convince people

We had a pandemic already and war in Ukraine is raging on - and both only served right wing extremists to rise and ignore climate problems even harder. We are fucked. I don't give up hope but it's tiny

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Necessity is the mother of invention, and new technology is only going to continue to use more and more energy. Conservation is not the answer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Did you miss the memo that current AI is already using more power than everything we've managed to save with green energy in the last decade?

You got a source on that? Cause that sounds fake

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Here's one:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.02243v1

Below is an article on crypto mining, not AI, but I'd wager a guess and say you certainly can draw parallels from it:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023EF003871

Also, whatever the source of green/renewable energy is, it takes a couple years to offset the manufacturing of said energy source:

https://www.cooleffect.org/solar-carbon-footprint

So even if there's no direct source on that 10 year claim, it probably isn't too farfetched!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

The article you linked doesn't support your claims, is unpublished and reads like the homework of some undergrads.

Training AI models, while computationally expensive, cannot compare to crypto farms the size of warehouses everywhere around the world.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Should i kill myself before all that unravels?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

No, there’s always a shimmer of hope and the non zero chance that we mean something for someone that could make a difference, or help make the difference ourselves. Even sometimes the tiniest good-hearted gesture will do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I keep saying, if Putin starts a nuclear war, we might save humanity. A nuclear winter will cool the planet. And with most of us dying of radiation poisoning, we won’t have the ability to start pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere. Yay!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

If solving the problem becomes impossible, the backup plan should be retribution, not complacency. That way they have an incentive to work with us.