The best part is that governments are still massively subsidizing fossil fuels.
Just like we voted for them to 👌👌👌👌👌
Are there other options on the ballet that aren’t pro-oil/pro-economy? May want to start considering other boxes.
capitalism can’t solve climate change :(
a quick fix: Capitalism -doesn’t want to- solve the climate change :(
Capitalism can not solve shit.
It can only provide record profits. Thats its only goal.
Nope, especially since it’s the biggest contributor to it.
You can have industrialized production and consumerism without capitalism. Not that I’m defending capitalism, I just think our problem is deeper than what you make it, and human nature combined with unchecked technological ability to remodel out planet would yield the same outcome, no matter the dominant flavor of our economical structure.
I’d recommend looking into how indigenous people have historically dealt and wish to deal with climate change before claiming much about “human nature”. A lot of so-called “human nature” is just the universalisation of European capitalist values. I suggest starting by reading about the Red Deal, specially if you’re from the USA.
Although interesting, I don’t think your link is the gotcha counterexample you think it is. Previous civilizations caused environmental collapses without having capitalism to blame for it. We could switch overnight to soviet style communism and that would not solve anything if our expectation is to provide everyone on earth with their today’s living standards. We could blame greed, selfishness and that would take us closer to the truth, but even that would be very shortsighted. We would need all humans on earth to be united around a same goal and same path forward, and share the same willingness to sacrifice. No sect or religion has ever achieved that and never will (we are just so many, and spread that wide).
Looking at the world from the lens of an economic ideology alone only gets you so far. Wrong tool for the job.
Not sure what you’re talking about on “sect or religion” when referring to different cultures doing things differently. The link is not some “gotcha” Reddit moment, it is a good source for you and others to start questioning this notion of “human nature” given that lots of humans have been questioning this very same “human nature” dogma since it was imposed on them by Europeans starting 500 years ago and continuing to this day. Notably you shifted the discussion to talk about the Soviet Union, which has nothing to do with my point and doesn’t even exist anymore. Just because nameless “previous civilisations” caused uncited “environmental collapses”, doesn’t mean that every civilization works by the same rule. Specially considering this current environmental catastrophe is on a whole different level and we have current day civilizations that would love to prevent it, if only they got their Land Back.
Mind telling me what this One Goal of yours might be and how it could be possible within capitalism? The ones who have the most to sacrifice are those at the top, ghettoised minorities will go mostly unharmed in most actually practical solutions.
Looking at the world while compartmentalising the overarching mode of production will only get you solutions from that overarching mode of production. You were quick to dismiss it as the wrong tool, but what is the right tool then?
The power of parternship is another good resource for breaking the notion that humans are just greedy and domineering by nature. A Western myth used to justify Western harms, not the truth of human nature.
We’re on a open source website built almost exclusively to build spaces for communities with barely any profit, and people come here to tell us that greed is what motivates people. Frankly bizarre.
Is it weird that I have the feeling that I’m arguing with a bot? I don’t see what’s hard to understand: the whole premise of this thread is that the cause and solution to climate change is inherently bound to capitalism, and my point is that taking this approach to explain and remedy it is very limiting because capitalism itself is no basis to describe how societies impact their environment (it only describes who owns what in an economy).
When I talk about human nature, it’s because I’m convinced that (and there’s anthropological evidence for) any larger society to inevitably contain selfish individuals with exploitative and sociopathic tendencies, and individuals who can’t get enough when someone else has more than they have (same reason there are cold blood and serial killers all around the world). My opinion is that any rule of law society has the means to limit the power and negative impacts of those individuals, and this extends to corporations who are ultimately led by humans who we should collectively make accountable for their actions on behalf of the organization they lead. There is absolutely no need to bring capitalism into this, and colonialism even less so.
When I talk about sects and religions, it is to emphasize the fact that humanity has never been a uniform species and probably never will be. Tackling climate change in this context in a relevant time-frame will require to exert the current power structures no matter what.
And I don’t pretend to have a solution for climate change, all I’m sure about is that the actual solution is more elaborate than blind antagonism.
It sure is weird since chatGPT is not as advanced as me yet. It also doesn’t like communism. Sadly bots are made by the very same corporations I have issues with.
Compartmentalising the impacts of a mode of production in a society is usually how we get into a bind on trying to tackle problems that arise from them. They are not just “who owns what” but also dictate how humanity and society produces and therefore reproduces. Large urban factories were not a possibility nor desirable under feudalism or North American indigenous collectivism. When one says that “capitalism is the root of the problem” it means that the climate crisis we are living now is a clear consequence of our society’s organisation over production.
So here’s some examples to illustrate. Due to the arbitrary concept of “private property” inherent to capitalism, lithium mines in the Lithium Triangle can be owned by foreign corporations. That means that despite those mines directly affecting the lives of the local communities (which includes most workers there), they are kept there and protected by world governments no matter how much they protest. That is an anti-democractic use of the local resources that can’t easily happen under either communism, anarchism or collectivism and yet is the norm under global capitalism.
Another example is the production of sugar, which relies on both work conditions akin to slavery but also constant burning of the plant that wrecks the local ecology. Populations who work producing sugar cane (in particular slaves) have revolted against that in favour of self-sustainable agriculture since sugar monocultures have been a thing, and yet they have had little power to change that economy without also locally abolishing capitalism. These often come with foreign invasions, as was the case of Haiti.
And finally in the case of the Paris Accords, the big majority of Unitedsadians supported staying in it, and yet the USA left it either way. The people who will suffer and die due to ecological crises of any scale are usually the workers and not the owners. That means that if the workers are in charge of production rather than the owners, it is easy to see how they’ll be more willing to change that production to prevent harm to themselves, even if you ascribe to individualism as a natural human trait.
There is absolutely a need to bring capitalism into this, and even more its birth in colonialism and descent into imperialism. There can be no “accountability of the bourgeoisie” if we live in a dictatorship of this same bourgeoisie. The slave masters didn’t bend over backwards to help the slaves, and the kings have routinely sent levies en masse to their deaths. We shouldn’t expect any different from our current rulers. One obvious example of a communist (“anti-capitalist” if you object to that label) nation that has done the most to combat climate change is the PRC. On the other hand the übercapitalist United States is historically the worst at that. This is not coincidence.
And on the matter of “human nature”. As I’ve pointed out before and that you’ve not acknowledged, many natural human societies parallel to European and settler ones have long pushed back against this backwards pseudoscientific notion. In order to make any universal rules for whatever domain you’d need to have complete information about it. However not a single person knows all known history, and all known history doesn’t even include all actual history. It is typical of those who know little history to make bold proclamations about how “humans have always been a certain way” against humans that are a different way right before one’s own eyes.
Your position seems to have softened to say that the issue is “selfish people controlling corporations”, but that assumes that corporations themselves are universal concepts. Either way, the existence of selfish people doesn’t automatically imply that all modes of production and equally vulnerable to it, and liberal capitalism in itself exists on the principle that all people should focus on self-interest and selfishness. It is no surprise that a system that was developed to effectively colonise a land, genocide its people, exploit workers and extract every local resource only for short-term profit will end up doing just that.
If you yourself don’t have any solution and yet feel your opinion is relevant you are the one engaging in contrarianism. The very least you can do is read (and by that I mean actually read in depth) of those who actually have ideas. The Red Deal link is meant only as an introduction for something which I assume is from your country, feel free to develop your understanding further in whichever direction you want. Even if you come up with a solution under capitalism, it’ll be a start. Just don’t come back with no solutions while complaining that others’ solutions are not good enough.
It’s not a full solution, but I’d love to see more use of compostable single-use plastics coupled with municipal biochar facilities.
It’s an excellent cycle that harnesses capitalism and materialism. People buy single use plastics, then throw them away. Municipal garbage (a utility company paid for by ratepayers), picks it up, and brings it to a biochar facility. The facility pyrolizes it, making syngas (which they burn for energy which is then purchased by consumers) and biochar, which is sold as a soil amendment and happens to be carbon-negative. Excess biochar can be buried.
It’s a typical capitalist create-consume economy except it’s carbon-negative (when paired with decarbonized transportation like electric trains and delivery vans, and hydrogen powered garbage trucks). The more you consume, the more carbon you actually suck out of the air.
There’s a few proposed loops like this which instead of fighting consumerism actually harness it to make carbon negative actions. Another one that I’m very interested in is making HVAC filters that also passively absorb carbon from the atmosphere. With electric heat pumps we already have an HVAC technology that is minimally emitting. Pair that with carbon negative filters and you’re golden.
Or concrete using injected co2. It’s a real thing that exists, it just doesn’t have price parity with traditional carbon-intensive concrete. Imagine if just by building a building you could be carbon negative.
Again, it’s not a total solution but I wish I could see more use cases like this instead of the “consume less” narrative. People are not going to consume less, that’s not how people work. The only way to get people to consume less is by raising prices (which is a necessary part of the solution of course).
We are over the edge of no return.
We should stop begging for change and act now. Politics must hurt them with reforms, taxes, and the rule of law.
We cannot stop climate change now, but we can try to de-accelerate by fighting against big oil, corrupt politics, and billionaire newspapers supporting them.
Malcolm X has an old speech which applies very well to this issue as well. Too bad you can’t vote for him anymore.
Politics must hurt them with reforms, taxes, and the rule of law.
Yeah… that’s how we ended up in this situation. How do you think these giant corporations became so powerful? They “reformed” laws until they could do whatever the hell they please - that’s what “reform” gets you.
Finally somebody sane.
It’s really simple… the people with money get to dictate how these “reforms” work - that’s it. It doesn’t matter if you get a Bernie Sanders into a position of power - the “vested interests” will dictate all the little loop holes in the small script that allows for “business as usual” to continue, and that’s if they bother to hide it at all. It’s literally how we ended up in this terrible situation.
Yes, which is why you should hit where you are not expected.
Which is why statism always works for the stronger side.
I don’t get why leftists don’t usually understand this. I’m not a leftist, but this should be a very simple conclusion.
I don’t know what kind of “leftists” you have been talking to… the ones I talk to understand this very well. It’s pretty much been the bedrock of anarchist thought for more than a hundred years now.
I live in Russia so most leftists here are Stalinists in one way or another, or at least Trostkyists, which still means centralism.
Stalinists are right-wingers with red flags - there’s nothing leftist about them at all. Trots are barely any better. People forget that leftist ideas are popular - that is why there are so many political racketeers in the world pretending to buy into those ideas while actively distorting the same ideas to suit their political agenda. Even old Adolf did it - but no-one is as guilty as the charlatans that ran the USSR and is currently running the PRC. The USSR was about as “socialist” as the US is “democratic” - ie, their (respective) “socialism” and “democracy” only exists in the minds of propagandists.
Politicians love their bribes more than they love the planet, so that’s probably not going to happen. Dems and cons both
“bOtH sIdEs”
Fuck off
You read a comment from a person criticizing the current government for being self motivated and taking bribes under a story about climate change and how we’re all fucked and you thought this was a centrist comment?
Out of interest, what is your view? You seem to be arguing with everyone…
The fediverse is an interesting place with both right wing and tankie shills as well as “enlightened centrists” (which in the US is mostly right wing apologists with window dressing). All are idiots, or propagandists. I like calling them all out.
I believe in left of center regulated capitalism with a strong social security net, personally. I’m a fan of Clinton, Biden, Gavin Newsom, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, though I have major disagreements with all of them on some issues. I believe authoritarianism is morally wrong and I believe anarchism is a foolish idea. I’m not as familiar with the specific policy positions of non US politicians but I generally agree with the western European and Scandinavian approaches to government, with the exception of the surveillance state. In a very broad sense my ideal state would take that model, make having an educated population the #1 priority, and inject a healthy level of American “the ultimate power resides with the people, who should have the means to overthrow a corrupt government if necessary”.
I think with a hefty dose of appropriate regulation, capitalism can solve the great majority of societal ills in the world.
I think a strong Western military is a necessity and I think the Pax Americana is an excellent thing for the world.
I think taking action within the current democratic system is far more effective than dreaming about some revolution.
I think the way out of our current mess is to VOTE and push candidates further left.
For an example of a position I can respect but ultimately disagree with, the idea that we should ban guns to save lives. It’s a reasonable position to take. I just think it’s not worth it, but I wouldn’t call anyone supporting it an idiot.
Thanks for elaborating.
Too many people believe they can just continue living like they were 30 years ago - if big oil would stop producing stuff and plastics, gas and airplane fuels would not be available anymore then people would riot
Even threatening to increase prices to a level that would make sense to limit the use to absolutely necessary levels would piss off too many people to be a viable option because everyone just wants to believe that it’s just for “the others” to change but not for themselves.
Everyone has to act and change their Livestyle…
Where I live we get one or more times a week 40°C and over days.
Going from home to work is a 30 minutes drive for me. I drive a 2004 petrol Opel Agila.
The train requires you to be on-point, otherwise is a 50 minutes wait for the next run. Also, from the main train station to work is a 20 minutes added walk. This is not too bad, but the worst part is doing the walk under the heat we have here during the summer. Good thing it ends up actually being cheaper than driving my Agila, counting a subscription is €30 while I fuel €15 each week.
The bus is never on-point, always late, always destroyed, always trashy, always overwhelmingly full, skips runs and its not uncommon for it to stop working while you are on it. And you still need the 20 minutes walk. By the way, its too a paid service.
When I will be able to financially, I want to at least move to a newer electric vehicle or use the train during fall and winter. But at least right now during summer, I just can’t without arriving at work like a bucket of salt water had been thrown at me (as there is little good shade on the way) and we don’t have showers at work.
Other people might not even have the chance to made this decision, as public services can be even harder to use in some other areas.
Lol that’s the world’s largest prisoner dilemma, never going to happen. People are big children, and you need to treat them as such. You don’t let the child decide whether it’s going to eat candy or real food, you take away the option of candy because they cannot be trusted to make decisions that are good for them in the long run. This is no different, it’s why we have things like regulations and the FDA.
Absolutely correct. I myself don’t have children, don’t have a car, and I don’t eat meat. Just pick any of those 3 and try to deal with the reactions to it. People are big children.
This is the truth right there. Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out. People were prepared to elect Republicans-- fucking Republicans- to office, they were so furious about it.
And don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods? Who’s refusing to vote for politicians that’ll meaningfully regulate these corporations? Who’s spending all day fantasizing about Da Revolushun^TM that’ll never fucking come (and would kill tens of millions of civilians and likely result in fascists winning and seizing control of your country, if not the whole thing splintering into a bunch of warring fiefdoms controlled by ruthless oligarchs) instead of getting to actual work trying to effect real change in the real world? And I don’t mean “direct action” (read: looking edgy and getting photos for the 'gram), I mean actually fucking getting policy passed that’ll have a real impact on people’s real lives.
Policy like regulating those 100 corporations?
Yes. I said so explicitly in my previous comment.
Seems odd to say
And don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods?
People bringing up the 100 corporations are usually calling for regulations on them, and the “you’re the ones buying the goods” people are usually calling for Personal Responsibility and Voting With Your Wallet.
Sorry, I’m so used to hanging out in left-of-center places I make the mistake of assuming everyone understands how BS the whole “personal responsibilty” shtick is and is onboard with strict regulations to fight climate change. So I tend not to explicitly call it out in my posts, assuming it goes unsaid. Which might be a bad assumption to make in more centrist / non-explicitly-liberal spaces.
Will try to be clearer in the future :)
It’s possible to both think those companies should be regulated and that people are doing almost nothing personally to help, including electing people to enact those policies. For most people I talk to the “but 100 corps” is a total deflection of personal responsibility. This crisis will not be solved without a good heaping helping of both personal responsibility and aggressive government regulation. If nothing else because that aggressive regulation will never pass into law unless people acknowledge their personal responsibility and are willing to accept the sacrifices that will come with it.
This crisis will not be solved without a good heaping helping of both personal responsibility and aggressive government regulation.
100%. People usually argue for one to the exclusion of the other but we need both.
In the US, unless you are willing to vote third party, you don’t get the choice to vote for Anti-Capitalist politicians. And there are millions of liberals waiting in line to scold you for not voting for the parties of Capital.
It’s almost like our society is car centered, and raising gas prices directly results in worse outcomes for the majority of people. You can’t expect people to just stop using cars, but you can use the state to create massive infrastructure policies paid for wholly by the polluting industries who most heavily profit from our current situation. Use the next decade to build high speed rail, electrified busses and lightrails, subway systems, and other mass transit, and then when gas prices go up, people will have an option other than cutting back on their food to ensure they make it to work every day.
I replied to the wrong comment in this thread, but if I delete it’ll only delete from my instance, so I’m just gonna leave it.
Our society is 100% car centered. My kids’ schools are miles away from my house, my job is miles away, and you cannot convince me to ride a bike or walk when it’s over 100°F outside. Fuck that shit. I’m happy to take public transit, but any public transit available to me isn’t feasible because it would take literally 1.5-2 hours to get to work and back each way, which cuts down severely on my family time. And I can’t work from home either due to the nature of my job, which is maintaining the machines that build microchips.
Maybe don’t move somewhere that your job and kids school is hundreds of miles away? My child’s school is down the street, and I can take the subway to work in about 15min. This was a specific choice my wife and I made when we chose to live here.
Hundreds of miles? I think you misread. They’re several miles away.
Also it’s a lot easier said than done to just up and move somewhere more convenient. I don’t have that luxury, and telling me to do so will get you a big fat “go fuck yourself” from me for being so insufferable about it.
Now move along and go bug someone else with your luxury conveniences.
Your reality is the one that’s grounded in reality.
You can’t win, either way. When you move for work or whatever and then say you wish you could see your family and old friends more, you get the same shitty response: well, you didn’t have to choose to move away. Or if you complain that your landlord keeps putting up the rent, you get told, ‘why don’t you just buy’, as if the bank doesn’t just put up the mortgage if it’s even an option. It’s almost like capitalism loves liberal individualism, where every societal fault can be blamed on the individual for not taking better choices.
Holy privilege Batman
“Just don’t live in a place like that” rofl
Oh great, let’s use privilege as a bludgeon to enforce the status quo. This is great and also happens to be indistinguishable from doing nothing.
Supply creates it’s own demand. Capital knows this. That’s why they push your narrative.
It’s a regular liberal trick, to insist on looking at the consumer while the producer laughs at us on their yacht. In the meantime, their managers, agents, lawyers, and accountants work tirelessly to make sure that what they offer, in the form they offer it, are the only options.
They’ll buy a stake in public transport and run it to the ground so that people are forced to buy and use cars. They’ll drop the prices in their supermarket so the local grocer with local suppliers can’t afford to stay open. They’ll build obsolescence into every product so you have to keep buying new ones, and the old one is thrown into landfill. They’ll campaign against nuclear energy under the guise of green activism, then complain that wind and solar must be backed by fossil fuels. They’ll buy all the newspapers and news channels, ensuring the only narrative is theirs—dog eat dog and the activist down the road is coming for your way of life. They’ll buy the recording studios and reinforce these messages in film, TV, music: that petite bourgeois living is peak aspiration and that ‘there is no alternative’ as if we lack imagination.
Then the public will continue that good work for them. Condescending all who disagree. Arguing that capitalism isn’t the problem because humans are greedy or any of the other unassailable, facile, and trite logics that we’re forced to hear constantly but which have no grounding in reality.
Emissions can’t be stopped at the point of consumption.
Not immediately but they’ll stop producing if people stop buying. Just takes a lot of people to have any meaningful change. And that starts with every single one of us.
And that’ll never happen, because everyone else will ignore you and just buy the shit anyway.
It NEEDS to be regulatory change. Shaming consumers into not consuming doesn’t work. Oil companies want you to think it works, that’s why THEY invented the concept of the carbon footprint. To make everyone ignore real solutions that could actually work.
They didn’t say we can stop it at our individual points of consumption. They explicitly mentioned policy. People need to be willing to support policy that will drastically change their own lives, likely in ways they don’t even realize, and be ready to live with that. Otherwise pretty soon we won’t be living with much at all.
don’t @ me about “100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions”. Who’s buying those corporations’ goods?
Suggesting that the consumer is responsible for emissions at the point of production betrays a deep misunderstanding of climate change.
Suggesting that “people’s” willingness to support policy that would change their lives is holding back cuts to emissions at the point of production betrays a similarly deep misunderstanding of political power.
Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out.
Yeah, sure. They flipped out because the love their cars so much and don’t want to change anything. Oh, wait. No, they flipped out because companies and corrupt politicians made them completely dependent on cars so they will starve without them and kept them so poor that even increasing the cost of using the cars they dependent on just a bit again ends with starving.
And here you are babbling none-sense again about how it’s the stupid people buying products -as if they had a choice- and not the companies and politicians that are to blame.
Reformism will do nothing, only a revolution can.
Preach
Let me know when you hit puberty
Let me know when you get over your boot licking addiction.
All those hundreds of millions of successful, adult revolutionaries in the global south must not count. I wonder why?
Maybe because they are neither adult not successful nor hundreds of millions rofl
Oh, the capitalists didn’t do what their public relations exercises pretended they were going to do? Golly gee… no one could have seen that coming at all.
These companies will not change unless they are forced to do so and our government isn’t going to do shit since most of congress is in the pocket of big oil. So what are our other options?
Everyone likes to blame individuals for not using renewables or buying an electric car, when it reality their options were limited in the first place by big oil. Most people can barely afford to put food on the table and green or renewable products are usually significantly more expensive and not really an option. Besides that, IIRC ordinary citizens only account for roughly 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions. So the onus lies on big oil to make changes and offer affordable renewable options instead of the same gas guzzling/polluting bullshit we’ve been offered up to this point. But like I said, they won’t do something like that unless they are forced to do so, they will always pursue profit over people, unless those people get in their faces and force them to pursue other options.
most of congress is in the pocket of big oil. So what are our other options?
Vote only for candidates against FPTP. When that’s gone, we can just vote for candidates who are against big oil.
How many election cycles can we postpone climate action for?
Their unwillingness to act on climate change is a major (if not the biggest) reason we need representation. The Democrats hand power back to Republicans who undo this session’s climate action.
Destroying the world more slowly by slightly impacting one election at a time brought us here.
I understand and support the sentiment: something needs to change. I just don’t think that re-framing electoral politics will work unless it’s backed by a mass movement of organised workers. If that happens, the question becomes, why bother with the middlemen? They can legislate for themselves without having to beg the ruling class for mild compromises.
Destroying the world more slowly by slightly impacting one election at a time brought us here.
That’s kinda what I was driving it. How many elections would it take to abolish FPTP? We’d have to wait for that and only then could we think about voting in politicians who might do something and the system would still be dominated by capital. That makes a three-step process out of a two-step process.
Seems like a request to wait for an indefinite number of election cycles—the same request of those who say to vote for this or that faction of the capitalist party and one day, just maybe, conditions will be just right for one of those parties to effect any change. Too many African, Latin American, and Asian homes and lives would be destroyed while they wait patiently for the US to get its act together.
It would take too long to work unless you know of a massive campaign across the western world to implement FPTP. If it doesn’t exist already, it must be built within the next year or so or the west will be locked into another four-ish years of no progress. And that’s just for a shot at electing politicians who might vote to abolish FPTP. Before they even come within hearing distance of, never mind face-to-face with, the contradictions of imperialism.
Currently, almost all I see in the west is how to do business as usual but in green. That means denying progress to the subjugated masses so that USians can maintain their standard of living. Oppressed people shouldn’t have to wait for the US to figure out how to tactically solve the world’s ills through an electoral technicality. Round and round we’d go with electoralism.
At this point, there is one, single option: revolution. Anything else will take too long. Luckily for humanity, whatever the US thinks or wants is largely irrelevant. The world is revolving anyway. The only question for the world is what form the revolution takes. And the additional question for USians is whether they want to be part of the change or to ruin everything out of spite and self-interest.
The Red Deal may be of interest (click drop-down menu under ‘articles’): https://therednation.org/environmental-justice/
At this point, there is one, single option: revolution
You’re the world’s biggest sucker if you think that’s even a possibility.
Or more likely, a russian/right wing shill
“Voting is useless” is right wing propaganda.
I have to admit, I did not expect this response. I’m struggling to see how an anti-capitalist argument in favour of socialist revolution is right wing.
A possibility? It’s happening as we speak. Time will tell.
It’s a spoiler, a red herring. “Don’t bother doing the thing that could actually threaten our power. Instead, focus on this other thing that has no shot of happening.”
Electoralism isn’t going to save us.
We don’t have time for that. Just vote Democrat, and vote in the primary.
Undoing FPTP will take a generation. I agree it should be done, but it’s not the priority.
This completely ignores GP’s point.
No, I’m saying we can get climate change fixed without undoing fptp. Just give democrats a permanent supermajority. Much like in California.
How would you respond to GP’s point that most Democrats are corrupt too? Nobody here is arguing that they’re as bad as Republicans. But just electing them with no regard to their policy positions will produce right wing Democrats who will ultimately hold the same positions as Republicans, and then they’ll split into two FPTP-supporting parties like the Democratic-Republican party did. We will have won a name and nothing more.
How would you respond to GP’s point that most Democrats are corrupt too?
Sorry, skipped this. I would say a) it’s an order of magnitude less than Republicans, and b) democratic voters are more willing to hold their candidates to task.
Still a no brainer.
What does “holding them to task” look like if we’ll ultimately vote for anyone with a (D) next to their name? Like, yell at them or something?
The only thing big corporations care about is next quarter’s profits. The world can quite literally burn next year if they get their big profits this quarter.
What good is money if it’s all on fire?
They believe that they won’t be effected, or at least effected last and the least. These people are parasites on society and need to be treated as such.
If it’s ALL on fire, then my percentage of the money supply remains unchanged!
“That’ll be $20. I mean $15. $10? You know what, just half of whatever is in that flame retardant wallet.”
Relying on businesses to self regulate doesn’t work?
I am shocked! Shocked!
There is no paywall here though? I had no issue reading the article at least…
No paywall for me either, plus I was able to read it without javascript.
They are talking about the website asking for optional donations. That is it.
Well golly gee, they’re breaking promises they never intended to keep?
Fuck oil companies
No govt will hold them accountable, so energy firms can walk forwards/ backwards/ play hopscotch on their pledges and it’ll be ignored.
Wait! Some of you really believed in and trusted your politician’s and your corporation’s PR ad campaigns? LOL I remember few years ago, when everybody on Reddit posted pictures of themselves cleaning beaches and streets and stuff, all proud of how they made some kind of difference. KEKW
Hahaha action is futile, do nothing but consume
Well… I hate to break it to you, but it seems we’re left without any alternative. I alone can’t do shit about it. Groups of people have tried, and we do see the results. In last few years I’ve seen people making fun of the one Swedish girl that also tried… I’m not saying we should give up, but I think our politicians and corporations and governments are rather preparing for a war (you need a lot o oil for it), and I see far more people and celebrities on Internet and the news cheering for this war then fighting for their own future. Idk I’m no expert…
There is an alternative. And it’s proving to be effective. But you’re not allowed to know about it. And if you do know, you’re not allowed to think about it objectively. The evidence will be framed in such a way that makes you think that tackling climate change and corporate power is the most dangerous thing on earth: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009152655
Well that’s the world’s sketchiest link
Haha. It does look dodgy. I used it for transparency, though, as doi links tend to be trusted. If you have a look at almost any recent academic article, it’ll have one. Look up doi’s before clicking that link if you like. Academic publishers use them to make sure that links to research always work. From doi.org:
A DOI is a digital identifier of an object, any object — physical, digital, or abstract. DOIs solve a common problem: keeping track of things. Things can be matter, material, content, or activities. A DOI is a unique number made up of a prefix and a suffix separated by a forward slash. This is an example of one: 10.1000/182. It is resolvable using our proxy server by displaying it as a link: https://doi.org/10.1000/182.
Designed to be used by humans as well as machines, DOIs identify objects persistently. They allow things to be uniquely identified and accessed reliably. You know what you have, where it is, and others can track it too.
The link I posted, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009152655, takes you to Cambridge University Press website for an academic book called, Clean Air at What Cost? The Rise of Blunt Force Regulation in China by Denise Sienli van der Kamp. A few chapters are accessible. Otherwise, you’ll have to search online for a full PDF. Here’s a more usual form of link to the introduction: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/clean-air-at-what-cost/introduction/2A72A1AACE376312BDD4B005439AAC41.
From the summary of the introduction (emphasis added):
In the past decade, the Chinese government has resorted to forcibly shuttering entire industries or industrial areas to clean up the air. These “blunt force” measures are often taken as a sign of authoritarian efficiency; the state uses its coercive powers to swiftly eliminate polluting industries and then silence social dissent. This chapter introduces an alternate perspective: that blunt force regulation is a sign of ineffective bureaucratic control. When institutions are too weak to hold bureaucrats accountable, central leaders increase oversight by drastically reducing the number of steps and resources required to produce a regulatory outcome – resulting in blunt force measures. Through an overview of the causes and consequences of China’s blunt force pollution regulation, this chapter challenges the tenets of authoritarian environmentalism, forcing us to rethink what it means to be a “high-capacity” state.
The book is rather clever, as you can see from this excerpt. It reframes the narrative to support the argument that although China has been successful in ‘swiftly eliminating[ing] polluting industries’, it did not do so efficiently and it had to ‘silence social dissent’. Hard to imagine how someone can present the evidence that China’s methods worked in the same breath as trying to convince you that such success means that it failed. That’s western academics for you. Just wait till you look at chapter 2, which explains that if the author is right, there are:
two underlying logics [to] regulatory enforcement, namely, “rules-based” regulation (which prioritizes effectiveness) and “risk-based” regulation (which prioritizes efficiency). … [But] blunt force regulation fits into neither category, offering neither efficient nor effective regulation in the long-term.’
As if China, with one of the most advanced technologically advanced infrastructures in the world, is going to instal a hodgepodge, disconnected network of tiny, polluting, inefficient coal power stations because it chose the wrong (effective-but-ineffective) regulatory model.
Don’t get me wrong. China could very probably improve its efficiency re: meeting environmental goals. Perhaps it could take seriously some of the analysis in this book when doing so; some if it is very good. But although the author argues for readers to disbelieve the evidence presented in the same book, it outlines an effective alternative to the capitalist mock sigh of despair. The question is, should society listen to the social dissent or do what’s best for life on earth?
I need to read up more on dois, since I don’t understand why not just use a url, they’re already unique.
The sketchiness actually came from that as well as the “you’re not allowed to talk about it” comment which to me screams crypto scam or cult or both.
Here’s my issue with your general argument
As if China, with one of the most advanced technologically advanced infrastructures in the world,
You seem to be taking it a given that what China is doing is more or less correct, and then deducing how you should interpret the world from that. Of course China wouldn’t do anything stupid, at best they might just need minor improvements to the process.
This book criticizing China isn’t right, it’s just Western indoctrination.
To me that makes it likely that you’re someone who’s drank the kool aid, and you’re emotionally invested in defending China, which makes a fruitful conversation with you unlikely.
It’s because websites go down. If a journal website goes down, for example, the doi can be redirected so that people searching old links can still find the article.
The book argues that China’s ‘blunt force regulation’ will not work in the long term, suggesting that China may have clean air today but that its air will become dirty again because its regulatory model is defective. I’m saying that is a weak argument as it presupposes that the factories and inefficient (greenhouse gas-wise) infrastructure, etc, that were shut down will be re-used, which is baffling. Those factories are gone. And as it has one of the most technologically advanced infrastructures in the world, it is highly unlikely that anyone would re-install the technologically backward infrastructure. It wouldn’t be very competitive in the world market, would it?
China will face myriad problems in the future. Dirty air from inefficient processing and usage of fossil fuels is unlikely to be one of them. If that’s right, and if I’ve interpreted the author’s argument right, then the thesis fails for being reduced to an absurdity. That’s not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There’s some great analysis in the book. The evidence and analysis just do not lead to the author’s conclusion unless one accepts two essential premises: the primacy of private property and the basic principles of liberalism.
I’m emotionally invested in evidence and conclusions that can be drawn on its basis. You say I’ve drunk the Kool Aid while dismissing the maturity of 80+ million members of the CPC and millions more supporters in the rest of the population.
When I said, you’re not allowed to talk about it, this is exactly what I was referencing. Any presentation of a counter argument is treated with derision. As if there’s only one permissible narrative—which happens to be mainstream only in the west. Such that academics will write a book detailing the successes of Chinese environmental policy and conclude that it’s failed because one day it might fail. Again, there is very likely room to improve efficiency and there is some good analysis in the book. Insisting on nuance does not a cult make.
- stop trying to fix the climate
- war with Ruzzia is bad
Shill probability: 86%
I’m not trying to fix the climate. I’m unable to do so. War with anyone is good? (Btw. learn to spell Russia) I’m shilling for peace 100%
Only one answer left. You can find it on a crossword where the clue is ‘Often caused by rage or inequality’. The fourth letter is L.
Guillotine
Kill?
Violence…
Revloution?
