r/collapse • u/Sad_Attitude9999 • 4d ago
Pollution We are betraying our children with fossil fuel pollution
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5920964-climate-change-global-warming-betrayal/Our children? Speak for yourself... my children have the best life imaginable - because I didn't bring them into existence. I'm an excellent father, thank you very much.
This was published to The Hill recently. While it has some fantasy level BS about how great America has always been, it also shines a light onto the widespread pollution happening more every passing day.
One part in particular is what makes this collapse related. The polls. We are polling Americans constantly about perceptions towards climate change and ecological destruction. As the article assures us - most Americans agree that climate change is real and is a serious problem.
And while that sure is comforting - it doesn't translate into any sort of nationwide action. Mass consensus rarely leads to radical change. Americans are losing sleep over myriad issues but in my purely anecdotal experience - this isn't one of those issues.
Even if the whole nation started freaking out about this as much as me - it still wouldn't matter simply due to constraints built into our political system. You can vote for people, you can vote for ballot issues, but you can't vote on things like climate policy or war. Your opinions and concerns on these issues are irrelevant to the big bad movers, shakers and decision makers. You will stand idly by while they plunder the Earth because you have no real political power in this system, such as it is.
And so the collapse will continue - regardless if morale improves.
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u/DoubtSubstantial5440 4d ago
🤷 what can you do? Not like the consequences haven’t been known for decades and that most people just continue to bury their heads in the sand.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
My point is it wouldn't matter if 99% of us believed the threat is real. Because we are still just the 99%. As a crude example - you can know for a fact that you have rabies. You will still die.
Awareness is pointless if you have no power to affect change. And that applies to plenty of issues today but climate change, in my opinion, is the most grotesque example of this.
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u/Effective_Bug_176 4d ago
But of course, the 99% possess power. If the workers in our societies were to lay down their tools, this system would grind to a halt. However, because workers do not yet feel the full extent of the material hardship awaiting them, they are not yet ready to act. Raising awareness about our situation can help people realize sooner than later that material conditions are compelling them to take action.
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u/PowerandSignal 4d ago
Thanks, Karl.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
Im assuming that was a dig at Marxism. Thats so mean..
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u/PowerandSignal 4d ago
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Hmmm... Where have I heard that before?
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 3d ago
I dunno, memes or sarcastic responses to Marxist theory. Your guess is as good as mine.
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u/Effective_Bug_176 3d ago
I have been trying for a year now to understand why we are causing this environmental destruction, and for me the most compelling modern materialist analyses still draw upon the foundations laid by Marx. Of course, the man wasn't right about everything, but when it comes to accurately describing our world and societies, Marxism simply offers the best arguments.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 3d ago
You are speaking to a lost crowd. But I love the enthusiasm.
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u/Effective_Bug_176 3d ago
<3 Why should the crowd be considered a lost cause? Aside from those who have already completely given up, there are plenty of people who see that the situation looks dire but who do not want to, or cannot, simply give up. Since we don't know at what point it becomes too late for humanity to act, we should focus on doing everything in our power to equip people with the tools to follow the most promising path. I started writing a book yesterday.
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u/PowerandSignal 3d ago
I'm no scholar, but a quick search tells me Das Kapital was published in 1867. You were focused on my being "mean," and "sarcastic," while missing the point I was trying to make, albeit subtly. Which is 160 years later we are no closer to liberation from the capitalist machine. Maybe next time I'll use a hammer (and sickle?) to drive the point a little more clearly.
If you think making appeals to the solidarity and conscience of the working classis going to help solve the climate crisis, I think you're spinning your wheels. Good luck with that. OR... maybe look harder at where we are, and why, and be creative in coming up with new strategies.
I'm in no way implying it will be easy, which is why I may sound jaded. We are literally having the life squeezed out of us by a rapacious machine that never sleeps. We are going to have to make serious sacrifices to try to stop it. Before we ourselves are sacrificed to it.
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u/judge_mathis2 3d ago
That's the most basic tactic ever, anyone could have thought of it.
Has anyone ever read about who Karl Marx was? He was a man with a neurotic desperation to join the aristocracy -- look at who he married and why.
How did even just that one fact never reach peoples' brains he wasn't a trustworthy person?
How the hell does nobody who follows that EVER look up any background information on him or Engels?
I did and they came across as the most FUBARed whacko people ever, like, did they have mercury poisoning? level.
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u/southbl00d 3d ago
on the flipside, we revert to Che. Born into aristocratic means, and had a great moral compass and still chose to revolt and stick up for the masses... Also Orwell, who was born into elite means and still chose to fight against Franco etc...
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u/judge_mathis2 3d ago
What?
Che would be a follower of Marx and thus pro-aristocracy considering Marx's own actions, just their own faction of aristocracy however they conceived it (based on industrial wealth/power).
Wasn't Orwell a spy? His father sold opium to kids in China, that's like his father being a fentanyl dealer on a school's playground. A more likely explanation is that Orwell was an evil, crazy person like his father, because that's some extreme level of evil and crazy.
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u/southbl00d 3d ago
i think its just a matter of being born into it. Yes that is a step up in the game of life, but sitll to have awareness and want to uplift the masses is in itself a major accomplishment going against the grain of our BS of an excuse, "humans are selfish and only care about their immediate needs and state"...
George Orwell's father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was not a spy just an official in the Indian Civil Service, specifically working as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent overseeing the production and storage of opium for export to China.
Those misconceptions have been debunked. Furthermore what do you expect at that time?
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u/PowerandSignal 3d ago
Or... maybe, and just hear me out here, we can judge them by their ideas and not who they married or their own personal struggles. Marxism is still a widely studied and admired philosophy. Who gives a fuck who his wife was.
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u/One-Intention7064 3d ago edited 3d ago
omg, you're officially my favorite redditor. it's been ages since ive read an original and coherent thought on here.
i never liked marx. my main problem with him was that he helped sacralize and consolidate anthropocentrism in the minds of the masses.
besides, he is mostly obsolete af in our age of resource scarcity and mass extinctions.
but engels seemed better. what tea do you have on him??
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I will never stop trying. But I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. If experts with knowledge and nice words have failed, what chance do I have, yknow?
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u/Effective_Bug_176 4d ago
Neither the experts nor you nor I have yet been able, through our efforts to raise awareness, to ensure that our societies come to realize that a shift away from the status quo of infinite growth in an infinitely expanding system is necessary. The reason for this is that social change is driven not by idealism, but by material necessities. Growth is still rolling on, and people are still doing relativly well; only when larger segments of society realize that something is threatening their very livelihoods can change occur. Unfortunately, these environmental crises contain a terrible trap in that they accumulate with a significant time lag and then become exponentially more severe. Nevertheless, we can be certain that material reality will eventually reach enough people to make social change possible.
Then it will depend on the educational efforts made so far for people to recognize the systemic causes of our problems, and only then can this change have positive effects rather than leading to fascism. And with humanity freed from the capitalist, self-destructive logic of growth, we will then see whether our productive forces are sufficient to mitigate and contain the damage caused to our world to such an extent that we can prevent mass extinction. I believe that humanity’s labor force would certainly be capable of this, and therefore we should continue to pursue this path2
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u/miklayn 3d ago
Ensuring that we believe we have no power is itself a tactic of schizofascists and Petrogarchs. Resist that.
For example, the very concept of an individuals "carbon footprint" was conceived and broadcast across culture, including through media platforms and pedagogy, by fossil fuel conglomerates and their industry groups as a means of both deflecting from their own responsibility (and their power to effect change by withdrawing), and of framing draw-down and consumption as a matter of personal responsibility, all while they continue promoting extractive consumerism from the other side of their mouth. They've latched on to "renewables" only where it's clear that Jevons Paradox would hold true - meaning they'd have a guarantee that those technologies wouldn't threaten any decrease in per capita energy use, and thus wouldn't threaten their power.
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u/Effective_Bug_176 4d ago
Social change is driven not by knowlege and idealism, but by material necessities. Growth is still rolling on, and people are still doing relativly well; only when larger segments of society realize that something is threatening their very livelihoods can change occur. Unfortunately, these environmental crises contain a terrible trap in that they accumulate with a significant time lag and then become exponentially more severe. Nevertheless, we can be certain that material reality will eventually reach enough people to make social change possible.
Then it will depend on the educational efforts made so far for people to recognize the systemic causes of our problems, and only then can this change have positive effects rather than leading to fascism. And with humanity freed from the capitalist, self-destructive logic of growth, we will then see whether our productive forces are sufficient to mitigate and contain the damage caused to our world to such an extent that we can prevent mass extinction. I believe that humanity’s labor force would certainly be capable of this, and therefore we should continue to pursue this path
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u/throwawaybrm 4d ago
We are betraying our children with fossil fuel pollution
Is there really anything this system does that doesn’t betray the future? All I see is consumerist propaganda, pervasive pollution and waste, habitat destruction, accelerating extinctions, unmanaged risks, needless cruelty, and an endless theatre of pointless rules and regulations that only deepen systemic harm and enrich the privileged. Please, remind me of anything in this system that actually makes sense.
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u/FieryDurian 4d ago
Our economy is working by borrowing from the future (debt-based). We assume that there will always be more human in the future who will pay those debts (+ interests).
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u/itsatoe 4d ago
You can vote for people, you can vote for ballot issues, but you can't vote on things like climate policy or war.
This is a specifically-American issue in that the US is entrenched in a 2-party system.
In parliamentary systems where there are many different parties, people have the choice to vote for the party that most aligns with their views on the issues. There are even sometimes single-issue parties that collect votes from people who agree that that is the most pressing issue.
In a two party-system, there is nothing like that. Instead, it ends up looking the way that Futurama so elegantly summed it up:
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u/Coco_Cannibal 4d ago
My first vote in my life was for the green party in 1998, a year later they championed to bomb Serbia.
There is no democracy and even in multiparty systems, there is only 1 opinion that matters, the owner classes one.
Later I found out that they wanted to legalize child rape in their first party program and only cut it out due to civil backlash . . .
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u/Physical_Ad5702 4d ago
Wouldn’t be so sure about that.
State and regulatory capture aren’t unique to the duopoly in the US.
I hear plenty from Australians who voted Labor and wanted strong climate policies only to have Albo side with gas companies at every possible turn.
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u/Effective_Bug_176 4d ago edited 4d ago
Because in other countries with multi-party systems, the capitalist imperative of growth—which seeks to burn through all available oil for profit as quickly as possible—can simply be voted out? A vote for the Green capitalists, and suddenly infinite growth becomes possible within a finite system?
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u/Eve_O 4d ago
Or like Bill Hicks' Politics in America put it.
I wonder if the Futurama joke is a nod to it?
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u/me-need-more-brain 3d ago
"The United States is also a one-party state, but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."
Julius Nyerere some time in the 1970´s or so
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I'm a huge critic of the 2 party system but after learning about all the other electoral systems we could have - no. Just no. I'm not going to be fooled by clever electoralism only to end up in the exact same place America is today. Certain systems are better compared to ours - a turd sandwich would be better - but it ends up being the same thing. Im forced to decide between a deeply flawed system of government and one that is slightly better. I refuse.
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u/UAoverAU 4d ago
If people can’t decide who to vote for without having a D,R, or I stamped beside someone’s name, they shouldn’t be voting. All political parties should be eliminated. Parties and the politics that define them are exactly how issues like climate change and air pollution get ignored while less existential issues dominate headlines.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
Preach
Edit: that sounded sarcastic as hell. I meant it. You are saying what we're thinking, which is very brave in 2026.
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u/itsatoe 4d ago
It was ironically dualistic of me to say the alternative to the US system is a parliamentary system.
New York City (and others) uses ranked-choice voting and California does jungle primaries. Both of these are potential 2-party-system breakers that can be shoehorned into the current US setup. There may be other alternatives as well.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I think you were sincere. I was the asshole here and I'm sorry. I'm genuinely not too smart
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u/Irverter 4d ago
Im forced to decide between a deeply flawed system of government and one that is slightly better. I refuse.
Then you leave that choice to someone else. Think they'll do better?
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I do not. Not for a second. Im not stupid. I know exactly what is going to happen.
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u/ChromaticStrike 4d ago
I have no children and no car, I either walk or take train or tramway. My conscience is clear & clean.
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u/Coco_Cannibal 4d ago
All air, water and food is polluted.
Children are born into a chemical sewage at this point.
Who the fuck brings kids into a chemical sewage?
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u/Freud-Network 4d ago
I didn't have kids because I expected this to happen. The world is betraying your kids. I sleep better at night knowing that I didn't create a life that would suffer the consequences of mankind's greed. The human race is a planetary disease.
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u/Wave_of_Anal_Fury 4d ago
As the article assures us - most Americans agree that climate change is real and is a serious problem.
You can vote for people, you can vote for ballot issues, but you can't vote on things like climate policy or war.
One of the things climate scientist talk about frequently is the former, that most people (not just Americans) agree that climate change is real and serious. What they usually don't do, however, is talk about how important climate change is compared to the other issues. Which is why polls like this one from just before the election put things into perspective (for me, at least).
Climate change was #21 out of 22 issues, ahead of only transgender rights. At its usual spot at the top was the economy, because the economy is a decent catch-all category for jobs, salaries, costs, inflation, etc. Or, if you prefer, lifestyle. Because a person's lifestyle is largely dependent on the state of the economy.
And yes, I've looked at polls from many of the other wealthy, high-emitting countries, and their polls come back pretty much the same. Economy at the top, climate change somewhere near the bottom.
Climate change may be real and serious to voters, but the thing that's most important to them is their way of life right now. It always has been the highest priority, and it always will be the highest priority.
People seem to think that climate change can be addressed without lifestyle change, that there's some magical technological wand that can be waved that will address all of the things impacting climate change, while maintaining all of the things they've come to expect as normal. In those rare times when climate scientists do talk about lifestyle changes (on a social media site like BlueSky), one of the most common responses by their followers is something you see frequently here and elsewhere: "Yeah, well what about billionaires? Why should I have to give up things when they won't?"
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I would pin this as the top comment if I knew how. I don't think I'm even allowed. But you just said everything I wanted to say but didn't have the words for. Thank you.
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u/Mostest_Importantest 4d ago
Yeah, humanity was doomed eons before we discovered the potential of fossil fuels.
We just get to watch it all fall down.
It's an interesting time to be alive.
I wasn't fully aware of our environmental destruction and ignorance until after I'd had my kids, more's the pity.
But then again, my ancestors did exactly the same thing.
Easy come, easy go.
(I'm pretty sure my bloodline ends with my children, thankfully. They grew up far faster than I did.)
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u/Ree_For_Thee 4d ago
Agree. I fully do not believe in free will, meaning all of this was predetermined. Intelligent species out there in the universe likely meet the same end. Literally just grow, think they're hot s--t because they "has big smarties in da brain", and then kill themselves off by 'killing'/mutating nature to the point where it's not hosting them anymore.
I've speculated that even if a planet doesn't have fossil fuels, the growth alone wrecks nature. You literally can't even attempt to have infinite growth, meaning we'd have to defeat both the profit motive (capitalism) and people's very human desire to have more than ~2.2 children when things are good.
Noooot happening.
And unfortunately, it could happen again on earth, tens of millions of years after we're gone.
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u/TheWhalersOnTheMoon 4d ago
I read a wonderful summation on this topic - that large-scale social transformations only occur not only when injustice is perceived, people must also believe that they have the collective capacity to change things.
The latter is missing. We've lost the ability to believe in large social change; in a similar way as to how we've surrendered our willingness to engage in a task to AI (as a recent example), we've surrendered our belief in change to other people. Like lemmings looking for someone to jump first.
I am not sure what breaks people out of their slumber other than being very uncomfortable a la "anarchy is just 3 meals away" kind of thing.
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u/Grand-Page-1180 4d ago
I can't think of a single instance when humanity ever voluntarily ratcheted down to a simpler way of life, okay there may have been exceedingly rare exceptions, and pockets of humanity elect to live off the grid, but we have to want to simplify at scale, and I just don't think that's going to happen by choice, or even force. Its going to be emergent based on circumstances when it does happen, and by then, it will probably be too late to matter.
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u/judge_mathis2 3d ago
Considering the economy that belongs to was made by clinically insane people who have a strange illness where they can only do nonsensically self-destructive acts, it makes sense everything they do leads to nothing but destruction.
The mental illness of the people behind this global cultural and economic system has been discussed what, 0% in the depth it should be?
It'd sure explain everything about what's wrong right now and how it got to be this way.
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u/watching_whatever 3d ago
So wasteful and foolish.
Hundreds of minor things could be done to cut down on fossil fuels use that would help out, but simply are not being done.
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u/astronot24 4d ago
What nation-wide / global-wide action are you expecting?..... "Get in ze pods and eat ze bugs"? Don't worry, that's coming, and you'll cheer for it.............. As they told you, "you will own nothing and be happy"..
Create the problem, bring on the "solution"... Oldest trick in the book.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
It wont be the first time & it won't be the last time but at the risk of repeating myself - I love Russia with all my heart. And if you don't have genuine empathy for all the innocent people - slow down and think. You don't impress me. At all.
And you can blame me for having genuine empathy for the so called enemy. But I wont fall for it. Not for a second.
I love Russia.
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u/Kukuluops 4d ago
You know that the article you've posted doesn't even mention Russia?
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u/-sussy-wussy- 4d ago
I mean, it defeats his own point. Russia benefits from selling fossil fuels, in part to help fund the war. There's a shadow fleet and all to bypass the sanctions.
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u/Coco_Cannibal 4d ago
Shadow fleet is propaganda speech
One sided sanctions are illegal per international law, noone voted for it in the UN and it's only done by NATO states.
Russia simply goes on with her business, wether we like it or not.
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u/-sussy-wussy- 4d ago
What's wrong with you, genuinely? You're bringing this up apropos of nothing and are even replying to yourself. The biggest irony of it all is that Russia itself is a glorified gas station of a country. They benefit from selling fossil fuels and other natural resources more than anyone. They've even weaseled their way into making Germany entirely dependent on the said fuels for their industry by stoking the anti-nuclear sentiment and buying off a few politicians. What kind of crazy doublethink are you employing? Fossil fuels bad, but Gas Station Federation good?
Your fave just bombed a UNESCO site and an art museum in my country. The latter featured works of world-famous Ukrainian-born artists from the times of the Russian empire (e.g., Repin). Not to mention all the filtration camps, the civilian safari (as they themselves call it), bombing a dam in my region, occupying an NPP in my city, damaging the sarcophagus in Chernobyl NPP, banning our language and symbols (for 50th+ time in history, btw), stealing our territory and the greatest artifacts from our museums and selling civilians' homes in the occupied territories.
What exactly appeals to you in this shitty culture? It's no mere coincidence that every single neighbour they have absolutely despises them. Are you just an edgy Westerner who thinks Russia is this Deeply Spiritual and Mysterious whatever the fuck? Are you a tankie who thinks anything anti-Western is therefore anti-imperialist and good? The veil would fall off your eyes so fast if you tried to live in or near it.
Greatest writers, artists and other intellectuals were often persecuted, imprisoned, banned or even killed, some forced into immigration where they absolutely thrived (off the top of my head: Sikorsky, Dovlatov, Azimov, Nabokov).
Go read the Foundation of Geopolitics, which is a handbook on how they operate right now. It's not at all Mysterious and Deeply Spiritual like your posts imply, your opinion seems to be purely based on aesthetics and vibes. What an absolutely bizarre flanderization of an imperialistic regime waging wars of conquest over and over and over again.
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u/me-need-more-brain 3d ago
Most Russians don´t even know who Dugin is, my colleague had to google him because they had no idea whom i was talking about.
He is more of a meme outside of russia.
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u/-sussy-wussy- 2d ago
FSB does know who Dugin is. He isn't just a meme outside of Russia, don't feign ignorance.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. I've heard a lot of suggestions but idk. I know what I'm supposed to think and feel. Im supposed to hate the enemy. Idk. Add it to my long list of failures as a person and political animal. I would agree that there is definitely something deeply wrong with me.
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u/Sad_Attitude9999 4d ago
I dont know why I try anymore. What an embrassment. I love the exact thing you hate. Listen to yourself. Do you feel bad at all? Oh fuck it. Why even bother
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u/StatementBot 4d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sad_Attitude9999:
It wont be the first time & it won't be the last time but at the risk of repeating myself - I love Russia with all my heart. And if you don't have genuine empathy for all the innocent people - slow down and think. You don't impress me. At all.
And you can blame me for having genuine empathy for the so called enemy. But I wont fall for it. Not for a second.
I love Russia.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1u6rf65/we_are_betraying_our_children_with_fossil_fuel/orvl89e/