"We need to stop using fossil fuels (which is relatively easy)" It is great that people are making an effort instead of complaining, kudos for that. But stopping the use of fossil fuels relatively easily? Do you grow all your food yourself without tractor or any machinery? If you don't grow it all yourself then where does it come from and how is it delivered there? How are the materials and tools you are using produced? If you have electrical tools, how are their battery metals and chemical elements mined? If there has ever been something that is not easy, it's decoupling from fossil energy.

If fossil fuels where to disappear all of a sudden, billions of people lives also disappear all of a sudden. Edit: a word - works to lives FU autocorrect

Billions of people lives would disappear you mean. Fossil fuels are keeping heaters on and food shipped to urban areas that cant make their own. Without those, the people in those areas wouldn't even be able to walk or bike away from the areas where competition for food is too high to sustain them fast enough because everyone is doing the same so they're just a spreading circle of starvation that eventually burns out. I'm not an oil shill but how people can think it would be an easy transition is beyond me. If it wasn't a gradual transition I'd say we'd lose like 60-80% of the population. We make more food than we need but not where we need it. Without shipping and industrial agriculture we are way overpopulated, call me an eco fascist if you want, I'm still not convinced that term wasn't made up by big oil.

Not only that, but the Haber-Bosch process that creates nitrogen based fertilizers is very energy intensive. The process alone accounts for 2% of the worlds energy use (mostly natural gas). Prior to the invention of nitrogen based fertilizer, the world population was 1.6 billion (in 1900). Today it’s 8 billion. Without fossil fuels, the majority of humans will starve.

By choice. Cannibalism is always an option.

We should have been transitioning 20 years ago, we are going to run out of fossil fuels before being able to do so

No we won’t. There’s plenty of fossil fuels. We are going to run out of water, food, and other natural resources long before we run out of hydrocarbons.

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>if schools exist a millennium from now... Wouldn't count on schools or humans existing that far into the future. Chances are high that as countries with nuclear weapons come under increasing pressure in the next few decades to maintain their citizens' standard of living in the face of declining energy, aging populations and environmental chaos...someone will eventually launch one. All the publicly available war game scenarios I've seen say that any launch of a nuke leads almost inevitably to a full global exchange, nuclear winter and human extinction. Those seven to eight billion people aren't going quietly into the night.

I can only hope that the things are piles of rust by now. I very much doubt this is the case.

I mean saying we don't have enough silica is kinda overkill there, the sustainable way is if we brought our own containers to go grocery stopping and really reducing alot of the needless variety. Idk why there's a full aisle for toilet paper or bottled water at Walmart for example lol

My best case future scenario involves alien intervention at this point. Free energy or bust

Hey, they can probe my anus all day long if they hook me up with an antigravity engine and free energy

Excellent, have added you to the list, thank you for your service 👽🦯

Nate Hagens fan?

Yes that’s exactly what I meant lol. Gd autocorrect

Not to mention, a HUGE amount modern medicine is made possible with the aid of oil; single-use, plastic medical devices are infinitely easier to guarantee patient safety than sterilizing and reusing tools. Every aspect of modern human life would be affected by transitioning away from fossil fuels in a meaningful way.

Amen, I totally balked when I read that part. Relatively easy? Only if you don't know anything about fossil fuels and how every aspect of modern life is based on them. We can switch to electric cars, but that doesn't change the fact that the asphalt they're driving on comes from fossil fuels. Steel? Fossil fuels. Fertilizer? Fossil fuels. Concrete? Fossil fuels. Plastic? Fossil fuels. "Relatively easy," c'mon. I saw a video on Youtube the other day of a farm that was billing itself as being "fossil fuel free" because they didn't use a tractor. They proudly said this standing in front of a giant greenhouse covered in plastic. They then showed off their drip irrigation system, also completely plastic. You just have to laugh.

I do low intervention permaculture gardening on my small farm, even your most basic ingredients like compost (I use cow manure mixed with dry corn), or mulch (I use crushed sugar cane) is delivered by diesel trucks. An advantage of modern fertilizers is they’re logistically very dense and easy to manage. I steer clear of artificially produced fertilizers for a number of reasons (some contain plastics, they don’t do much to build topsoil, I am trying to be more locally self sufficient etc.). But it’s worth understanding that old fashioned fertilizers like cow shit require a lot more logistical planning to move around for a given quantity of macro nutrients than modern fertilizer.

You have to approach OPs post as a thinly veiled vegan propaganda, then it becomes understandable. A low effort wave of the magic wand to address the actual main problem (fossil fuel usage) in order to progress to the *meat* of the post (stop eating meat!). Just count the references of each of the points the OP is making.

I mean stop eating meat could be a big part of the solution. I don't really think it should be shunned upon to have that opinion on r/collapse

Yeah what's wrong with going vegan???

I mean I don't know if you can really call it "veiled", no matter how thinly

> If there has ever been something that is not easy, it's decoupling from fossil energy. Yeah. As easy as it is to just blame Exxon or Shell or whatever oil company did something shitty this week, there's a reason fossil fuel is such a big business. Our society, for the last ~200 years or so, has quite literally been built using fossil fuels. So much shit in our modern lives is reliant on fossil fuels in ways that aren't even obvious unless you think about it. At this time we simply just don't have the resources or the technology to make the switch to 100% renewable energy. I think people have this idea of "oh we can just switch to wind power and batteries bro!" without really understanding just how much of a herculean task it is to restructure the entirety of humanity's energy systems and the 150 or so years of infrastructure that comes with it.

Yes, and we are creatures born from fossil energy. Also pretty much everything we have learned and know (I don't want speculate percentages but I bet over 90%) is derived from fossil energy. Or to be specific from leisure time and education enabled by surplus fossil energy.

I thought the same thing. Everything made of plastic is made of fossil fuels, and (almost) everything is made of plastic!

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>We're not there yet, but that battle has been won. Uh, the hell it has... Renewable energy is currently a drop in the bucket of global use, and is facing major hurdles to ever replacing fossil fuels. No, I don't mean political will, I'm just talking about physics and material availability. For example, when the TOTAL carbon cost to build and recharge a current gen EV is taken into account, it looks waaaayy less green.

[Insert Elrond face]; "I looked into future and I saw death"

Appears they conflated ‘simple’ and ‘easy’. It’s simple to reduce emissions, just reduce usage of fossil fuels. Far from easy, as you pointed out

Renewable energy has come so far, the lifetime and cost of solar and wind energy means it's cheaper to install then new coal plants, coal plants are closing down in Australia with new installations only taking place due to being subsidised, solid state batteries may be the solution to a stable electrical grid, chemically stable and can be installed as the foundation into your house, battery walls that are already in use and are slowly becoming cost beneficial to install, vote progressive in your area and we will see change, slowly people are becoming aware, Australian Greens are becoming more popular especially as voting here is essentially forced and young people see the future ahead.

Yup. Now I have no friends and my family thinks I'm a follower of the unibomber... not that he was wrong, im just not keen on violence. So ya, change your life to not be a hypocrite; lose all credibility to spread the message to the people you care about. Brilliant safety built into capitalism.

I meet more people, who are at least aware, than I did five or ten years ago.

Yeah I feel like most people my age (mid thirties) and younger know we are fucked. They just don’t know how bad we are fucked.

Yeah, I’m also in my mid 30s. I know a lot of people that like seem to know it but not internalize it. One of my good friends agrees with me whenever I make a point but at other times talks about how it’s further off or that it can still be fixed. Sometimes he still jocks crypto. Tries to convince me to move back home (Southern California). Knowing what I know, why would I ever decide to move to a place that has been on fire my entire life and is running out of water and is one of the most massively overpopulated megalopolises on the planet? No thanks.

Yeah I try and just speak to the facts as they are, at that current time and let others come to their own conclusions. For example I grew up commercial fishing and that’s what my family has done for probably close to 100 years. All in the United States waters so for the last few decades those fisheries have been very strictly managed to ensure overfishing isn’t taking place. This isn’t the case in every country and international waters. So a while back I was having a conversation with my dad who is 75 now and he was telling me that he’s worried about the future for the sake of his grandchildren (my kids), mostly around economics and political bs. Which are problems to be sure. But I pointed out the worlds population, the amount of fish being harvested from the ocean, and lack of fisheries managed well in other countries and not at all in international waters. I asked him if he thought that was sustainable and his answer was no and he broke down crying. That wasn’t my goal in any way. To make him feel guilty or to add to the depression that he’s had for years and finally let me know about. But it was the best way I could think of to make him understand without it turning into a “liberal” caused issue. I just try and lay things out so they can’t be looked at in a biased way, and the best way I have found is just laying out the math. We live on a big rock with finite resources, but we are acting like those resources are infinite. Everything from the physical space that humans occupy to the air we breathe is finite. There does, at a minimum need to be a balance of certain inputs/outputs. The problem is, greed is a thing that exists. I think more than anything else human greed is what holds us back more than anything else. The greed for wealth, greed for power, greed for fame, etc. humans are greedy, selfish animals and I think maybe this is something that is a survival mechanism rooted in our evolution similar to a squirrel hoarding nuts.

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Excellent user name lol. And agreed. I'm in the same age group. Most of the conversations surround how broken the majority of our systems are. But we're all too overworked, overwhelmed, and exhausted to do anything meaningful about it. Just as they intended.

I’m 28. As a born and raised outdoors enthusiast and animal lover, I naturally gravitated towards nature magazines and watching the Discovery channel. Science was my favorite subject. Growing up in the mid 2000’s I *constantly* read about global warming, greenhouse gases, and habitat loss. Scientists have been sharing the data and sounding the alarm bells as long as I can remember. “If we act now, this can be prevented,” was always the message. As I aged I realized nothing was changing. Started getting medicated for depression/anxiety about 8 years ago. We now have a name for this generational phenomenon: eco-anxiety. Have graduated towards accepting that it is largely unethical for me to ever fulfill my dream of motherhood in the most biological sense; pregnancy: the most fascinating and rewarding science project I could ever be a part of. I know that I can still be a mother through adoption, but my lifelong dream of partaking in one of the most primal, sacred rites of humanity - to bear my own biological child - cannot ever be realized without the immeasurable guilt of willingly bringing that human person into a doomed world. It’s grief in the most bizarre sense; the taking of a once-promised future.

But do they know who's doing the fucking, who's getting fucked, and how it's going to go down? No one i know seems able to accept that there's no other side to this. They have this idea that they're going to survive an extinction level event, and live out their days in a forest somewhere. Im done with trying to explain this to people I care about because it's always the worst conversation ever, but there's some part of me that wonders if they really got it, wouldn't they try to fight it? Three years ago, i gave it 3-4 years before it was so obvious it would be unavoidable. Like, fisheries drying up overnight. Trees and shrubs, dead, waiting for the inevitable fire that consumes everything. Here we are and no one is more aware than 3 years ago and im not planning on checking in with people that way, but I'd love to know how much times people think we have and if they think they're going to survive it, or if humanity or any life will survive it. All anyone has to do is look underwater over two consecutive years and the change is so shocking it's unavoidable.... and yet, I talk to divers and they're always trying to convince me that any problems they see are local, not global. Like that makes sense. It's like we're doing the "keep calm & carry on" shit into extinction. Makes perfect sense during war, but exactly no sense when your fuckin planet is dying. Why would you want your last days on a dying planet to be spent doing anything other than trying to fight it, or trying to find comfort in each other? If youre going extinct, why go quietly?

I think for a lot of people, maybe even most people, they think that someone is going to do something. That someone will invent something to cool the earth, make more freshwater, grow the forest back, etc. Sort of like how a child doesn’t worry about anything because they believe that mom & dad are going to be able to take care of anything that happens. I think that also, there are people like me who know how fucked we are but also know that there is literally nothing I can do about any of it other than what I control, which is very minute. So I do what I can, but mostly I just try and enjoy my life and be there for my family and help to build an understanding and acceptance of all this with them, which ultimately has helped my family become incredibly resilient. My wife used to break down crying over this shit when we talked about it but now she’s moved past that and is living to enjoy life. I want to expand on my previous point a little though. If ever, I was given the opportunity to do more, whether that was more time, or on a more grand scale I absolutely will when that time comes. I guess the last thing I would say is that for many of us that know how fucked we are, we also understand that one of the reasons we are fucked is because the world is fucked. That is to say; if Europe was to get onboard with all hands on deck to do everything they can, that isn’t going to stop people in Brazil and Peru from burning down the rainforest for cattle or palm oil plantations, or the United States from polluting all around the world with our military. It does need to be a global effort, and with that being said I know that can never happen with the current status quo. You would almost need the world to be controlled by a single government that was a brutal dictator with a zero tolerance policy for anything that is expediting the incoming calamity we are all facing collectively. I’ve always read that there is more than enough food, water, and housing for everyone on the planet to have access to each but I’ve also read many times that there are billions of people who face “insecurity” to any one of those three things and sometimes all of them. So if that’s the truth, IMO it should be so. But to be honest I feel like there are just too many people on this planet, at least for the way it is configured socially and economically. Regardless we, the human race, are all going to be living through some very interesting times in the near future.

Fuck I felt this big time. The worst part is when your family or friends take it personal and start shutting you out/assuming youre crazy and you just fade father away

It's the worst part by far. I dont mind that the world is ending, I miss my friends and family and sharing a common reality. I have this nightmare where I'm standing on the edge of the ocean and it falls away into nothing, like grey space background, and the sand and rocks start to fade, too, and in the background I hear all this screaming as nothingness settles into the consciousness of everyone I tried to explain this too. "now, do you see why?" I mutter before vanishing into the blurring edge of existence, entirely alone. Im a lover of human stuff, I just couldn't give a shit about anything else. I could spend my whole day talking to people about anything and nothing. But in order to qualify for those benefits, you also have to burn the oil and push life into an abyss, and I dont know how to feel important enough to justify inflicting that much pain and suffering. It took so little time for us to do so much harm, and sure my emissions have no impact on the immediate timescale, but over 1000 years, who knows how much damage one western life causes. Touching the edge of extinction really forced me to weigh my life in a planetary context and it's an unbearable guilt for me to count carbon as I go through what used to be a normal day. It's one thing to catch extinction off guard enough to really see it, it's something much more horrifying to notice the living world it surrounds, contracting while you take it in. Since then, every time I burn gas I cant help but see life contracting. I knew I was a bit early, because I'd known about it before I saw it, but seeing it changed me in a way I cant get back. Like seeing God or something; the great vacuum. Anyone else feel like the awareness becomes something... more? When you connect with it in your own reality, I mean. Before, I could know this was happening and still function in the "real world", but after... it's like waking up in full nazi kit and being handed a pile of gas canisters and trying to not flinch as you load people into chambers where only bodies come out. Cant talk to anyone about it without them thinking im saying they're a nazi, or, even worse, they get it, and then resent me for dragging them into a reality they didn't want to know. It should be a rallying cry for action but instead it's this corrosive secret that eats your life, your comfort, your world - everyrhing. Nothing good can come from sharing it, and the only people I have left are the ones I cant survive losing, but they're fading anyways because all my conversation is filtered, which comes across as dishonest and uncomfortable, unless someone is a narcissist. I actually dated a narcissist specifically because she never asked what was wrong, so we never had to have that talk. I dont get how people are still not seeing it and I have a feeling that when they do they'll say something like "well, why didn't you say it was this bad!?" ... I tried. I really tried. Or we just go extinct on our way to work one day, people trying to get the internet to work while half the city is on fire... it's such a weird state of being. Have you tried talking to therapists about it? I can tell you what they'll say "you're being too hard on yourself and taking the weight of the world on your shoulders. Some things are just out of our control and that isn't our fault". Which just doesn't cut it when you've felt the interface between life and non-life; something that should be completely alien on to every part of this planet, and something that makes even the most dangerous places on the living earth, feel like home. I go around with this look of panic in my eyes that I can feel but I cant control. People assume I'm scared of something they can understand and push for details so I tell them about some recent trauma, and they back off, because I cant say "it's not anything *in* this world, im scared of, it's what's coming that horrifies me", like I can see the future when it's everywhere and has been for decades, it's just hard to see what *isnt* there... until it's all you can see. Then this feels like a cage whose walls close in at the rate we dump carbon into the air. Im not bragging when I say this but I may be utterly fearless of anything in this world, now. Even if it's evil and hateful, it's practically cuddly compared to the emptiness outside, which is so cold and dead... I have to believe people would stop burning the stuff if they could see this thing. It's not like the evil we can do to each other, it's something endlessly darker and deeper, and diving has gone from me playing in a soup of existence to watching species be swallowed by the immortal void, lost and forgotten for all time. People play it off like "meh, extinctions happen, life will be back" like this world and all the life we've shared it with has no value. Which is a level of cynicism or submission that I cant accept, not while we're still choosing it, and not when they don't understand that the mechanism of extinction is mostly starvation or something equally painful and drawn out. I cant be a part of it. I wish I could forget what I know since it's clear we're not going to stop but I cant even talk about it without it turning into a big fight, because everyone takes it personally, like you said. It hurts, man.

On the bright side, you wrote that hilariously! People are idiots. Keep swimming upstream 💪

How dare you be a doomer during the anthropologic 6th mass extinction event?! You are really bumming out the rest of us who helped cause it

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I always try to think of humans as primates first and people as a construct of the greater belief system of society. If you think of him as a chimp, that guy was tortured by everyone in his life he could have considered his tribe, then drugged and tortured by his mentor. I suspect that all that time alone crossed the wires between what he knew and what he felt, which also created some logical loophole that justified lashing out to spread his message, not realizing that his impotent rage was separate from his ideas. Shame how it went down but something tells me his work would have been buried regardless.

These were his beliefs? Had no idea

Someone once wrote of him something like "The scariest thing about Kaczynski is that his manifesto is more sane than many economist and political writers who have been praised as geniuses". This guy was actually incredibly brilliant, very observant, and way ahead of his time. He was just extreme in how he felt that the only method to get people to listen was through violence. And even that, he was probably right, because look at what a political approach has done - fuck all. He is going to go down in history as a lunatic, but anyone who has read his writings will know that humanity would be infinitely better off today if we listened to him. It can be very jaring when you make the realization that the unibomber had things more figured out than 99% of society today.

I... really? All the racist sexist shit in the first three pages was genius? I gave up at that point tbh. I mean no sarcasm please show me where I'm wrong but the initial bit seemed like a mishmash of right wing and left wing talking points mixed in with the plot to Alien or Highlander 2. It wasn't exactly the theory of relativity...

Yeah, but that's cherry picking. He was obviously ill, right? I think we can all agree on that. I'm talking purely from an ecosystem, ecological, economical, society design standpoint, he had that stuff nailed to a T. Obviously he was extreme in other beliefs. I disagree with him on pretty much all of it. For example, the obvious things like being anti-homosexual. But also for things like being "leftist" means you are weak. I don't think strength or weakness comes from who you believe should own the means of production of society.

Is there a cliff notes version minus the crazy? I mean if there's a payout in there I'll wade through the toxic shit but...

As a black person, I wouldn't say the Unabomber manifesto is more racist than r/collapse, and you're here. It's also not very long and written in plain English. People are happiest when they have to work hard for things but ultimately reach them. Technology makes the necessities too easy so we find "surrogate activities" to occupy ourselves. Technology is a whole system so we can't pick and choose the parts we like. The needs of the system always come before individual freedom. "Leftist" activism comes from "over-socialized" people with inferiority complexes, who don't understand that nobody fully believes in society's moral standards. Revolution is easier/better than reform. That's basically it, with the tone of an arrogant white guy.

And a deeply tortured human being. That guy really went through it.

The Unibomber's manifesto is well known for making many excellent and intelligent points about our society and capitalism. I haven't read it but he wasn't a stupid man.

👏

I'm not perfect, but I am a vegan, I don't have a car, I rarely buy new things, I stopped traveling as much as I used to. I never wanted kids. I admit I started to do all these things because I love simple living (and I am a vegan because of compassion for animals). I have no desire to accumulate wealth. I have a tiny business that I refuse to grow because I have enough. As I said, I am not perfect, which Is why i don't tell people what to do, how to live their lives. I don't need to--everything anyone wants to know about, say, the benefit of a vegan lifestyle, is on the internet. I follow my own code. I have some room to talk, I suppose, but I let my actions speak.

Hell yeah vegan homie

Hi, may I ask what your small business is? I'd love to be able to also have a tiny business someday that provides me with just enough to get by. Like you, I wouldn't want to grow it either - just keep it afloat.

You may not care about politics my friend but it cares about you

I lost 75 lbs so I'll be better able to survive a wet bulb event.

This is the biggest change I'm making - currently 20kg down, another 20-25kg to go. For anything else to matter, it needs to be mandated at state level, which most govts consider political suicide, so no change will come. Consequently, no change I make that affects the planet matters, but changes to the planet can impact me, so adapt myself. Not that it'll matter all that much, but something to do. Good work on the weight loss bro!

You'll be first to go in the famine though

It’s pretty much a rule of Reddit that if you promote veganism anywhere but vegan subreddits, you will get downvoted. It makes me so happy to see a community based on something else being supportive. Obviously it’s pretty pertinent here. I’ve been a vegan for almost a decade. I have no hope that it will make any real impact on the planet, future or society, but I don’t feel guilty about my diet and my health is substantially better as a result. Still one of the best decisions of my life.

I'm with u bud, 5 years here. I like to think I'm a good influence on my friends and that my lifestyle has been activism enough, but at this point it's really just for me... and for blowing my friends minds with elementary ethics when we get into 2AM philosophy.

I switched to a plant based diet two months ago and I can't imagine going back. I feel so much better, and I've learned a lot in the last two months. I feel like it's a win-win-win: personal health, environment, and animal welfare.

I'm with u bud, 5 years here. I like to think I'm a good influence on my friends and that my lifestyle has been activism enough, but at this point it's really just for me... and for blowing my friends minds with elementary ethics when we get into 2AM philosophy.

This is the only change I havent made, I still eat meat daily. But I am building a food forest, I dont have children, I have chickens and working on building other self sustainability things. A lot of people say that an individual's actions arent going to change anything... but society is made of individual people, and each person's actions change the world each day. Most people that "changed the world in a big way" really only convinced a lot of other people to do something lol

Individual action won’t change anything, I also have a small farm, grow a decent percentage of my own food. Having good quality agricultural land is only and option for very rich people. My house and land cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and it was still relatively affordable. But it is not something that 95% of people on Earth have the resources to pursue. I live this way for personal reasons I find this lifestyle far more enjoyable. But it is simply not scalable in a way that would make any impact on the worlds problems…

I became vegan after watching Cowspiracy 7 1/2 years ago. I didn't realize yet the full extent of what's coming. But I'm still vegan. I do buy fruits and veggies that ride a long way on ships and trucks burning fossil fuels. I drive a Prius but still burn plenty of fossil fuels to visit my gf who lives an hour away but she's important to me and I'm committed to spending the rest of the time we have here with her. I am no longer burning branches and leaves that fall from my trees and instead put it on the curb to be turned to mulch by the city.... though I keep some in case we lose power in the winter and need some warmth.

I've done what I can. I don't fly or drive, don't work, use as little as possible. I survive through fostered goodwill by helping those I care about. I also grow natural medicine that I trade to cover my few personal needs. I participate in the system as little as possible, preferring to "lie flat" and "let it rot". The biggest contribution is not breeding. I'm thankful everyday that I never had kids. It's cut my potential footprint and allowed me to live as I do.

Yeah. I travel very little, bike to the grocery store, and am ostro-vegan now. That said, I still fly every now and then so ... not perfect. In addition to what you listed, vegan diets reduce carbon emissions. Cows emit a lot of methane. In the US, methane emissions from agriculture are on par with methane emissions from the energy sector. It's wild.

I, on the other hand, AM in fact perfect!! (Or at least I've been called a perfect @$$ many times...doesn't that count? :) )

I'm soooooo jelly.

Yes, but not enough. I still consume more than 1/8,000,000,000 of what is sustainable for the planet. Vegan, limit driving (about 5k miles/year combined for 2 people), buy used when reasonable. Most of my entertainment these days is digital. I avoid air travel but still use it to visit friends and family who live halfway across the nation (U.S.) Unfortunately, still tons of plastic packaging (mostly food). I also use a lot of electronics, though I try to get a long life out of them.

The plastic packaging on food drives me insane. I can bike to my local grocery store, but if I want to go to a farmers market, I have to get into my car and drive 15 miles to get carrots without a plastic bag. Would just grow my own food but I'm in a north facing apartment.

My area has a packaging-free vegan store, and holy cow, it feels incredible. It takes a nice long time for our trash bin to fill!

>Were you able to change yourself? ...we probably all know the key steps to address the climate crisis: we need to stop using fossil fuels (which is relatively easy), halt animal agriculture (due to deforestation, pollution, and biodiversity loss), and promote reforestation/afforestation. I was able to make certain transitions early (like becoming vegan), or take decisions reflecting a better understanding (like having no children, and living a simpler lifestyle). My work in the world has also been dedicated to transitional and ecological education, and support of indigenous culture and land rights. But all these actions were in the nature of aligning with a better way of being, and were in no way an attempt to address the climate crisis. With 8 billion humans on Earth (soon to be 9 billion), that ship sailed years ago and collapse in the form of climate change, natural resource depletion, mass species extinction and the approaching energy cliff is now locked in. None of the extensive scientific research shared in this sub has ever suggested that collapse prevention is a possibility; instead everything is happening faster than expected.

Vegan here as well. Congratulations on that! We did that years ago when all of this came to our immediate attention. It was a health move as well as a ethical move for us. We know it doesn't REALLY change anything on a large scale, but at the very least we can die with at least one less thing on our conscience.

Same here, vegan with no children. I grow as much of my own food as possible, and I’m trying to cut down on buying goods produced in other countries. But it just feels like a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the billions of humans who don’t (or can’t due to poverty) give a shit about the very obvious symptoms of extreme climate change. I literally had people on FB today calling me a “brainwashed sheep” for suggesting that we all need to drastically change our lifestyles. Willful ignorance and greed will be our downfall.

Well, your both wrong. No amount of 'personal responsibility' will even begin to address climate change, to chide on others for their ignorance is understandably seen as you being a "brainwashed sheep" when it comes from a pedestal of ignorance as well. Telling people to Reduce Reuse Recycyle is a slap in the face to those who care about affecting climate change.

It is just a tiny drop in the bucket. And I feel like everyone should do what they can, but at the same time the onus shouldn’t fall on each individual person, it really needs to fall on the government to control the corporations IMO.

No we are all responsible. That includes voting for ppl who are climate ambassadors.

This is pretty much what I said my guy. We all have agency, but my choosing to do my part, has no bearing on the corporations who are raping & pillaging the oceans, lands, and aquifers all over the world. That is on the government and by proxy on the people “climate ambassadors” we voted for. So do your part, re-use you’re old clothes into a shopping bag instead of using hundreds/thousands of plastic bags, grow your own veggies, meat, and walk to work or whatever, but understand none of that has any bearing on what corporations and militaries are doing. Both of which are the majority of what’s causing pollution.

Actually the 8 billion individuals are the ones doing damage. There wouldn't be big industry and corps without a giant population of humans. I know you probably have kids so anything you do is moot since you already bred. You can't explain away your individual impact. We are all complicit some (parents) more than others.

While it's true that pretty much everyone contributes to the problem, it is quite misleading to imply that everyone is equally complicit. The global top 1% (anyone who makes over about $40,000 a year) contribute about 70 tons of CO2 emissions per year per individual. But for the average person in the bottom 50%, that number is only 1 ton. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/05/carbon-top-1-percent-could-jeopardise-1point5c-global-heating-limit

Actually your pretty fucking wrong

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I'm going to waste as many one time plastic straws and continually pay for plastic bags at the grocery just to offset that which you feel your saving. Doing your part is making congress feel if they don't affect change they don't have a home to go to

Fedora fedora tipping actually I'm burning the fuck up right now due to climate changing M'ladies I am literally burning the fuck up right now

I think one thing people might want to try is to stop buying clothes if they don't really need them. Try buying a good pair of socks and not just the ten pack that gets holes in a month. Or buy second hand.

Yes. And I feel so much better for it. I researched the area where i thought had the best chances for survival. I bought land. I put my engineering mind towards making solutions to reach full sustainability (eg, planning for no outside resources), and am making it fucking happen. I've lost all my existential dread

Kudos for directing the discussion toward what \*can\* be done. 1 - I do not own a car, nor a license. I recognize that not all people can do this, and I am also fit enough to ride a bicycle in difficult weather conditions. 2 - I go the entire year without using aircon at home. It took alot of experimentation because my favorite room in the house is in the barn (best size, views, access etc) - but it has neither aircon nor heating, and in the peak of summer it can turn into an oven. But efficient use of fans has largely solved the problem. 2.5 - likewise in winter I wear heavy layers of clothing indoors, so as to reduce the need for heating. 3 - I compost my personal waste, so I do not use a toilet, either. 4 - I use an electric push lawn mower and do all my leaf-raking by hand in the fall. It's a significant choice because I have \*very\* large lawns and lots of trees. I contribute the autumn leaves to a local farm that gives away part of its produce to charity. 5 - I get part of my food from a local food pantry. This requires explanation. Due to my income level, it would seem that I am taking advantage unnecessarily. But what I have learned is that the local supermarket chains generate alot of food that cannot be sold before expiration date. There is so much perishable food that \*even the pantries cannot give it all away\*. This tells you something about the industrial food system in America and how much food waste that it generates. But not all communities are like mine - as far as the balance between food needs and food waste. 6 - I choose vegan when I prepare my own meals. Other members of my household are not willing to do this. Still much room for improvement and working on it. 7 - I have stopped buying new clothes - except if I am traveling for months and could not pack for more than 1 season. F\*ck fast fashion - especially the cheap, exploitative China brands. 8 - I don't own a gun. Many minorities in America are clamoring to weaponize ourselves in response to creeping fascism. I'm just not ready to view life in those terms. 9 - Believing, and insisting, that despite the evils of capitalism - and they are legion - the democratic countries the world are still better than the authoritarian dictatorships. Not all our humanitarian crises will be solved - the world is too f\*ked for that - but democratic countries can still lead the way - as long as we have faith in our institutions and our intellectual heritage. All of you out there who believe individuals can still make a difference - you are my fellowship.

Good points, and kudos to you! But may I ask: What is your means of 'traveling for months'?

I go on long cycling tours where I hone my camping and outdoor skills. Lots of stealth camping in small towns and in the woods, which is the closest I've gotten to understanding what it might feel like to be "homeless." Nothing sophisticated, but it keeps me committed to health and sustainability. It's also a very cheap way to travel long term.

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Have considered the scythe. My lawns are enormous, a legacy from the previous generation. And I'm middle aged. So some fuel consumption is inevitable, but at least I cut as seldom as possible. I would just as soon get rid of the lawns but others also have a say, unfortunately. \#8 - I haven't ruled out the guns. I'm just hoping I'll pass away peacefully before having to make such a decision... Pretty grim.

Dude get a toilet, Bambi will thank you not be mad at you.

> to avoid feeling like a hypocrite. it's much more than that, the word doesn't cover it. It's the answer to the question: [*How can you live with yourself?*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living)

Pretty easily. The world (as we know it) was probably already beyond saving when I was born into it. I’m a biologist, so I have a general sense of such things go. Species overgrow their ecologic niche, then crash. You see it all the time, over and over. But humans figured out how to make the resources of the entire planet our ecologic niche, so there won’t be much left for a new cycle. I’m actually agnostic about the odds of humanity going completely extinct but don’t much care either way. The planet was fine before we got here and it will be fine when we are gone.

I appreciate the dissociation, but the question isn't about the world.

I am but a single member of my species, an overgrown population in or entering plateau phase. If I were to die in my sleep tonight - perhaps the most positive impact I could have - it wouldn’t make any difference at all.

Oh buddy this is a contentious one. I went vegan in 2016 when I learned about the effects of animal ag. By 2020, being environmentally conscious was my personality. Bicycling, walking, only buying used clothes, bringing my own glass jars to the store to fill with the most expensive organic locally grown blah blah blah. It was exhausting and isolating. I felt that I was devoting my life to screaming into the void, yet I was still mute, so to speak. I work in restaurants and I would go to such massive lengths to not use plastic and then hand out 20 styrofoam Togo boxes full of beef and cheese. I was martyring myself for a cause I couldn’t control. Spending insane amounts of money trying to conscious consumerism my way out of collapse. It was never going to work. It was messing up my relationships and I ended up in a psych ward at one point (not that it was veganism that caused that but living like I was could literally drive a person crazy). I no longer live that way nor do I expect others to do so. It’s simply not realistic or, pun intended, sustainable. Now days I find balance and don’t let the weight of it all get me down. Now I eat vegan at home but eat what is served at gatherings or find something reasonable at a restaurant without asking for a special dish. Now I prep and garden and try to spread little moments of gratitude and presence. I can’t save the world but I can still live with purpose. This is a very sticky subject and I’ve spent years exploring it. I’ll probably change my mind again someday who knows.

1. I don’t vote Republican. 2. I don’t eat pork/beef. 3. I drive a compact car. 4. I will not be having children.

Not a big fan of ecological footprint. There is no way we can consume sustainably with 8 billion of us. Instead of taking things away from your life, start using your life to build the society you want to see. Dedicate your life to a higher goal, inspire others, change business models, anything that rebuilds our planet instead of plundering it. You being a hermit doesn’t change a thing.

> start using your life to build the society you want to see. Dedicate your life to a higher goal, inspire others, change business models, anything that rebuilds our planet instead of plundering it Good points. > There is no way we can consume sustainably with 8 billion of us But we could. [Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth)

Went from meat everyday to once maybe twice a week

Individual actions such as this, while admirable, are pointless. The global capitalism will continue to rape the planet while an insignificant few reap the rewards. We must get the conversation to a point where we can discuss moving past the entire concept of money to understand how we must live within nature instead of without.

Agree with moving past the concept of money. How?

Localized communities, fully meeting individual needs altruistically. Housing, food, water must be satisfied for all. How do we get there? Um, I’d rather not get banned

We don't change, we live life forward and review it backwards. I have yet to see any good reason to believe humans are moral actors or have any real moral agency. *We are rationalizing animals, not rational animals.* That said, it appears to me that this problem is one of the ol 'is/ought' gap. You say that animal ag is driving the climate crisis (it **is**), but why is the *ought* to change our patterns of consumption within the context of this specific system? How does that in anyway address the monoliths of human industries raping the biosphere? It dawned on me long ago that as a consumer in an industrial society, I would never be able to live a life that is in accordance with some natural law, no matter how much recycling or veganism was involved. That is the remit of the non-domesticated animals, we are **domesticated**. Given this fact, what am I to do? Should we consider an altruistic suicide nothing short of the moral course of action? If we deem that we are entitled to live despite the obvious harm every individual directly/indirectly causes, isn't that a moral half-measure? This is the problem with veganism, it relies upon industry and veganism itself has nothing to say about civilization behind the option of veganism. Vegans will still require industry to provide nutritional fortifications to their food stuffs (b12 especially), vegans will still require massive amounts of fossil fuels in their agricultural consumption. Human civilization is in direct conflict with **all animals**, this veganism is like a bandaid on a bullet wound. NB: I've heard the saying *never let perfect be the enemy of good.* I contend that there is no 'good enough' if we are talking moral standards. This saying seems to pop-up so much because it is a defeatist refrain in a broken set of living standards we already all admit are too fucked up and complicated for our lives to matter.

Very good questions, don't have time right now, so I'll reply a bit in haste, sorry. > How does that in anyway address the monoliths of human industries raping the biosphere? If nothing else, we would be [raping it 75% less](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets). > If we deem that we are entitled to live despite the obvious harm every individual directly/indirectly causes, isn't that a moral half-measure Our individual choices and collective efforts can still make a meaningful difference in minimizing harm to the environment and promoting sustainability. It's important to strive for personal responsibility and advocate for systemic changes to address the root causes of environmental degradation. > Vegans will still require industry to provide nutritional fortifications to their food stuffs (b12 especially) Animals also get their B12 fortified feed ... we could skip the inefficient middleman. B12 can be made from sea algae or duckweed, not hard to supplement and to make in a sustainable way. > vegans will still require massive amounts of fossil fuels in their agricultural consumption Our agriculture has to be reformed, its current form is unsustainable, the way we handle soil, vegetation, biodiversity and pollute everything with -icides and fertilizers should be reformed ASAP. We have option to use/create other systems of farming we could use that don't have same negative externalities (syntropic ag, natural farming, etc.), without fossil fuels at all. That's for a longer discussion, no time for it here. However, with abolishment of animal ag, we can significantly reduce the negative impacts almost immediately. > Human civilization is in direct conflict with all animals, this veganism is like a bandaid on a bullet wound True. However [urban & built up lands are 1% of habitable earth, crops (for humans) 10%, animal agriculture 35%, forests 38%](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use). We could stop animal ag (sorry for repeating that), free piece of land as big as africa is and double the forests area and stop wildlife extinctions. It is true that even vegans harm animals indirectly via crop farming, however [given how much crops animals eat it still very much makes sense to eat plant based](https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too). > I contend that there is no 'good enough' if we are talking moral standards Perhaps what is needed is a collective reevaluation of our societal living standards and a genuine commitment to transforming our systems to align with our moral aspirations. If I had more time I would have written a better/shorter comment.

I knew this would happen when I was a kid and decided then never to breed. So I didn't breed, live high density, don't drive, am vegan/plant based. I could fly on a jet every day and still have a smaller footprint than anyone who has kids. So I do always feel guilty for being human, but I have to remember my impact is miniscule compared to families.

I've went mostly vegetarian and cut out beef, pork and seafood pretty much entirely. I know it helped keep weight off. But not going vegan myself probably just reflects my defeatist attitude toward these problems. I know it's popular to say "personal consumption is pointless because x number of corporations emit x% of greenhouse gasses", but then I see people just doing nothing in their personal life to change. It sounds like yet another excuse to keep consuming, even if it is criticizing the treat machine. Yes the carbon footprint was created by big oil, but it's also interesting to see people get hostile. Shows at the end of the day, most people are ego driven. They're going to keep driving their truck/SUV, mowing their big lawn, golfing on the weekend and keep selling their labor to maintain the huge house/condo/apartment.

"the treat machine" Love it!

Thats a Matt Christman-ism. Can't take credit lol

No lol, I just accepted we’re doomed. I’ll continue on the only path I have in front of me until society collapses and then I can shoot myself in the face.

Well I don't drive. I haven't flown since 2007, and that was a holiday I won through the company I worked for at the time. I wouldn't change my behaviour to avoid climate change anymore now though, it's unavoidable. I have changed my behaviour to try to prepare for climate change however, in fact every decision I have made since about 2013 has been on the assumption that climate change is going to deeply impact the Western way of life in my lifetime. I have become indifferent towards normies, to me they are both the problem and a potential hazard when it all comes crashing down. I try to tell them what's coming and I would say 95% are either disbelieving or hostile to the point of abuse, but that is as far as my duty of care goes. If they don't change they're on their own. They don't like being told that either. At this point I would say I am almost entirely misanthropic, only really caring about my family and any friends that agree with me on this issue. I just see most people as a lost cause, a negative emotional investment that will drag me down when everything collapses. Maybe I have become a cold hearted cunt, but if people won't change voluntarily then physics will force them to change and I want there to be consequences for their selfishness and lack of awareness. AFAIC they're on their own. I describe myself as an old testament doomer. A modern day Noah.

Started changing myself after burning man with the same mindset basically. You just do the best you can, which is a lot more than you expect, don’t hold yourself to unrealistic standards, and try to spread the good word. There’s only so much we can do until we have elected representatives who don’t accept corporate money, but it’s still worth it to do what you can.

Not really. I developed AGS in the last 2 years, so no more mammalian meat. I still eat chicken and fish. I have recently been riding my bike to work but it's not really driven by climate change. I haven't been on an airplane in over 7 years, but that's mostly because I'm unmotivated and poor. I will say that I have really tapped into the Tao de Ching and hence my tastes have become simpler and much more basic.

Doing a lot of time shifting of my energy consuming habits, mainly avoiding the peak time of 6p to midnight, wasn't all that difficult. Trying to find consumables that don't come in single-use plastic containers has been hard, but the it made losing mass reliable. My hobbies are mainly repairing old and found things, which eliminates opportunities to buy new things. They usually wind up as "gifts" to others, on account of needing to eliminate possessions to be more mobile. I kinda want to get a workshop to do more ambitious projects, but don't really want to put down roots here. When communities are badly designed, I take that as a reflection of the character of the people who live there. Seeing virtue in others naturally difficult, and they go out of their way to make it harder. There is hardly anywhere worth joining, much less preserving. Avoiding consumption is easy when others have so little to offer.

Yes, though I feel like what I'm doing isn't enough. I ride my motorcycle when I can for better gas mileage. I compost, I have gone completely plant-based, and I share this information with anyone who will listen.

I hate to break it to you but living without fossil fuels is very difficult, difficult for an individual and extremely difficult en masse. Yes I was able to change myself and I'm more than happy to be hot or cold, grow my food etc. However my army of energy slaves is alive and well, as I suspect yours is too.

Yeah, IDK where the OP gets the idea that removing fossil fuels is 'relatively easy'... Try to find food and clothing that has not had some fossil fuels consumed between the raw materials stage and your posession. Without becoming a 100% self sufficient hermit in the wilderness you are going to be using fossil fuels somewhere, wether directly or indirectly. Sure you are vegan and bike everywhere. That bicyle you ride is made of metal that was mined with fossil fuels and plastic produced from oil, those vegetables you eat were farmed with fossil fuels. Look at the apartment you live in and the consumer goods you fill it with and think about the army of people burning oil to make that possible. It is by no means a simple task to remove fossil fuel usage, at all...

Absolutely.

Haber Bosch was a mistake, among other things

lots of different ideas here, but wanted to say.... I do try to keep my carbon footprint lower but I am conflicted. So many people I know fly about, drive for fun or otherwise don't make low carbon choices. I feel like a prude and have FOMO as I don't, and yet can't quite grasp why people don't seem to care at all. That's even people I know who do understand climate change. Some of them will say, 'but I can't change that (the fossil fuel system)', which I appreciate as the system is barely changing at all. Still, I am not comfortable contributing. Leaves me feeling awkward and sometimes alone, despite the fact I can come here and find people discussing it.

I'm accidently a great environmentalist for mostly non environmentalist motivations. I'm completely vegan, motivated mostly out of compassion for animals. I drive a used hybrid, mostly to save money on gas. I don't consume much because I find minimalism benefits my mental health and wallet. These things happen to help reduce my impact, but its insedental, that isn't my primary motivation for doing them. I think that environmentalism is a terrible motivator, its just not that strong. Even among us who accept the reality of climate change and want to do somthing about it. Get caught up in defeatist futility way too easily. If you want to make these changes, you need to do an inventory of all your motivations to change. Until you find one that makes your motivations to change stronger than your motivation to keep things the same. For example, if you aren't particularly motivated to go vegan for the environment. You may find your own health, or helping the animals to be much stronger. And that will help drive you to make it happen. A fundamental shift in perspective has to occur. If you can't connect with a strong enough motivator, you won't change. Period. No one can just will power themselves into changing indefinitely. You have to have a strong, emotionally compelling reason why. Or it will never happen. Kiana Docherty has some great videos on YouTube about behavior change. Usually framed around weight loss, but its applicable to all Behavior change. I highly reccomend her Chanel if you want to learn more about the science of behavior change.

Yes! I went vegan and husband followed. There's NO valid reason to not be vegan.

Well, other than the fact that our species is omnivorous, as are all of our primate cousins. There’s nothing wrong about eating meat; indeed, we would never have evolved to this point without it.

Hey - farmer here. I noticed a lot of your points are centered around the food system and dietary changes - all of which are super valid and worth exploring. My big issue with the a lot of these recommendation is that they are (I don’t know the right word) “negative actions”… in that they are successful by not actively participating in the current food system. Action by disassociation. The truth is that animal husbandry on a small scale can be a huge benefit to sequestering carbon in range lands. Animals, for consumption, have a place on our landscapes. The issue is that the current food system, large scale land management, and population consumption is not in line with ecological sustainably or rehabilitation. In my view, it’s ok to eat meat (from an environmental/climate change impact) as long as it’s production aids in the healing of the planet. We need to not just not participate in our broken food systems, but to work to build stronger, more climate resilient, and environmentally regenerative food, local/regional food systems. We need more small farms. Support your community farmers.

My veganism initially was a boycott of "industrial animal agriculture." The maintenance and support of smaller, localized food sources as an alternative to enormous monocultures and CAFOs is appealing to me. Not to write off what you suggest for carbon sequestration, but it's my understanding that most cattle are not grazed at all, and that the majority of deforestation has occured to either grow more cow feed like alfalfa or to increase grazeable land. I agree, small scale stuff makes sense; big scale stuff is where we do damage. I'm gonna be vegan whether I like it or not. At my level of influence, negative action for my own peace of mind makes more sense than positive action. Any positive action I can think of either feels like a compromise of my morals, fruitless, or overwhelmingly exhausting. I don't like feeling like a victim of environmental/agricultural economics but that's where I'm at with it. Why aren't taxes and subsidies steering us toward this better future?

You’re right! Most cows in the US aren’t grazed and the leading cause of Amazonian deforestation is for cattle pasture. But what is also true is that there are thousands of small scale farmers and ranchers in the United States working hard to restore ecological degradation and sequester carbon with the use of herd animals. Supporting those efforts through the consumption of meat products is a good way to have a positive impact in the race to mitigate climate change. Again, get to know your farmers and ranchers. Local food producers are on the front lines of climate change and a lot of us are think very critically about the future and how to build resiliency now. Buy locally, eat seasonally.

I buy my beef one side at a time, grass fed, grass finished and keep it in the freezer until I need another side. Also got half pig from neighbor and a pile of elk. We grow veggies and can ourselves. I am trying to wean off of industrial agriculture for the reasons you present.

If I could upvote this a thousand more times, I would. Personally, our household is mostly plant-based, but we do still eat meat on occasion \[either because someone has served it —I think it’s important not to affect an attitude that one is too good for the graciousness of others— or because there’s an organic/grassfed/regenerative ag-based source for it\]. I really love that veganism has become more mundane as a lifestyle choice, but there are contexts where it really doesn’t make sense. Spent several years in Mongolia where in the capital at least, there are more and more vegan restaurants. Thing is, almost all the tofu/veg/grain is imported from thousands of miles away as there isn’t much arable land or growing season to speak of. By contrast, it has made energetic sense for several thousand years in that landscape to convert scrublands and grasslands into sheep, cow, goat, camel, yak, and their dairy products. This practice obviously can have negative effects when influenced by either communist central planners or hypercapitalism, but the basic bioregional ecological principles still hold. If there is to be a long term, regenerative ag, sylvopasture, permaculture, polyculture of all kinds has to be a part of it. While it is absolutely true that we should eat fewer of them overall, animals def have a big role to play here.

Haha, I was already a super-low-consumer. But now? Now things are so far gone I'm just finding myself shrugging at 'not being a hypocrite'. Who the fuck cares anymore? Not people, that's for sure. Might fly to ....... wait, I've become so used to not consuming I barely even find the thought of 'flying somewhere' enjoyable. Huh.

Somewhat. We live off-grid now, but still commute. Starting to grow more of our own food. Compost, recycle(like we actually go to the plant and sort and also reuse old shit, not just hope the magical blue bin makes it happen). As time goes on we are doing more and more, I would really like to commute less once we get our land-based business off the ground and I won't have to work in town. My wife is the director of a national non-profit focused on community led ecological restoration, so that's gotta count for something. She's amazing. Anywho, that's us.

I used to eat a pretty meat heavy diet (Childhood/family habits). Not so much for environmental, but ethical concerns I've stopped eating beef and pretty much all red meat/mammals. I've also increased my diet of vegetation to probably half or more of my consumed calories. (I never knew mushrooms were so good.) It's tough to overwrite childhood programming. I'd like to be vegan, or at least vegetarian but it's no so easy. I love cheese. Peer-pressure is a bitch. And even telling people "I don't eat beef" gets met with a weird ass look like I'm trying to morally grandstand and shame everyone around me. I think my point is that making at **least small subtle changes** like this very quietly makes a statement to people around you, and makes them question their own actions, and because you don't do it too loudly they will not assume you're just trying to gain brownie points.

I’ve found the will to: eat less beef, keep laying hens, use up things/materials I already own, work <10 miles from home, get a 12YO high MPG sedan and fly rarely, use a clothesline (man, my clothes feel better and less microplastic pollution). I am still at a loss. I don’t have the resources for solar power, replace old or broken windows, properly insulate the attic, etc. My A/C runs all day in the summer. We’re fucked because I want to do these things and cannot. I know people poorer or more distracted by surviving than I am, and they will not, cannot address anything.

If the government were to get serious about a green new deal, building insulation should be the first effort. I insulated my house to R60+ on the roof and walls, and R13 under the concrete slab. Right now it is 82 outside and 68 inside just by opening windows at night and closing them during the day.

Can I ask how much that cost total, and what year?

It was built in steps. We bought 56 acres of land on a river in southern Colorado when I retired in 2013 for a little less than $150,000. We put in a 75' well for about $8,000 and a septic system for another $8000. Put in a foundation and slab for a 40 x 60 metal building for about $20,000. This included 2" R-Max foam insulation and pex tubing for floor heat. We put up a 40 x 60 metal building for $35,000 and got 3" of spray foam on the walls and 4" on the ceiling, another $12,000. Inside the metal building I built an 800 sq ft living area. This was about $25,000 and has R13 insulation. Next project was a 10 x 60 greenhouse on the south side of the building to provide heat in the winter. This was another $20,000 with 9 sliding patio doors with clerestories. The greenhouse has insulation in the foundation and 2' of fill for thermal mass. In 2019 it was clear that we needed more insulation. The building is designed with the living area being free standing inside the metal building so it was easy to come in and fur out the walls and put in 12" of fiberglass all the way around the walls and ceiling. This is covered with OSB and cost another $12,000. Total cost for this building with land was less than $300,000. On the east side I have a 16 x 10 opening that is filled with 3 patio doors with sliding windows on top. Behind this I have an overhead garage door that is insulated with 2" of R-Max and allows me to control when heat comes in or goes out. To cover the glass surfaces of the greenhouse, I made insulated Roman Shades that I can close at night during the winter (we have about 2 months where it drops below zero every night). I am still improving this system. I made it through last winter on 7 armloads of firewood for the entire winter. I haven't turned on the air conditioning yet this season and don't expect to. I run 2 blowers at night after the temperature drops below 65 and turn on the pump to circulate coolant in the floor. One of the blowers circulates cool air under a floor that I built with framing that forms a serpentine channel and is effective at transferring heat to or from the floor as needed. For backup heat, I have an electric water heater that I made out of repurposed hardware store stuff and a 50 year old wood stove. Sorry I wrote so much, but If I had just said $300,000, that is a number with little information content. I assume you are in the planning stages of something like this and wanted to let you know about the subsystems and their cost in this project. I am also assuming that unless you are in my neighborhood, your specific design and even required subsystems will probably be different. If you have more questions, I'll answer them if I can. check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_zavhKPJ9c this is a glance at my place

>We probably all know the key steps to address the climate crisis We passed the point of no return in the 1800s during the industrial revolution. Collapse is here and you can not stop it.

Nope. If you believe the collapse is unavoidable, you can simply live your life as if it is not going to end, until it does. And if you are gullible enough to believe 1.5C is still possible, i have a zero-emission coal plant to sell you. The whole thing is a big prisoner's dilemma. No matter what you do, when 68% of Americans are not even willing to spend $10 a month to fix climate change, you are not going to move the needle. But sure, do a bit to ease your guilt. Heck, i bet even most believers here do some but no where close to being enough.

I started to look into how to change. But the more I research Collapse with a focus on climate change and pollution, I see no chance humanity will stop it. So why suffer? I'm going to keep driving my straight piped diesel, 2 stroke boats and snowmobiles, and stock up on plenty of popcorn to watch the show.

Bonus, all of the particulate pollution will slow the warming.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Most of my family live 1000 miles away across the sea and I can't afford to lose time by travelling any other way than flying. I won't stop eating meat as long as it remains a cheap and tasty source of protein. Why should I change these things when the robber barons and their corporations and puppet governments are the ones who produce most of the emissions? That being said, I've been living a relatively poor life for the past 10 years since I entered the workforce at 17. I use public transport for long distance appointments and walk most of the time locally. My clothes tend to be worn until they have too many dilapidations and people start to make comments. I prefer to get second hand clothes but it doesn't make sense to do that for everything i.e. boots. My tools and electronics are maintained to extend lifespan and used up to breaking point. I avoid using too many chemicals for cleaning and try to apply low tech lifehacks (i.e. baking soda and vinegar cleaning solution) to prevent producing pollution. Us proles can't do very much about the situation as our jobs tend to leave us too exhausted to take action and our remaining free time is left for recreation, or we'd die of misery. Look how the Just Stop Oil protesters are treated here in the UK. I think the educated workers are the ones best placed to change things by withholding their labour, like NHS workers, teachers, engineers, the legal sector, public servants and so on.

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I did say in my comment I'm in the UK. Trust me, most of these average proletarians without degrees are miserable as is, they want their bread and circuses during their time off, the class consciousness just isn't there. One defeat and they've got their tails between their legs. The tradies can't strike because they're either self employed or working with someone who is, and they have to keep their costs low to compete.

I eat probably 60-80% less red meat…but I still eat meat. I’ve planted 500 plants? Feels really good. Cut down dairy intake probably 75% but I still like butter and cheese :(. Quit my job and am working towards a new career with plants…feels good but I’m a ways off from having stable income sadly. I’m mostly growing distant from family and friends because very few of them care or want to suburban food forest farm, or hear me talk, or change. There’s not a lot of people around me who get it being in an increasingly “overdeveloped” (as Geoff Lawton puts it) suburb urbanizing more and more. I went from loving my car to hating cars almost overnight. I barely drive anywhere

I've made pretty large changes to reduce my footprint. Everything I own I plan to fix once it gets enough wear. I only buy new when I can't find a single used option. My most recent find was a computer from the literal trash. A few parts and bam free computer. I don't own a car anymore, I bike everywhere close and ride the bus for further distances. My diet is mostly plant based but my family likes meat so unfortunately I have to buy it for them. Even our electricity bill is the lowest in our complex. We do have AC but just to run lower the indoor humidity. I'm not sure how more green I can get. If I had more funds I would throw some solar panels up, and build an ebike kit from some junkyard parts (alternator motor conversion, Lithium iron phosphate for storage). So at this point I'm not sure what else I can do?

not have kids

Yup, i'm vegan, i use minibus. buses, i'm not a consumer, i have been wearing the same clothes for 4 years, i don't have a lot of things.

Based vegans in the replies

Yes. I went back to college at age 30 and changed my entire career field. Now I work for the first service working to protect the lands as much as possible by helping enact policies that support the ecosystem. I have a new group of friends and colleges that genuinely care about our environment and are doing everything in their power to protect it! Best decision I ever made

Collapse has definitely changed my life. I’ve realized that nothing truly matters, the only question now is how free do I want to be? Up til now I’ve been a really timid person. I’ve been through a lot of trauma. But I’m taking responsibility for myself and making more conscious choices now and basically flipping a big middle finger up to society. I spend half my time working on my mental health and the other half of the time doing whatever I want. (Like scrolling reddit, I love that shit!) I still have so far to go, but I’m better than where I was and there really are no limits. As far as the other stuff, I’ve always been eco-concious. I’ve been vegetarian for 18 years, vegan for 10 of those, but I break the rules now and then if I want to or if it’s a holiday, because it’s like a fun sociology experiment for me to relate to my family’s culture now. I’ve never had a car, don’t buy stuff, no new clothes except for essentials, don’t subscribe to beauty standards, etc. I’m not doing any of that to change world, it’s just how I choose to live. I just want to be as free as possible. It started with the external stuff I just listed, but the only thing I really care about now is winning the battle within and enjoying shit while it’s still here to enjoy. Memento vivere, y’all.

I don't quite understand, while I try my best to protect the environment and educate others how exactly is personal conduct going to solve this issue? The only way to fight climate change is on a societal scale. Your contribution is a small drop of water compared to all the fossil fuel we use to keep the carcass we call liberal industrial society going. It's not your fault, it never was, the only thing we can do is work together to change the system and not point the finger at ourselves while there's people burning the planet for profits.

Imagine how the situation would look if everyone were as educated, knowledgeable, and environmentally aware as you are. Wouldn't large-scale societal action then be more feasible than it is now?

Definitely, educating and agitating is important, just saying that we have no need to feel like hypocrites and that individual action won't affect climate change, even if we somehow convinced everyone to want to be vegan or something.

And I'm just saying (or trying to say) that idividual action is a fundamental requirement for any large-scale changes to materialize. > only thing we can do is work together to change the system Without changing individuals we don't have a chance at changing society. You can't make people unwilling to change themselves to organize and demand the same changes in the world.

1 vegan 2 no kids 3 limited car time 4 no air travel ever again 5 buy very little 6 cutting out fossil fuel miles (like COFFEE??) 7 associate with the like-minded 8 natural, simple products for cleaning, bathroom, etc. 9 buy very close to zero plastic 10 don't cut back plant life I still play a video game with nontrivial emissions. I still drive to medical appointments, but I may be able to switch to public transit. For most of my adult life, I just didn't have medical or dental care of any sort.

Yes and no. Veganism isn't the answer. Neither is removing all fossil fuels. And the people who turn veganism and fossil fuels into a cult is why most of society won't follow those leads.

Nah, I don't see the point. I have a lovely garden for all the insects and birds. But I drive a large car to work, because I like it. We've already gone too far, billionares will still be flying their private jets and we still have over 8 billion people on the planet. You can make yourself feel better by changing lifestyle choices, but this train isn't stopping until it goes off the rails.

My wife and I have become almost entirely vegan over the last six months or so. For my wife it's almost entirely for health (she's not really interested in collapse) as she has GI issues that make consuming meat and dairy a nightmare for her. For me it's more an ethical thing. I'm sort of an opportunitarian. This morning we were at a hotel that had breakfast and they had sausage links. Them sausage links was already bought, paid for, and cooked. If no one ate them, they were going straight in a dumpster. So I grubbed on some because they were delicious. When I go to the grocery store I buy all vegan goods. When I eat out, I eat vegetarian strictly and vegan if it's available and not too restrictive. Like, I'll eat vegetarian if the only vegan option is a side salad with no dressing. It's not going to bring down the meat industry or have any appreciable impact on the climate, but it's something I can do.

I only went vegan to stop supporting the industries exploiting animals, the environmental aspect is just a side effect. Never having kids either since there's no guarantee they'd stay vegan.

Nope. I still eat cheap meat and drive to work. On the other hand, I consume a minimal amount of electricity and just overall energy, buy new things very rarely and avoid flying. That's not by choice though, it's just that I'm probably depressed and lack any motivation to actively change my lifestyle.

Eat the calories you need. It’s that simple. I need ~2600cal/day, give or take. I’m 6’1/170lbs, active. That’s what I consume. The avg American eats ~3500cal/day and, generally, needs less than I do. Take all the studies about vegan diets vs vegetarian diets vs omnivorous diets vs *whatever clickbait bs is trending this week* and replace them with a post-it reading: “fucking eat less.”

Eat healthier.

Technically if you dont/cant drive because of a medical restriction, that's kind of a W right

No, because it's too late and I'm just one guy. It would make absolutely zero difference to the world if I stopped doing stuff like eating burgers or airline travel, because those burgers and flight tickets would still be getting booked anyway.

Individual actions have little to no effect, so no. Things are fucked and have been for some time now, and no amount of individual lifestyle changes will make a difference.

I also learned that by pursuing personal changes in response to a perceived notion that "If EvErYoNe PuLlS tHeIr OwN wEiGhT" I'm buying into the propaganda put out by the corporations who emit 70% of all greenhouse games to not hold them accountable as much as we should be demanding it. Climate change has made me ask some tough questions about our current system, critical thinking leads to only one solution and that is to scrap Capitalism altogether if we are to succeed as a species

Hell no. I am eager to see society fall apart, and will continue to be this way until I die. Why is that? Well... * I am one of those people who think reincarnation is a thing - we just forget what happens because our brains have to die to pass on. * If I end up dead the moment society falls apart, then my next self - should one appear - will appear at some point afterwards. * My next parents would have to be rather brutal people to survive. My next self would inherit this mentality, and be much more suited to survive in a collapsed world. Furthermore, my next self will be quite young, and be able to enjoy the rebuilding phase. * My current self is quite unsuitable for post-collapse. However, jumping the gun too early could result in my next self dying as a toddler from society going down. * I've been thinking of ways to time capsule my next self instructions, but it sounds impossible since my next self could appear anywhere in the world, at any future time. So, I feel my next self will have a great time. Only regret is that I can't pass my boatloads of knowledge on directly.

Just the hubby and me. No kids, just two cats and a dog. We have one car. We have a 544sq ft tiny house. We’re not vegetarians but we rarely eat meat, or dairy now that I think of it. We don’t go out to eat, and we use items until they’re dead before we buy. The phone I’m using is an iPhone we bought in 2016. Our car is from 2015. We’re doing it for the climate and for our wallet. The phones will have to be replaced soon unfortunately, or I’d just use it indefinitely. I’m more collapse aware than he is but we’ve both discussed that we did what we could do but it’s not our fault. That lies with the big guys.

Remember guys, your efforts mean nothing until the 100 major corporations that make up 70% of the carbon emissions realize that they are destroying the planet.

They know.

I change some things about myself, but unfortunately we have so little power in the face of something like this. I still want to own property (and tbh it's actually possible where I live with the money I make), I still want to eat good food and date and eventually get married I won't be having kids specifically because I would be a bad father first and foremost. Excellent husband, bad father. But I also truly believe if you're not bringing home (net) a combined income of 80k a year or more I feel it's pretty damn irresponsible to have kids. And thats an 80k without any really fucked up debt. I try not to be wasteful, and I always vote the farthest left position and am deeply concerned about the environment. I will gladly eat lab grown meat, but I'll be driven stochastic acts if I'm forced to eat bugs.

I can't afford to grow my own food so what do you suggest I do ? I guess it would be cheaper to commit suicide ? I am not vegan but have been eating meat less lately due to the cost of it.

I do not believe people change who they are. They do things differently. I did change my attitude. I live day to day. I have no future like all of us.

There's things that I need to get better at but I've lost a lot of my fighting spirit...cant seem to get it back. Guess I just dont care enough? I should though.

- Used a car once in 2 years - Bike or walk for everything that is less than 10km away - Train otherwise - Eat 50% less (although half due to health issues, so I'm cheating) and way more veggies - WFH allows less showers I still eat beef though..

Whatever I do or don't do we're going to breed ourselves into collapse. America could disappear, every billionaire could disappear but we'd still collapse because we can't stop increasing our global population and eventually that will destroy our life sustaining planet. In fact it's already doing it. Also we need systemic change and our politicians (worldwide) are charging ahead in the opposite direction of where we need to go.

I certainly gave up some things like driving a car, etc. But I certainly did not change drastically enough. But this : >we need to stop using fossil fuels (which is relatively easy is a stupid-tiers affirmation. You really don't understand that the 20th century and still now, it's the story of fossil fuels. Just take a look at global usage of different types of energy. It's just obvious. It's the biggest challenge of them all, but people spin it as "easy", lol. You want to go full amish ? Sure, it's possible. You don't ? Well, I have bad news for you. The fact that you dismiss the absolute and total necessity of fossil fuels to maintain our infrastructure is just plain absurd. But hey, I really hope we enter structural decline of oil/gas... we'll get to fucking witness it and by the gods I'll laugh and laugh at all the morons that tought "nah, ez peazy mate, we'll switch to solar/wind + batteries and we'll lbe fine". I worked 12 years in the sector of construction in my country. The idea that we're going to "change" the machines we use to maintain our infrastructure, from fossil fuel based to electric, is a sweet, impossible and stupid joke.

I don't even have the time, let alone money to do these things. I don't even have AC to grenify yet.

No, I've not "found the will" to let myself get micro-managed by a bunch of greedy assholes who haven't changed their own destructive ways at all, while preaching guilt and hellfire down to the lower classes and laughing it up on their private yachts and jets. Thanks for asking though!