this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
214 points (96.5% liked)

World News

39395 readers
2158 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Falling birth rates are bad news for economies and billionaires, but good news for the planet.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Climate change is bad for humans. The planet doesn’t care, it can carry on without us.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Humans aren't the only species on Earth. Mass extinction is bad for everyone living on this planet, mostly the other animals who suffer our destruction. I wish we could just live in equilibrium without killing off every species that isn't worth farming.

Earth is currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/6TqhcZsxrPA?si=Z6JWVbC5q549ao08

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This statement irks me unproportionally strongly compared to how banal it is. It's the equivalent of "it is what it is" in saying nothing, but with some edgy pedantic seasoning. What about if the atmosphere was stripped and the planet was left a barren rock? What about if something knocked it from out of the Solar system and it was sent reeling into the universe on its own? "The planet doesn’t care, it can carry on without us" -- and please, pretend I did the Spongebob random caps thing, because that's what I think of your banality.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

While I get where you're coming from, I think there's another way to look at the comment:

People talk about environmental issues as protecting the planet and that gets a lot of people motivated to make changes, but for everyone else, there's just no urgency or attachment in that argument. People look at it as if killing the planet will mean we have different landscapes, certain animals stop existing, etc. There's this idea that humans will be fine, but it's all of that mother earth nonsense that's at stake, and some people just don't give a crap about that stuff.

We can be more blunt and selfish about things and get people to look at it instead as protecting themselves. Saving the whales doesn't motivate you? Fine. How about saving every human on the planet from famine? Because that's what we're really talking about here. You don't have to be a tree hugging hippy that loves mother earth to want to do something about this. Be a self important prick that only cares about themselves for all anyone cares - you have a personal stake in doing something about this too because ultimately we're saving ourselves, not some concept of "mother earth".

The point of comments like that aren't to say "it is what it is" and dismiss the problem, but rather to re-frame it to not be a touchy-feely "save the penguins" hippy concept that only resonates with a subset of individuals and instead bring it to the simple and universal matter of preservation of the species that will resonate with nearly all people. You don't have to want to "Save the Planet" to want to "Save Yourself"

That's also very different from some of the scenarios you shared, but putting climate issues on that extinction event level is exactly the point. If we knew an asteroid was coming at us and would impact, ending ending human life, we'd be SUPER motivated to fix that. Nations would spend unlimited money funding research and construction of solutions and it would start immediately with universal support. If people saw environmental issues as a similar extinction level catastrophe, maybe that would change.