There’s been some conservation wins that I know of. Okaloosa Darter fish came off of endangered status, and eventually off of threatened The Red Cockaded Woodpecker was elevated from endangered to threatened a few years ago.
Controlled burns in the US long leaf pine forests have also lead to a return of the quail population.
Just trying to sprinkle a little good news out there.
I can add to that: the cormorant population in my country, Denmark, used to be endangered and now they are fucking everywhere. We also used to almost have the stork go extinct. For many years we had like 6 breeding pairs left. Now we have 26!
And we brought back beavers. Our otter population is growing too and we have wolves now, which sadly, is a controversial subject. A lot of lobbyist in the farming community (farmers are basically the closest we get to the marfia here) are trying to convince the population that wolves don’t belong in Denmark and should be eradicated. People fall for it because they are scared for their kids. Meanwhile I’m over here like: 🫠 you guys are aware that the only reason they’ve started coming closer to cities is because some of you retarded fucks are feeding them and also, farmers are killing our nature so there’s less food for wildlife in the countryside. That’s why wolves are moving closer to cities.
I still have great hopes for our wolf population. Our newly elected government is planning on cracking down hard on farming after 40 years of these assholes fuckign around and destroying my country with their poisons and pigshit and penicillin abuses etc etc. Finally, someone is gonna hold these psychos accountable. I am very excited for our wildlife because we still have time to save it. But if we don’t do something now, I fear that within the next 10 to 20 years, our natural ecosystems will be erased. It is insane to have grown up in a time where we used to have a much healthier nature and gradually I have seen species disappear completely. Species that used to be everywhere.
But there are still many passionate people who are fighting to preserve and save nature and they are having way more wins in recent years than they have had for decades. So yay!
American Bison, too. The repopulation of American bison (often mistakenly called buffalo) is one of the most successful repopulation efforts in history. The reason you’re able to order buffalo (again, not actually buffalo) burgers at your local hipster burger joint is because American bison is no longer endangered. The population has come from less than 1000 total bison (all privately owned by a handful of conservationists) to over 400k today.
That’s because the root of both is to conserve. To keep things the way they are.
Politics gets in the way of that reality since they don’t actively want to keep it the same, they actually want to regress back to previous times they can exploit personally.
The thing is it kinda isn’t. The ozone layer still needs about 20 years to get back to 1960 levels and the number of problematic states for this increasing again
iirc ~1/4 of the worlds energy production is renewable. More than 90% of all new electricity capacity worldwide came from renewable sources in 2024. Doomers want you to believe it can’t happen again while we are in the very decade that is likely to change the world. Public policy doesn’t even matter at this point, renewable energy is cheaper, so nearly all new investments are in renewables.
Energy sources are only part of the issue (albeit a major one) and enormous damage has already been done to a disastrous point, calling people “doomers” with an intent to ridicule their angst, worries and experiences is akin to climate change denial.
Also, public policy is constantly used in an expensive way if that it suits the ruling classes, markets are not some neutral forces in a vacuum.
I’m concerned about climate change. But if you ask most people how much progress we’ve made they would say “barely any”. That belief that we can’t do it, is the main thing aside from public policy slowing us down. When people think things are hopeless, they often don’t see the point in fighting or changing their behavior. I also think most people don’t realize that renewable energy adoption has accelerated so quickly the last few years. Every year we have had massive growth over last year in adoption.
That’s only the case because it was the cheapest option available for a while. Oil execs noticed the trend and got cold feet, now a lot of governments are cutting back subsidies for renewables and actively hinder new projects being build. Here in germany we have investors abandoning half build solar parks cause they aren’t profitable anymore. At the same time we allow oil companies to bid for gigantic offshore projects just so they can say that they have no interest in actually building it after they won.
With the ozon hole you could see the world working together to fix it despite it beeing somewhat less profitable. With renewables you can see governments actively working against the movement despite it being the best in terms of environment and profits combined.
Solar is easily the cheapest energy and its getting cheaper every year. Repairing a coal power plant is not as attractive as a much cheaper to run biofuel plant. Etc.
Here in germany we have investors abandoning half build solar parks cause they aren’t profitable anymore.
Without knowing the specifics, I doubt profitability was the issue. Once a solar panel is installed it is pure profit with minimal maintenance. Companies get in trouble when they commit way more to a project than they can raise in investments. It seems more likely that is what happened.
Lastly your looking at a few countries that are pushing back with what amounts to theater (Germany is 56% renewable energy). Meanwhile the largest producer of energy in the world, China, is staying committed to converting to renewables and s also 56% of the way there. But even in countries pushing back the growth trend is clear, we are past early adoption and squarely in the common adoption phase of electrifying our technology out of fossil fuels.
We could stop producing all greenhouse gases today, and the planet would continue warming for 100 years. it’s a pretty tough problem we have on our hands.
Sure but the problem would be 100 times worse if fossil fuel adoption doest decline. Its good news that we seem to be on the way to shifting our behavior.
TCO is expected to return to 1980 values around 2066 in the Antarctic, around 2045 in the Arctic, and around 2040 for the near-global average (60°N-60°S). - Source
2018 to 2022 didnt see much change (and given how far until its fully returned to normal, I think you can see qhy - it takes a long time to fully heal), but we’re certainly pretty far into success compared to where we were.
Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emmisions right now, the amount of heat stored in the ocean isn’t going to lower any time soon.
To add to this there’s also a massive El Nino about to happen and a potentially double Blue Ocean Event.
So with increasingly hot and highly acidic oceans now expelling Co2 (while also dissolving all the vitally important oxygen producing phytoplankton), and fuck all ice cover at the poles to reflect the radiation from the sun, the earth will continue to heat faster and faster.
We’re also going to run out of fresh water reserves globally very soon, and arable land is still looking to be 90% depleted by 2050, so massive global famines will kill billions in the next few decades.
And this isn’t even taking into account the feriliser shortage and El Nino induced crop die off we’re expecting in the next year, which while it might lessen the impact of further greenhouse gasses on our planet by killing a lot of people, is only going to speed up the soil degredation issue we’re facing.
Considering our current course of action is basically ‘business as usual’, the planet might not even be habitable to any life whatsoever once we’re done with these feedback loops. ‘Venus by Tuesday’ is an exaggeration when it comes to timescale, but a very real possibility otherwise.
It’s kinda our last big environmental win.
There’s been some conservation wins that I know of. Okaloosa Darter fish came off of endangered status, and eventually off of threatened The Red Cockaded Woodpecker was elevated from endangered to threatened a few years ago.
Controlled burns in the US long leaf pine forests have also lead to a return of the quail population.
Just trying to sprinkle a little good news out there.
I can add to that: the cormorant population in my country, Denmark, used to be endangered and now they are fucking everywhere. We also used to almost have the stork go extinct. For many years we had like 6 breeding pairs left. Now we have 26!
And we brought back beavers. Our otter population is growing too and we have wolves now, which sadly, is a controversial subject. A lot of lobbyist in the farming community (farmers are basically the closest we get to the marfia here) are trying to convince the population that wolves don’t belong in Denmark and should be eradicated. People fall for it because they are scared for their kids. Meanwhile I’m over here like: 🫠 you guys are aware that the only reason they’ve started coming closer to cities is because some of you retarded fucks are feeding them and also, farmers are killing our nature so there’s less food for wildlife in the countryside. That’s why wolves are moving closer to cities.
I still have great hopes for our wolf population. Our newly elected government is planning on cracking down hard on farming after 40 years of these assholes fuckign around and destroying my country with their poisons and pigshit and penicillin abuses etc etc. Finally, someone is gonna hold these psychos accountable. I am very excited for our wildlife because we still have time to save it. But if we don’t do something now, I fear that within the next 10 to 20 years, our natural ecosystems will be erased. It is insane to have grown up in a time where we used to have a much healthier nature and gradually I have seen species disappear completely. Species that used to be everywhere.
But there are still many passionate people who are fighting to preserve and save nature and they are having way more wins in recent years than they have had for decades. So yay!
Now your just making shit up.
Winner of the “most penis euphemisms in one name” award.
Penis McPeniswoodchuck
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-cockaded_Woodpecker/id
American Bison, too. The repopulation of American bison (often mistakenly called buffalo) is one of the most successful repopulation efforts in history. The reason you’re able to order buffalo (again, not actually buffalo) burgers at your local hipster burger joint is because American bison is no longer endangered. The population has come from less than 1000 total bison (all privately owned by a handful of conservationists) to over 400k today.
I had a Bison meatloaf once that was so good. It’s so much lighter than beef. It was like eating a meat cloud.
I saw on Ted Turner’s wiki page that he helped with that.
The irony of all ironies is how similar the words “conservation” and “conservative” are.
That’s because the root of both is to conserve. To keep things the way they are.
Politics gets in the way of that reality since they don’t actively want to keep it the same, they actually want to regress back to previous times they can exploit personally.
None of that is worldwide.
The thing is it kinda isn’t. The ozone layer still needs about 20 years to get back to 1960 levels and the number of problematic states for this increasing again
iirc ~1/4 of the worlds energy production is renewable. More than 90% of all new electricity capacity worldwide came from renewable sources in 2024. Doomers want you to believe it can’t happen again while we are in the very decade that is likely to change the world. Public policy doesn’t even matter at this point, renewable energy is cheaper, so nearly all new investments are in renewables.
Energy sources are only part of the issue (albeit a major one) and enormous damage has already been done to a disastrous point, calling people “doomers” with an intent to ridicule their angst, worries and experiences is akin to climate change denial.
Also, public policy is constantly used in an expensive way if that it suits the ruling classes, markets are not some neutral forces in a vacuum.
I’m concerned about climate change. But if you ask most people how much progress we’ve made they would say “barely any”. That belief that we can’t do it, is the main thing aside from public policy slowing us down. When people think things are hopeless, they often don’t see the point in fighting or changing their behavior. I also think most people don’t realize that renewable energy adoption has accelerated so quickly the last few years. Every year we have had massive growth over last year in adoption.
That’s only the case because it was the cheapest option available for a while. Oil execs noticed the trend and got cold feet, now a lot of governments are cutting back subsidies for renewables and actively hinder new projects being build. Here in germany we have investors abandoning half build solar parks cause they aren’t profitable anymore. At the same time we allow oil companies to bid for gigantic offshore projects just so they can say that they have no interest in actually building it after they won.
With the ozon hole you could see the world working together to fix it despite it beeing somewhat less profitable. With renewables you can see governments actively working against the movement despite it being the best in terms of environment and profits combined.
Solar is easily the cheapest energy and its getting cheaper every year. Repairing a coal power plant is not as attractive as a much cheaper to run biofuel plant. Etc.
Without knowing the specifics, I doubt profitability was the issue. Once a solar panel is installed it is pure profit with minimal maintenance. Companies get in trouble when they commit way more to a project than they can raise in investments. It seems more likely that is what happened.
Lastly your looking at a few countries that are pushing back with what amounts to theater (Germany is 56% renewable energy). Meanwhile the largest producer of energy in the world, China, is staying committed to converting to renewables and s also 56% of the way there. But even in countries pushing back the growth trend is clear, we are past early adoption and squarely in the common adoption phase of electrifying our technology out of fossil fuels.
We could stop producing all greenhouse gases today, and the planet would continue warming for 100 years. it’s a pretty tough problem we have on our hands.
Sure but the problem would be 100 times worse if fossil fuel adoption doest decline. Its good news that we seem to be on the way to shifting our behavior.
Yeah, last. Not latest, last.
Tbf, its not even yet a win technically.
So is that good news, that we’re moving in the right direction?
Though the very next sentence from that linked source says
2018 to 2022 didnt see much change (and given how far until its fully returned to normal, I think you can see qhy - it takes a long time to fully heal), but we’re certainly pretty far into success compared to where we were.
If we turn around climate change, even if we fail to avoid quadrillion dollar sea level rise, I’m going to call it a win
I hope we don’t lose too much before we do win though, or after we do
Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emmisions right now, the amount of heat stored in the ocean isn’t going to lower any time soon.
To add to this there’s also a massive El Nino about to happen and a potentially double Blue Ocean Event.
So with increasingly hot and highly acidic oceans now expelling Co2 (while also dissolving all the vitally important oxygen producing phytoplankton), and fuck all ice cover at the poles to reflect the radiation from the sun, the earth will continue to heat faster and faster.
We’re also going to run out of fresh water reserves globally very soon, and arable land is still looking to be 90% depleted by 2050, so massive global famines will kill billions in the next few decades.
And this isn’t even taking into account the feriliser shortage and El Nino induced crop die off we’re expecting in the next year, which while it might lessen the impact of further greenhouse gasses on our planet by killing a lot of people, is only going to speed up the soil degredation issue we’re facing.
Considering our current course of action is basically ‘business as usual’, the planet might not even be habitable to any life whatsoever once we’re done with these feedback loops. ‘Venus by Tuesday’ is an exaggeration when it comes to timescale, but a very real possibility otherwise.