november

worrying about climate change

justin scawful • 24 Nov 2018

i got really paranoid about climate change today. i'm worried that if we don't something soon it will inevitably lead to a huge economic decline, societal collapse and maybe even the end of humanity. i know that may seem a bit dramatic but its been a problem for many years and we haven't done nearly enough to deal with it. the current administration really has no plans on taking it seriously, since they tucked their own report on the effects climate change could have on our country under the rug on black friday while orange man tweets about how record cold temperatures prove there's no global warming. it's depressing. a lot of our wildlife has died in the last fifty years and we keep breaking record high temperatures every year since the turn of the century. eventually coastal areas are going to be uninhabitable and people will have to move inland.

i'm worried about having kids into a world thats doomed to fail. but i also dont wanna miss out on having a family. its easy to get anxious about these things in the short term. i try not to worry too much. a few months ago i was obsessing over how i'm going to die. but worrying about it doesn't exactly help. talking about uncomfortable things helps, but it really depends on your attitude. sometimes just letting things pass when you're not prepared to deal with it is good too. there's not a lot i can like immediately do to prevent climate change. individual sacrifices really pale in comparison to the impact that carbon emissions and corporate energy usage has on the environment. i've been pescatarian for almost three years but that's not saving the ozone. i recycle at least. i didn't used to do that when i had my own apartment, but since living in joliet i've felt much better knowing i recycle lol.

by the time we really start to see the effects of climate change it will definitely be too late to undo a lot of the damage, but i'm hoping there comes a moment where we realize we have to do something major fast. i wish more people took this seriously instead of denying it. before obama a lot of prominent republicans were all for combatting climate change but once he took office they turned opposing it into a partisan issue which was just further exasperated by citizens united and the intervention of energy companies contributions to politicians. i hope that new democratic lawmakers in the house can put in legislation for confronting climate change that'll pass. i wish obamas energy bill wouldve actually gone through. there's a lot more he couldve done that was ruined by republicans.

i dont mean to get like overtly political. i mean i do, i'm interested in it. it can just get exhausting sometimes. it's almost become like another media spectacle like reality television or sports at this point with how insane the world has become and how news is sensationalized. it really fucks with the way we interpret the world i think. all media i think has really rewired the way my mind works and perceives the world. sometimes i'm not sure if i even truly understand the effects that all my exposure to digital media has had on me. i know practically nothing else than the dystopian tech world i was born into. haha, not literally dystopian. not yet at least.

it would be poetic if humanity immediately collapsed right after the technological boom. like we've harnessed the power of gods within computers and weaponry and the prominence of capitalism is destroying this earth and sucking it dry of resources. but maybe if we are lucky after this generation of deniers is wiped out and the young people who believe in climate change are the majority we can do something to fix this almost apocalyptic future we are heading for. i'd love to see an era of prosperity. i hope within my lifetime i can at least find some financial security and keep myself safe if the effects of climate change hit within my lifetime.

in other news i registered for classes for next semester and have started to get a better plan for my degree in programming. i just have to get a math class out of the way before i can start my core programming courses and i didn't place a high enough score on my math placement exam and procrastinated signing up for classes so i don't have time to do it right now to get into math for spring but i will definitely do it over the summer and then start basic programming in the fall. i'm hoping i can get this degree done in two and a half years if i take courses over the summer. its a lot of money too, and i'll be primarily paying my tuition myself this semester. only a few more weeks left in this semester, gonna give it my all lol.

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16 Nov 2018

i left class early today because of a nose bleed. i couldnt make it not two minutes before it started. i went to the bathroom to try and deal with it but it went on for so long and was just nonstop so i went back to class grabbed my stuff and left. it sucks, because i didn't go to class last week but it's just english. i started off college only taking two classes not sure what it was going to be like and it's really not as much as i anticipated. my computer class has been annoying with the amount of assignments i have to do in the microsoft office suite but i've learned some things about programming and computers from the lectures.

i played a lot of fortnite today with gatysh in the morning. we got one win just from pure luck, and this is the second time that has happened where we just get lucky and set up a base which ends up getting us the win. but when he has to build fight on his own it usually doesn't end well. the food fight mode that was just added is probably my favorite LTM. it leads to a lot of good fights and is good practice. obviously it isnt a traditional battle royale win but it feels very deserved since most games are 12v12.

i got some new clothes for the winter today and actually got out of my house. it was in the high 20s low 30s and had snowed in the morning. very cold morning, winter is creeping up slowly. that's probably what ended up causing the nosebleed. i've had chronic nosebleeds since i was a kid but its usually made worse by dryness in the air. its fine though, we were only going to go over the last essay that is due for the semester and then work on the one that is due on sunday. since all the information is online i'm not missing out on anything, besides 25 points for a peer review. hopefully i do a good job on the essay. i'm going to be writing about why capitalism isn't a functional economic system. at least that's what i think right now. that might change if it proves to be too difficult.

too bad i can't even start on the essay because i'm up doing fucking microsoft access textbook projects. college is so lame sometimes. i hope that taking real programming classes will be more fun. i might even try to take some classes relating to web design and scripting so that i can hopefully improve the experience here at zeniea in the future. on the homepage i've mentioned a project i'm going to be working on soon and i hope if that goes well that i can continue to optimize the site and improve it without the help of anyone else. i love flashwave but he's got a lot he works on his own time and the ideas i have for zeniea are very demanding of him.

i'm going to try to use this blog to keep me from going insane through the winter. there's always so much noise in my head, so i think just to vent is nice sometimes, even though i usually go back to my blog posts a couple months down the road and delete them. however i'd much rather start filling up the website with actual content. it makes me feel better.