As a few people have said, buying something like solar panels, or the deposit on an electric car would probably be the best - reducing your impact is probably the most you can do.
The other option could be green investment… They do exist, ignore ‘transitional energy’ funds (90% oil majors), look at the individual shares that any fund that looks interesting. I have some money in EdenTree funds. That way your money is hopefully helping do good, while (hopefully) growing so you can do something that will have a bigger personal effect.
A website with detailed steps on eco-terrorism.
A gun and lots of ammo and a one way ticket to D.C. is a start, I’d say.
A few guns won’t do anything. Guns and violence are never effective without the right ideas behind them.
Think Occupy Wall Street, but everyone has an AR-15.
Nah, that’s where the puppets live. The puppet masters are all over the place.
If the puppets are more afraid of the citizenry than the billionaires then that’d go a long way towards solving some of our big problems.
I think we can agree that both methods would be effective
solar panels or something? No one is stopping climate change with $10K, I don’t even think $10B would make a substantial dent.
10B could make a couple underground metro lines in an otherwise extremely car dependent city with no public transport
Ya its a decent start. My point here is the scale of what we’re facing. Its going to take trillions of dollars, synchronous action taken by many nations simultaneously and a complete restructuring of the current world order. There’s always hope but at this point i’m fairly cynical and don’t have a lot of faith that the right people are in charge to even start the conversation.
I think they’re just asking, from a categorical imperative perspective, what is the most effective way for all individuals with a bit of savings to help the climate situation.
And tbh, at this point OP is probably better off spending that $10k on preparing for:
- inclimate weather (HVAC, water proofing, warm clothing)
- inconsistent power (battery backups, a generator)
- food/clean water shortages (home gardening skills, rain catching/water purification).
At this point, there’s virtually nothing that can be done to stop the impact of climate change, there is only adapting to survive it. The best we can do is vote and/or hope for our global political situation to finally reach its inevitable crisis point. But I don’t expect that to be a pleasant experience.
I agree with the other guy, get yourself some solar panels and make yourself climate friendly, or even look at other ways you yourself an change in order to be carbon neutral
You’re not personally responsible or able to prevent climate change. This is a societal issue that requires societal changes. Don’t feel obligated to put yourself in financial trouble since the impact to your life is potentially devastating and your impact to solving climate change would be negligible. It fucking sucks but we live in a brutal capitalist system and you need to make sure you can care for yourself.
I might suggest seeing if there are local advocacy groups where you can contribute your time and, if you truly have excess wealth, help with direct financial support as needed, small contributions to things like mailing campaigns or buying a booth at a faire will help much more than blanket contributions - but, IMO, the bigger need is in effort and time.
You’re not personally responsible
While I agree with your overall comment, I disagree with how it starts. We are all responsible for the decisions we make, once we are educated about those decisions.
Example: You can buy bamboo toilet paper for less than Charmin when purchased online. This reduces the deforestation of old growth trees by reducing the demand. Now that you know this, you are responsible for the choice you make on what you purchase. Or buy a bidet. Every person who talks about this spreads education, which is what influences larger scale decisions about regulation (albeit much more slowly than campaign donations).
For those whop ask, source: https://savetrees.co/products/bulk-toilet-paper?variant=44493957431458 vs https://www.walmart.com/ip/Charmin-Ultra-Gentle-Toilet-Paper-18-Mega-Rolls-231-Sheets-per-Roll/2846366584
$0.0039991667 per sheet vs $0.0048027898 per sheet for Charmin.
Political advocacy is the way to go. Pushing politicians to change laws is what got renewables to be cheap in the first place. We need more of that.
Solar panels and a vasectomy
People who care about climate change aren’t the ones who need to get a vasectomy.
The perfectly alienated and isolated liberal approach that changes nothing. Festooning a suburban house with solar panels is like washing your oversized pickup truck with those unbleached brown recycled paper towels.
However, advocating for vasectomies and such gestures towards eugenics and eco-fascism.
If you truly don’t need the money, donate it to an org that’s doing political advocacy.
10k of solar isn’t going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Changing laws and regulations will.
You’re implying advocacy can beat financial and industrial interests on critical topics, something that goes against what we have been witnessing for a while.
Solar, wind, and EVs have become much cheaper after they received significant government incentives. Feed in tariffs started in the 1990s, implemented by Japan, Germany, China, and many other governments decreased the cost of renewables and built industrial capacity.
Governments did that because of significant environmental advocacy from the 1960s onwards.
Advocacy feels like it doesn’t work now because there’s massive advocacy pushing back against our longterm interests, but it’s couched as “industrial interests” so we don’t see it.
None of this put a dent in CO2 emissions, because more energy available just means more energy consumed. These are distractions, especially EVs. For the sake of how livable the planet will be in 50 years, all these efforts had a negligible effect.
The current trend of governments abandoning mitigation strategies in favor of adaptation is a testament to the irrelevance in the overall response to climate collapse. The “green transition” is just a way to sell more and produce more.
None of this put a dent in CO2 emissions, because more energy available just means more energy consumed.
I’m my geo, we’re lowering GHG emissions and increasing electricity output. That isn’t entirely due to renewables, but it’s part of the equation. Those renewables were affordable due to feed in tariffs mentioned above.
Without continued advocacy, entrenched interests will reverse those trends. With continued advocacy, we may be able to lower emissions further.
10K could be leveraged toward making oil executives live in constant fear.
Become a shareholder for one of the many giant corporations responsible, and try to sway them into cleaning thier mess up.
The only ways you can fight climate change in any meaningful way with 10k also involve going to prison
3 meals and no rent? Doesn’t sound too bad.
I wouldn’t even want to be in an Austrian luxury prison. There’s a reason why people have went as far as dying while fighting for their freedom, it’s one of our most precious possessions.
Freedom outside of prison is still a delusion. You are a servant of the rich elite.
Oh there’s rent. Most US prisons charge per diem rates for housing, and they charge for many “services” and they charge literal extortion rates. Prisoners leave US prisons deeeeeply in debt
More likely dead (shot to death by cops)
10k is cutting it thin… the Accuracy International ACSR is just a hair under $10k USD… and that is before taxes. Then you need the 1,000-10,000 rounds of ammo for training before you become good enough to start taking out card-carrying members of the Parasite Class from a kilometre-plus distance.
Now granted, you can go a lot cheaper than that, but accuracy and range will suffer. Remember, you want to be far enough away that you can reliably pack up and sanitize the scene before you leave.
Alternatively, swarming AI drones in the hundreds, with on-board explosive packages, would allow you to deploy from abandonable emplacements that can loiter for many hours to even days. No-one is going to question a cube van that sits in a paid spot for a week, at least until it’s roof opens up and a thousand tiny drones with facial recognition take off and take out a few oligarchs.
But honestly, you’re likely talking a few tens of thousands for that scenario, at minimum. I would likely bank at it being in the low hundreds of thousands for a truly effective and difficult-to-counter deployment.
10k is cutting it thin… the Accuracy International ACSR is just a hair under $10k USD… and that is before taxes. Then you need the 1,000-10,000 rounds of ammo for training before you become good enough to start taking out card-carrying members of the Parasite Class from a kilometre-plus distance.
Now granted, you can go a lot cheaper than that, but accuracy and range will suffer. Remember, you want to be far enough away that you can reliably pack up and sanitize the scene before you leave.
Alternatively, swarming AI drones in the hundreds, with on-board explosive packages, would allow you to deploy from abandonable emplacements that can loiter for many hours to even days. No-one is going to question a cube van that sits in a paid spot for a week, at least until it’s roof opens up and a thousand tiny drones with facial recognition take off and take out a few oligarchs.
But honestly, you’re likely talking a few tens of thousands for that scenario, at minimum. I would likely bank at it being in the low hundreds of thousands for a truly effective and difficult-to-counter deployment.
The only ways you can fight climate change in any meaningful way […] involve going to prison
correct
Aside from solar panels, as others have mentioned, I have a few other suggestions for things to get/do:
- Hydroponic garden
- Sewing machine
- Heat pump water heater
- Heat pump a/c
- Induction stovetop
- Upgrade insulation
- Compost bin
- Tools to repair common items
- Promote the use of libraries and support their growth into other communal resources
- Only buy things when needed
As others have said, there isn’t much that a single individual can do against climate change, but let me explain my suggestions. Some of the most carbon intensive activities include the transportation of items like food, clothes, and other goods. To reduce your impact, you need to reduce your reliance on this carbon intensive logistics network. By growing your own food, learning to repair what you own, and learning to sew, you’re making a large impact on your personal contribution to climate change. By supporting the library, you’re encouraging the use of a shared pool of communal resources, which also reduces your community’s climate impact.
The other items are what you can do to improve the efficiency of your house, if you own it. Induction stoves are incredibly safe and a highly efficient cooking surface. Heat pumps are crazy efficient at both heating and cooling, so slowly replacing old appliances with high efficiency options as they fail will maximize the use of what you own before it gets replaced. Compost bins and insulation certainly aren’t glamorous like the other tech options, but they’ll also go a long way: Landfills create an anaerobic environment, meaning food that gets thrown end up producing methane, and single family homes consume a lot of energy because heat escapes from every wall open to the air.
Put that money in stocks or ETFs that align with your climate goals. You don’t even have to dig too deep to find ones that meet your needs. Much digital ink has been spilled on the topic. Just find one or two you like and go for it.
In a general sense, put the money where you want change to happen in this version of reality.
