fairy tale

The majority of fairy tales (as told throughout human history) do not have happy endings. They were typically told to teach or reinforce hard social truths to prepare young people for the world. The “fairy-tale ending” is really an anachronism of modern, capitalistic story telling. Happy fantasy sells, and reinforces myths that benefit the elite, such as upward social and financial mobility (see Jane Austin, or every Disney movie), and the opportunity to become part of the landed gentry. The belief that everything always works out is itself a major piece of the capitalists propaganda machine, and because we fall for this, we keep making decisions against out best interests - We are all just one fateful encounter away from becoming rich or famous after all.

Reality isn’t fun to think about when you know nothing you do matters.

I just can’t imagine our current political systems being capable of passing enough laws and regulations to turn it around. We have to have nearly the entire planet to agree on something?! Fuck.

If the USA goes to 0 (which is the most hilarious notion I’ve read all day) while other countries continue per the status quo, that still makes a difference. It helps to slow the increase, buying more time to actually solidify the numbers.

The thing is, while the consensus is that we need to do something, and that something needs to be done a lot, and fast, we don’t have any quantifiable numbers, just estimations that may be wildly underexaggerated.

Kinda sorta; they’re responsible for more than 80% of scope 3 emissions, which counts what happens when fossil fuels they extract and sell are subsequently burned. Individually, what you do is tiny, but as you show people around you that it’s possible to live without fossil fuels, it changes behavior in the aggregate.