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This is the kind of thing that is inspiring to young people. Not watching a couple of billionaires experience weightlessness for a few minutes.
by wunderland 3y ago
This is the kind of thing that is inspiring to young people.
Not watching a couple of billionaires experience weightlessness for a few minutes.
- PraetorianGourd 3y agoWhy does it need to be either/or? Some youths might be inspired by watching non-astronauts in space, some may be inspired by this climate activism. Others may be inspired by watching re-runs of Futurama. The important thing is the inspiration, not what triggers it.
- tobr 3y agoThe important thing is what it inspires.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoAnd some are inspired by that NPC trend on tiktok. There's definitely a difference in kind between sources of inspiration.
- phpisthebest 3y ago[flagged]
- deprecative 3y agoGiven that their parents and grandparents probably are the same folk that ensured a worse quality of life for them I'm going to side with the kids on this one.
- Aachen 3y agoTo be fair, until about 1990 the problem was virtually unknowable if you weren't a climate scientist working on cutting edge research yourself or were in the board room of the oil company that apparently had this investigated and then chose to make the most of their remaining time. I can't fault two entire generations for greenhouse gas emissions from before then, and after it became common knowledge, I can understand that society-wide transitions are genuinely hard. However, I do fault most able-bodied rich people (almost everyone who's reading this is in the world's top 10%) for, after it became known, barely even trying beyond a direct financial benefit to themselves in the short term (like solar panels on an otherwise idle roof which will yield a net profit in a handful of years)
- phpisthebest 3y agowhat you have personally done that was not "direct financial benefit to" yourself
- Aachen 3y agoThat's a long list of things which I posted on this account before. Some of the things are taking the bus to work instead of a more convenient car, taking more expensive trains rather than flying, reducing meat consumption when the meat replacements, which should be much cheaper to produce, are often actually more expensive, taking part in protests, exclusively using refilled glass containers (Mehrwegglas) rather than the cheaper throwaway pudding containers which also contain tastier contents, and reducing room heating (by thermal clothing and directly heating myself with a trickle of electricity rather than heating my environment) to the point where the neighbors' heat (we're on the ground floor) is enough to stay warm most of the winter. I'm looking into financing a wind turbine, which I expect to cost a few years' salary. I could put that money to other use (including for personal luxuries) but the climate problem is getting rather time-sensitive and I want to at least be part of the solution rather than the problem, even if it's very hard to solve all my emissions at once (I live in a rented place with gas heating, for example, but as mentioned I mostly replaced that even if some heating is still needed against mould and for visitors). Is that satisfactory for you?
- Aachen 3y agoI don't know why I bothered
- deprecative 3y agoTo clarify, I wasn't specifically talking about climate change. I was speaking broadly on regressive, rug/ladder pulling policies that put us into the situation we're in now and will likely be until climate change near extincts us.
- vkou 3y agoIf we're going to hold progress hostage to some poor person getting harmed in some poorly-quantified way, we never would have gotten runnning water, electricity, or the automobile.
- sophacles 3y agoBelieve it or not, keeping the planet nice is in their own self interests.
- phpisthebest 3y agoBelieve it or not, this lawsuit does nothing to "keep the planet nice"
- pyuser583 3y agoMy experience is young people are rarely inspired by news stories. Of all news stories, the ones involving court cases are the least inspiring. This isn’t about a disadvantaged person overcoming adversity. It’s a bunch of suits sitting on a room.
- worik 3y agoMyexperience is the opposite. Both my memory and my observation
- smolder 3y agoYou might surprised how a good teacher could inspire hope in teenagers over this, contrary to all the other signals that indicate doom and gloom in their futures. Global warming was already weighing on me in my teens when I'm in my 30s now. It's a much more visible issue now.
- pyuser583 3y agoA good teacher can make soup exciting. Catching interest is 90% of teaching. I’m in my 40s, and for a good chunk of my childhood overpopulation and resource scarcity were big fears. It took me a like time to accept the global warming consensus, because that’s what happens when experts cry wolf. This looks like an interesting case, but also very specific to Montana.
- Aerroon 3y agoWhy would future price increases for all your goods be inspiring for young people? That's what you're going to end up with when you increase costs. People don't choose fossil fuels just because, they're chosen largely for economic reasons.
- ordinaryradical 3y ago“Won’t someone think of the costs!” You know prices would be even lower if we let all our rivers and groundwater be polluted, right? Led piping was cheaper than alternatives too. Perhaps lower prices is not the all-important end you assume it to be?
- polygamous_bat 3y agoMuch easier to ignore the externalities if you know you will be dead by the time the bill comes due. Until them, more widgets for me!
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIf including economic externalities in the price makes goods more expensive, so be it. It's how things should be done.
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoLower prices themselves have a price. You could steal everything for free, why don't you?
- lame-robot-hoax 3y agoCarbon externalities not being reflected in the price of a good is a bug, not a feature. It’s a market failure that needs to be rectified.
- Aerroon 3y agoSure, and it will come at the expense of your economy. Eg would the ranch mentioned in the article be able to survive if it had to account for this? What will people's reactions be when you double the price of their food or gasoline? I'd wager one of the reasons why America's economy does so well compared to Europe's is the much cheaper access to energy. For example, Lithuania pays twice the price for gasoline and almost 3 times the price for electricity, meanwhile income in Lithuania is less than half of US incomes. People take a good economy for granted and are willing to trade it for many things. But then when the trade actually happens they will blame everyone else for the misery that results from it (eg "living wage" people).