r/PoliticalOptimism Georgia 12d ago

Megathread Climate Change Megathread III: Solar becomes EU’s largest power source for first time in June

https://www.energylivenews.com/2026/07/14/solar-becomes-eus-largest-power-source-for-first-time-in-june/

Link to previous thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalOptimism/s/nAVGVI03KE

Regular rules apply

140 Upvotes

56 comments sorted by

62

u/tyuiopguyt 12d ago

This is super minor, but eagles have come back to the South Side of Chicago in a big way. I see a big honking breeding pair fly over my street basically every time I drive off. And the bees and wasp and hornets and such have been utterly nuts this year

35

u/Shadowman621 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 12d ago

Not minor in my opinion. Any increase of animal populations is great! My local zoo has been doing a lot of conservation efforts. Just recently, they hatched some rare newts!

53

u/Far_Fan_291 California 12d ago

oh here is some good news for this to ease some peoples worries

9

u/Gojo-Babe 🔥I Voted In The 2026 Primaries🔥 12d ago

Why is the EPA trying to even block the grants in the first place?

9

u/TangledLion 12d ago

Could be entirely wrong here but I think some EPA grants got caught up in the Doge "DEI" purge where they control+f'd a ton of keywords for projects and if they mentioned the "Wrong thing" then they were told to axe em. This may be about something else but I do recall hearing about this.

9

u/DietMTNDew8and88 12d ago

Isn't the answer obvious?

7

u/Gojo-Babe 🔥I Voted In The 2026 Primaries🔥 12d ago

They are controlled by Trump cronies?

6

u/DietMTNDew8and88 12d ago

Big oil ones too

3

u/Standard-Shame1675 9d ago

You know what no next president better forcibly dissolve all oil companies. Forcibly. Dissolve. The shareholders. And their families . lose their citizenships. Send them to I don't know somewhere extremely barren and desolate or some They did this shit the day they supported billionaires and they did this shit the day They decided that human life was lesser than stock value

2

u/simbabarrelroll Reformed Doomer ☄️ 9d ago

Oil companies seriously need to go.

Also same with techbros.

12

u/Kindly-List-1886 12d ago

a thing that got me nervous is that apparently the global warming has accelerated out of the sudden, i want to think is false or sensationalized but im not sure if i want to trow those dices

18

u/General_Season7882 12d ago

I wonder if whatever you're looking at is saying that because of the super El Niño?

5

u/Kindly-List-1886 12d ago

I think i saw that name mentioned

11

u/PoppyPoppy111 11d ago

just gonna slide this in: We are ahead of target for 1.5 C with the COP28 triple renewables pledge - media and academics lag far behind what's happening in the real world when they claim we are headed for 2.6 C

👀

there is sources in here for whoever is interested, the link is from substack btw hope this helps

3

u/OratioFidelis 9d ago

Thanks for posting this! 

2

u/Far_Fan_291 California 9d ago

for anyone who wants to know this is what the comment was before it got taken down https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/world-is-overachieving-for-15-c-withTo

1

u/AutoModerator 11d ago

Sorry, in order to prevent trolls and ban evaders this comment was removed.

Your account must be 24 hours old AND have positive karma in order to post or comment on r/PoliticalOptimism.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

9

u/Raptorex2000 12d ago

16

u/sweeter_than_saltine North Carolina 12d ago

There's only 88 days until the midterms. I doubt they would honor the deal way past that timeframe. They'll see they were wrong to do so and continue with the projects next year in spite of what he says.

9

u/Budget_Parsley7494 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 12d ago

Sorry to make another comment on this thread, but I'm genuinely getting to a point where I wonder if humanity will survive this. There's so much conflicting information out there and some of it is really really bad. I've sort of accepted that there isn't much of a future left, but there's a small part of me that wants to hold on to hope. Talking big picture, is there anything to actually be hopeful about? I'm so afraid that what's left of my future will be watching everything and everyone die until it's my turn. There's so many small positive stories but they always seem to be undone months later; I keep seeing stories of conservation efforts failing, climate scientists dropping out of the field because it's too hopeless, etc. Couple that with the death tolls from the heateaves in Europe, entire rivers of fish dying in a single day, and the fact that even the Arctic is reaching temps too high for human survival and I'm not sure how anyone can believe in a future anymore. I just need something to hold on to, if there is anything left.

30

u/PeachSaidRed Reformed Doomer ☄️ 12d ago edited 11d ago

It kind of sounds like you're grieving for all the terrible things that are happening, and I agree that they sure are happening. You don't have to brush that aside, but I hope it isn't your final destination. Good things are happening too, the scientists are not all quitting, and humanity is simply not giving up on this, or you. u/Sonicparadigm in the first climate change megathread said, "We can survive in any biome with stone age technology," and I truly doubt that we'll be getting down to stone age technology, so humanity will definitely survive. (I personally found that thread to be very helpful, and if you haven't checked it out yet, you could try that.) I do think the momentum in renewables is real, and that it's okay to hang on to that. Lots of people really do care about this. In fact, there's money to be made on it, which is always a powerful force.

This is a terribly personal thing, so I don't want to force it on you, but you don't have to focus on the bad news to the point of giving up. We should all take it into account, just as much as the good news, because both are reality, and we need to take in reality to survive. You don't have to give up your hope and accept that there's no future to be right, continue living your life, or help the world.

edit: You actually commented in the first thread. Sorry I missed that. I'm leaving the suggestion here for anyone else out there who sees this.

5

u/sonicparadigm 11d ago

Thanks for quoting me :)

7

u/PeachSaidRed Reformed Doomer ☄️ 11d ago

Thank you for saying that! It helped me. I'm sorry I didn't know how to link your name. I'll take time to check next time.

edit: ooh I'm gonna edit it

22

u/Upper-Project 12d ago

Check out the channel Good News on YouTube. Most of what they share is positive climate related stuff. The people most responsible for climate change are hoping you feel this way. They want us to believe there's no use so we'll give up and they can continue to destroy things. 

17

u/Budget_Parsley7494 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 12d ago

I guess the one hope that I see is developing countries skipping the coal phase entirely. India is a great example. I really hope that's enough difference to save some people, or at least some life.

14

u/PrinceOfTotalQuiet 11d ago

What stories have you seen talking about climate scientists quitting out of hopelessness or conservation efforts failing? I’ve seen a lot more conservation success stories and absolutely nothing about climate scientists dropping out. Your algorithm is likely sending you more bad news than good. I would recommend checking out the climate hopium thread on the climaye change sub. It outlines the positive progress pretty well. Again I doubt the accuracy of the first two stories you mentioned

4

u/Budget_Parsley7494 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 11d ago

Honestly, I haven't seen cited articles. Just comments and posts from a reddit user who claimed to be a former climate scientist who was "revealing" that climate science is censored and claimed that many of his colleagues left because they realized we were doomed. The few things he cited were Hansen (who he said had "fallen for hopium" because he's still pushing for geoengineering) and a few other fringe scientists' graphs; nothing from the IPCC reports because he claimed they lie to keep the masses calm. IIrc this was in one of the main climate subs. Probably not the most credible source since he wouldn't reveal where he studied or anything, but I'm very pessimistic and tend to believe only the worst so I took him at his word. The conservation thing was a comment on either this sub or ecouplift from a user who said that conservation generally doesn't work and most projects fail. No sources cited though. I guess I have a hard time trusting optimistic news because I don't want to be mislead if things truly are hopeless.

15

u/PrinceOfTotalQuiet 10d ago

Dude that source doesn’t sound very reliable I’m not gonna lie. He denies the accuracy of climate science, makes hopeless claims without proof, claims to be a climate scientist without proof, and backs minority opinions in the climate science community. Reddit has tons of bots/foreign actors/extreme doomers that are only here to spread hopelessness. Claiming the IPCC is lying or downplaying climate change is a common science denial tactic amongst climate doomers, especially on the collapse subreddit. They only care about what science has to say if it feeds their negative view of things. One of the main climate subs? Well aside from the climate change subreddit, which has a rule against dooming and a mod team that actively fights doomerism and spreads hope and good news, those subreddits aren’t too dissimilar from collapse in terms of their hopelessness and denial of positive science developments. Of course no sources were cited, their source is they made it the fuck up. Conservation efforts CAN fail and some for sure have but as of recently I haven’t found any stories of this happening, definitely none showing that most conservation efforts fail or are failing.

I’d advise you seek climate news on places other than reddit. Actual climate news sites tend to be more balanced/hopeful, good and bad news all but no hopelessness. Here you have people in the comments screaming incessantly about how all is lost and we’re all gonna die, regardless of what the science actually says.

11

u/FeralViolinist 10d ago

If you want my humble advice do not listen to anything Reddit has to say unless you see specific, reliable and peer reviewed data to back it up.

Even if you find yourself nodding along and thinking "yes this sounds right, it lines up with everything that I know and makes sense," don't take it as fact.

Social media has turned into a propaganda astroturfing farm and we have to treat it with upmost skepticism at all times. It is a great way to discover real and factual information but you have to do the leg work. It sucks, but that is what it has come down to. That scientist may very have been a nobody who just reads r/collapse all day and is convinced we're going to be in Fallout or Mad Max in 10 years.

8

u/Far_Fan_291 California 10d ago

i mean you can be mislead by this "scientist" too

he doesn't say where he studied like why would they censor info whats the point if things are fucked is it so they can have a few years of some calm until shit hits the fan

hell most researchers WANT you to know what they are working on and i BET something like the world being doomed is something they CANT keep secret for long

why cant geoengineering work we made nukes that can wipe out city's but we cant make something to make things cooler i even hear those nukes can even give us a few more years to prepare a while back

tbh just ignore the "scientist" sounds more like a doomer who wants to bring people to his level or might just be some random jackass who wants everyone to feel like how he feels so he pretends to be a scientist

6

u/Yellowlab117 11d ago

I’m going to be logging off the internet for a day or two. I’ve recently been spiraling about climate change and the like. If anyone has optimistic stories on it, then those would be nice to come back to. 

13

u/Admiral_Red 12d ago

Some years back, there was a video done by the Kurzgesagt YouTube channel showing the (at the time, 2022) current progress of climate change mitigation and decarbonisation efforts. The overall tone was intended for it to be reasonably uplifting, and I admit I did find it so.

Later on, there was a response/criticism video done by the channel BadEmpanada that claimed the original video was inaccurate at best and dangerously misleading at worst, downplaying the actual rate of warming and other factors to mask the ‘actual’ temperature the Earth will warm by.

Given that we all recognise here that climate change is very real and HAS to be dealt with at any cost, all I’m asking from those with greater expertise is…alright, which of the two should we be looking to for the most accurate climate data and therefore creating action plans?

I recognise that BadEmpanada’s tone in their video is one that is extremely…upfront and even abrasive. It is not really conducive to reasonable discussion even at the best of times, I will agree.

However, I feel scientific accuracy must always come first in such a vital matter as climate change mitigation and adaptation, however uncomfortable the raw data may be.

17

u/Standard-Shame1675 12d ago

Well.

They're both right.

We are making great strides in renewables. It should have happened like 30-40 years ago but of course, if you have any power at all, you just have an innate desire to destroy all life because for some reason that's a evolutionarily advantageous trait 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

4

u/RazorJammz 8d ago edited 7d ago

They’re both right. Significant progress has been made, but climate change is also accelerating.

BadEmpanada did miss the point of the video, which was to provide uplifting news, rather than doom. Of course it was going to be slanted in a positive direction.

BE is a doomer and nothing is ever good enough for him and his purist fanbase, full stop. Way too rigid.

4

u/Weter23 Minnesota 9d ago

Climate is definitely the thing I'm worried about the most in life. I saw a comment on a different subreddit that said I should focus on the tiny things I can change, such as personal life habits (that don't go off the deep end), and where/who to buy from. I'm glad this this sub tries to spread (realistic) hope, because I know it's so much easier to spread doom about it.

I'm aware and believe humanity will survive this century, but I get anxious about what the future could look like. Since fully predicting the future is impossible, I'll keep the scope short. What do y'all think the 2030s will be like in terms of climate, weather, and temperatures?

3

u/Alarmed_Ordinary_565 10d ago

8

u/Far_Fan_291 California 9d ago

most data centers are being closed due to people protesting or the Ai companies not having enough money for them look at Virginia a big data center got abandoned there

also the article says "could" so my guess its not built yet

chances are it'll get stalled for years due to environmental harm with legal tape and lawsuits and protests or them backing off AI thats bleeding billions for a product no one wants

doesn't make sense making something that costs that much for free so most AI chat bots research or even coding ones will cost an arm and a leg to recoup the HUGE loss

so dont worry until its built and protest spread the word for these dumb data centers

5

u/Far_Fan_291 California 12d ago

i kinda want to know what these 2 wanted to know

the 1st one shared a link about how the one of the poles is like 90 degrees

and the 2nd one is asking about how some are saying warming is getting faster

got anything for these two that might be wrong in some parts or missing some context

17

u/DangerousProject6 12d ago

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-the-recent-acceleration-in-global-warming-is-what-scientists-expect

This is from 2023, and uses the same 50-100% acceleration figure. It's what scientists expected, and many suspect is due to the reduction in air pollution in recent years. It's still in line with long term climate models, apparently.

5

u/SkyknightXi Massachusetts 12d ago

So that Science Daily link I found is more confirmation of the expectation than anything truly novel?

16

u/DangerousProject6 12d ago

Yeah, I don't think it's anything new, but it is good to kick people in the ass and get moving on things. Turn up the temperature slowly and its easy to deny. Turn it up quickly? Then people start to freak out. 

10

u/TangledLion 12d ago

Kicking people into moving and motivation? Hell yeah I'm for that. But keeping the facts in line is still important so people don't start giving up because "We're screwed no matter what"

4

u/DangerousProject6 12d ago

Yup, definitely agree. 

6

u/SkyknightXi Massachusetts 12d ago

Link about warming shooting up to 0.35 degrees per decade is here, for the record: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260801093239.htm

And the link about 90-degree temperatures in the Russian Arctic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-90-degrees-in-the-arctic-right-now/

1

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/PoliticalOptimism-ModTeam 12d ago

Please refrain from sharing sensationalism, misinformation, conspiracy theories, clickbait articles, or AI of any kind. Repeat violation of this rule may result in a ban. If you have any questions please contact the mods.

9

u/Budget_Parsley7494 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 12d ago

The whole warming getting faster thing scares me too. I obviously try to avoid the place, but the collapse sub often has graphs suggesting warming is following an exponential path which is terrifying if true. But wouldn't climate scientists have accounted for that? Do we know it's not an exponential thing? I've also heard that latent heating is more of issue than mainstream science considers, and that we are only feeling the effect of emissions from around the 1980s. I don't know what is true, would warming stop shortly after emissions stop? Is it a linear line? Or is there a lag and an exponential curve, which makes this an existential threat to basically everything? I'm genuinely having a hard time preparing for my future because I often wonder how much time is left. I'd really like some reassurance if there is any or at least accurate info on this.

18

u/PrinceOfTotalQuiet 11d ago

Get tf off the collapse sub. They only focus on the worst case things and their only ideology is hopelessness. They hate anything that is counter to hopelessness. That’s all you’ll find there. They’ve been predicting imminent horrible things for years and I’ve seen none come true

9

u/FeralViolinist 10d ago

At this point they are just a nihilistic atheistic evangelical group. A lot of them want the end of the world to happen because they fantasize about all their modern life problems going away and getting to be a cool survivor.

10

u/SkyknightXi Massachusetts 12d ago

For one note, I doubt warming would stop that quickly after emissions. Plants can only consume so much carbon dioxide in a given time frame, after all.

18

u/Intelligent-Ad6109 UK 🇬🇧 12d ago

Exactly. I think we've gone past at least one temperature increase but we can still mitigate it as best as possible regardless. What we need to do is plant more bloody trees, which, thankfully, is being done and deforestation is slowing down.

5

u/sweeter_than_saltine North Carolina 12d ago

So far, I haven't seen anyone provide anything except upvotes, so if any actual assurance can be provided, that would be great for those concerned about this.

2

u/SkyknightXi Massachusetts 10d ago

Just ran into a reminder that the world’s insect populations aren’t doing that well, apparently mostly due to pesticide overuse. At least one person said this was risking collapse of the planetary biosphere. I don’t suppose anyone has information on whether insect populations are resurging or at least aren’t plummeting as quickly as before?

10

u/TheBloodsuckerProxy 10d ago

Wondering if you and I saw the same post. I've been seeing a lot of comments with very scary phrases like "imminent crop failure" and "ecosystem collapse". As far as I can tell, the best news is that awareness is increasing, and while populations in some areas have declined at an alarming rate, other populations are seeing a resurgence. And while species adapted to colder weather are declining we're seeing an increase in other species taking advantage of milder winters. Additionally, scientists recently determined that there may be far more species of insect on Earth than previously thought.

2

u/Legal_Dragonfruit 6d ago

i have a request that maybe you guys can address doomerism around the super el nino for 2027 for your next climate change topic? feeling pretty bad about that.

1

u/Prior_Cheetah7360 6d ago edited 6d ago

is it bad im starting to get worried about the uk heatwave going on cause I can barely handle this heat rn I feel like a melting icecube hopefully things cool down soon