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Unfortunately, as i see it, climate change is, so to say, a done deal.
We can only amend and prepare for the upcoming and current consequences of changes we caused.
Things are moving, but to slow, chained by infinite layers of bureaucracy and responsibility shifting.
tl;dr The mentality of "I can do nothing; my commitment won't change anything" is the type of mentality one lobbying effort is targeted at. Be careful what information you consume, what you consider true and be careful to not let such information take your motivation and energy from you.
Yes, it is bad. But is it really that bad? What I'm seeing is, there are huge powers underway for their own goals which oppose transformation. Is it the lame bureaucrats, that block everything, that they are not flexible enough to move?
The impression "It makes no sense - I can do nothing." is exactly what THEY want you to think. Who are THEY?
THEY are the automobile companies. The companies that deny and want to avoid the change to new technologies. Because change is difficult and risky. They(in germany) faked emission tests here to avoid the need to change. They(in the US) sued a US state(california?) because the state introduced regulations that required the reduction of emissions produced by cars. Now both - some US and most German automobile companies are in trouble because of that. The chinese cars emisson level is way better than theirs and they are way behind because of their refusal to change and to adapt to a new situation.
THEY are the energy companies. The companies that built new power plants using coal in the last few years. At a time it was absolutely clear that this technology is a dead end. But they feared doing the new, the right thing. And so they built it and now the want the money back, they invested. So they tried with massive lobbying campaigns to introduce laws which blocks the change and influences people. "Renewables are verrryy expensive. Windmills kill masses of birds. When we switch to renewables, the lights in our country will go out! Renewable Energy will never fulfill our needed quantity of energy." A lot of that FUD(fear, uncertainty, doubt). And lots of people buy that stuff. Even I got caught by that sometimes. Now I know the arguments brought up are not new and will be used over and over again when needed, just for the reason that the do have an effect.
THEY are some of the people with a lot of money who use it to protect their profits and block the change.
Story I
Near my parents home town/village there is now a wind farm/wind power station. It is producing hydrogen, when the power cannot be injected into the public power network. So before the windmills are shut down, they now produce hydrogen(from water). There's a combined heat and power plant. When the public network will accept power again, the power plant will burn the hydrogen and produce power and heat which is used for heating a school a kindergarden and a beer factory. Overall a great technical achievement as a project with energy storage capabilities and efficient use of produced electricity and heat. Students of the secondary school built a mobile phone app for the civil investors to get live data out of the site.
The project was initiated by the mayor. There was huge resistence to this project. "Oh my god. Those windwheels are too noisy. There's too much shadow from that. It kills massive amounts of birds." A citizens initiative formed to stop the project. It was a long fight. The project was finally done. Interesting point: The head of the citizens initiative was the wife of the director of the nearby nuclear power plant(which is currently in shutdown state due to german nuclear-power-exit). So the intention here is: bring down energy change if anyhow possible; hopefully they can/must(!) switch on the nuclear plant again, because there's not enough other energy available. And use all possible people, groups, organizations and reasons to drive towards that goal.
Actually windfarm resistance by environment protection organizations is quite strong in germany and as I'm observing in the media this resistance seems to being used by others to bring down efforts in these areas.
Story II
The german Nuclear Plant "Kalkar" was successfully avoided through massive citizen protests. The companies ignored the protests as long as they could. But finally they could not just pull it through. At the last step of the initial launch of the plant they gave up. It was a glorious victory of the green movement. But the way they stopped it was just another attack to the motivation and energy of the people. They didn't say: "We are sorry. We realized that you don't want it. So we refrain from doing it." or "Yes, we now see it's a dangerous technology, we can not do this.". No they said, after having spent billions of EUR/Deutschmarks into this project: "We carefully reviewed the situation, and we realized, it does not give a good amount of profit." (After having spent billions, they got to this insight? Seriously?). So they denied any effect of the massive protests to this decision! They want everybody to think: "Protest is pointless. You can never win! Don't fight! Just give up!"
Conclusion
I do not believe it's bureaucracy. It's the companies fighting against everything that costs them profits - irrelevant if every human being dies in this fight. And that can be broken. Never let anyone make you believe you have no power. Never let anyone steal your motivation! Be careful what information you consume and what information you consider to be true.
We are very late - that's true. There may be things which cannot be reversed already. But can one really say we lost the war, before even starting to fight?
The links I wrote in the last post are not to bomb you with useless information. Those are stories to show you where it had worked, where the fighting is about to be won. Where victories in single battles had already been achieved. To show that there is a lot of people, people throughout society - even people with a lot of power - which are doing the right thing.
My personal TODO list
- in my new shared flat change power contract to a 100% renewable energy provider.
- find a project of renewable energy(windfarm, photovoltaic, solar thermic device,...) where I can invest my money in (preferrably from people I know personally)
- participate in and support civil initiatives for climate change: exctinction rebellion, fridays for future, ...
- organize events to get people interested in "climate change". Build up awareness, insight, energy and motivation to fight for our future
Update
Hey, wait... We're here at unix.com! Aren't here some super skilled IT/electronic engineers? Maybe I should ask them to think about ideas of apps/systems/devices which can help with climate change?