5 ms·

The Change needed is refused by the people. We would rather die and kill most of the biological world than face economic austerity, so we get what we order.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
A democratic majority supports fixing this when polled. Concentrated special interests manage to slow that change being implemented.
- freddie_mercury 3y ago
  This isn't quite true. Polls consistently show that people think someone somewhere should do something as long as it doesn't actually cost them any money. "IPSOS found that just 25 percent of Americans said they’d be willing to pay higher taxes to address climate change. A 2019 Reuters poll asked specifically whether respondents would pay $100 to fight climate change and only a third said yes"
- tinco 3y ago
  Meanwhile, Joe Biden while claiming to believe we are steering towards climate disaster, decided to protect the economy and preserve his geriatric political career and reduce oil prices yet again by depleting strategic reserves.
  - lucianbr 3y ago
    On the other hand, increasing oil prices would help Russia and other petro-states which are pretty horrible.
  - pstuart 3y ago
    Let's not get too political here -- while there is pandering on oil pricing he is forced to by an electorate that's too stupid to see the big picture. His ostensible opponent states that climate change is a hoax and wants to undo anything "green".
    - notadoomer236 3y ago
      Many of us don’t want to uproot everything - at substantial effort and cost - for unclear or negligible upside. USA is only at 13% of global emissions. And radically overhauling everything, as opposed to incentivizing greener tech over time, is unlikely to move the temperature much if at all. China will not play ball. The developing world will not play ball. If we were dead serious about this as a civilization threat, we would start building as much nuclear as possible
      - tinco 3y ago
        USA is only at 13% if you only account for emissions by the USA. If you count the CO2 emissions the USA paid for then it is more than double that of China. The whining about "uprooting everything" is such a cheap cop out. The US doesn't suddenly grind to a halt when oil prices are higher, or when production of goods moves back from China to Detroit.
      - pstuart 3y ago
        Uproot everything? There's only 2 significant direct disruptions that would be felt directly by the population: getting an electric vehicle and stove/oven. They both have cost but that can be (and is) transitioned over time and the economic burden can be subsidized. I agree that nuclear would be great but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be cost effective. Even my pet notion, SMRs, seem to be unable to cut it. NuScale has promise but even they seem to be unable to compete with solar and wind. Geothermal is also waiting for us -- I hear there's a bit of extra heat in the Yellowstone region. The key thing is that our political leadership is currently owned by the fossil fuel industry and they don't want to let go of their massive profits. They've also managed to politicize the issue to such a degree that a major political party (and its membership) has no interest in addressing this and has convinced the base that it's a hoax. That's as political as I'll get here -- is to note stated positions and policies. The US has (will) spent $6T on two wars that had no reason or value. We have plenty of money to spend -- it's just a matter of spending it wisely.
      - pstuart 3y ago
        Another note: we can't expect China or the developing world to play ball if we don't lead by example.
jdub 3y ago
It's not a matter of the environment vs economic austerity, rejected by the people, it's the environment vs corporate abuse, rejected by those in power.
- cuu508 3y ago
  It's tragedy of the commons at all levels.
opo 3y ago
It is actually worse than that. Even the relatively small amounts of money we are willing to spend to combat this are often not spent well. One example, is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar is very, very, expensive compared to utility grade solar. A dollar that goes to subsidize residential rooftop solar is a dollar that would go much, much further if it was used to subsidize utility grade solar or wind. Another example of poor decision making is Germany which decided to start shutting down nuclear power plants while they were still burning coal. So last year hard coal and lignite still produced 35.3 percent in German power production (compared to 35.2% from renewables. (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/coal-germany https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/coal-germany). Before the phase out of nuclear, it generated about 25% of the electricity. It is all really hard to believe...
- neom 3y ago
  I literally dream about Sovereign Solar. If the Canadian government was like "yo, we're doing a crown corporation and we're gonna transition the country to solar wind and tidal" - that's my actual pipe dream.
- dagss 3y ago
  I don't think rooftop solar is that simple: 1) Does the extra cost of rooftop solar go to installers doing a lot more manual work per panel? Installers who need a source of income to live anyway?.. 2) As I see it a lot of the pollution in the world is due to fear of people loosing their jobs. One could scale down many sectors, or more aggressively shift to a greener economy, if it wasn't for the fear of people/voters loosing their jobs. -- So when considering options I think one needs to give smaller weight to salaries ("somone had to feed that person anyway") and more weight to natural resource extraction needed...which is the "real" cost. Basically count further CO2 emissions invested, not work hours.
  - opo 3y ago
    >I don't think rooftop solar is that simple: Money is fungible and not unlimited - a dollar that goes to subsidize residential rooftop solar is a dollar that would go much, much further if it was used to subsidize utility grade solar or wind. The original poster pointed out: >...We would rather die and kill most of the biological world than face economic austerity, so we get what we order. As I pointed out, it is worse than that - we often waste the small amounts of money we are willing to spend. If people know that rooftop solar is an inefficient use of people's money, but justify it because it can be a jobs program for roofers - that won't help convince tax payers that policy makers are committed to fighting climate change.
pstuart 3y ago
We don't need austerity, we need to steer the money in the right direction. There's plenty of money to be made going green.
djmips 3y ago
I feel frustrated by all the people who resisted fixing the climate and fought and didn't believe, and they will die without any of the consequences.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  That would be why they resisted.
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    That's why we even see increased consumerism, fast fashion, cars getting ridiculously big. "Enjoy it while it lasts (at the expense of young people)"
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
From a survey [1] released just this month. > In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. And an interview of the authors [2] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3 [2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/interview-why-global-support-for-climate-action-is-systematically-underestimated/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/interview-why-global-support-for...
- Phenomenit 3y ago
  This is definitely encouraging but I’d rather see a study about people forgoing consumption or voluntarily imposing self austerity rather than what their opinions are.
  - inference-lord 3y ago
    Climate change isn't primarily about consumption though, it's about burning fossil fuels, I think the consumption argument is a decoy by the fossil fuel industry. I know a lot of people who are pretty minimal in their consumption, but just waking up in the morning and turning on their heating in their poorly insulated apartment means they're significantly contributing to climate change. Of course manufacturing goods is part of it too, but burning coal, gas and oil is what caused climate change. Not buying clothes or eating food. This year I plan to consume 6 solar panels and self install them on my barn roof. I'd say this is positive consumption?
    - ozim 3y ago
      What about most populated areas in the world cranking up air conditioning. Just not to drop everything on people living in colder climates. ;)
  - henrikschroder 3y ago
notadoomer236 3y ago
I think the return on investment on most proposed “changes” is negative. I don’t see any evidence that most of the biological world is hurdling towards destruction from climate. If we turned off the fossil fuel tap today, I think life on earth would get markedly worse for humans, with negligible/no impact on fauna.
- oezi 3y ago
  Expect for instance mass extinction and an increased natural catastrophies?
  - Auracle 3y ago
    Like hurricanes? https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml
jaybrendansmith 3y ago
The people always do the right thing when it is almost too late. Same thing as World War II, we Americans ignored and avoided the war as long as we possibly could. I still wonder at the miracle of Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, had they not, it is likely that we'd be in the middle of a Nazi new world order. For this climate challenge, perhaps we can hope for some disastrous flood, or horrific hurricane, to help convince your average voter that this is not something that will just go away by itself and we need to take it seriously.
- mlrtime 3y ago
  >> it is likely that we'd be in the middle of a Nazi new world order. Ask people born in a former soviet union country who they thought "won" WW2. It is not likely in any scenario that the US would be in the middle of a Nazi world order if Pearl Harbor wasn't attacked, calling it a miracle is disgusting. Fwiw I have direct family that fought in WW2 in the Pacific.
  - jaybrendansmith 3y ago
    As do I. But that doesn't change the fact that had we not had Japan force the issue, we may not have been there when needed. And yes the Soviet Union made the brunt of the effort, but the German military was quite strong.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

A democratic majority supports fixing this when polled. Concentrated special interests manage to slow that change being implemented.

freddie_mercury 3y ago
This isn't quite true. Polls consistently show that people think someone somewhere should do something as long as it doesn't actually cost them any money. "IPSOS found that just 25 percent of Americans said they’d be willing to pay higher taxes to address climate change. A 2019 Reuters poll asked specifically whether respondents would pay $100 to fight climate change and only a third said yes"
tinco 3y ago
Meanwhile, Joe Biden while claiming to believe we are steering towards climate disaster, decided to protect the economy and preserve his geriatric political career and reduce oil prices yet again by depleting strategic reserves.
- lucianbr 3y ago
  On the other hand, increasing oil prices would help Russia and other petro-states which are pretty horrible.
- pstuart 3y ago
  Let's not get too political here -- while there is pandering on oil pricing he is forced to by an electorate that's too stupid to see the big picture. His ostensible opponent states that climate change is a hoax and wants to undo anything "green".
  - notadoomer236 3y ago
    Many of us don’t want to uproot everything - at substantial effort and cost - for unclear or negligible upside. USA is only at 13% of global emissions. And radically overhauling everything, as opposed to incentivizing greener tech over time, is unlikely to move the temperature much if at all. China will not play ball. The developing world will not play ball. If we were dead serious about this as a civilization threat, we would start building as much nuclear as possible
    - tinco 3y ago
      USA is only at 13% if you only account for emissions by the USA. If you count the CO2 emissions the USA paid for then it is more than double that of China. The whining about "uprooting everything" is such a cheap cop out. The US doesn't suddenly grind to a halt when oil prices are higher, or when production of goods moves back from China to Detroit.
    - pstuart 3y ago
      Uproot everything? There's only 2 significant direct disruptions that would be felt directly by the population: getting an electric vehicle and stove/oven. They both have cost but that can be (and is) transitioned over time and the economic burden can be subsidized. I agree that nuclear would be great but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be cost effective. Even my pet notion, SMRs, seem to be unable to cut it. NuScale has promise but even they seem to be unable to compete with solar and wind. Geothermal is also waiting for us -- I hear there's a bit of extra heat in the Yellowstone region. The key thing is that our political leadership is currently owned by the fossil fuel industry and they don't want to let go of their massive profits. They've also managed to politicize the issue to such a degree that a major political party (and its membership) has no interest in addressing this and has convinced the base that it's a hoax. That's as political as I'll get here -- is to note stated positions and policies. The US has (will) spent $6T on two wars that had no reason or value. We have plenty of money to spend -- it's just a matter of spending it wisely.
    - pstuart 3y ago
      Another note: we can't expect China or the developing world to play ball if we don't lead by example.

jdub 3y ago

It's not a matter of the environment vs economic austerity, rejected by the people, it's the environment vs corporate abuse, rejected by those in power.

cuu508 3y ago
It's tragedy of the commons at all levels.

opo 3y ago

It is actually worse than that. Even the relatively small amounts of money we are willing to spend to combat this are often not spent well. One example, is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar is very, very, expensive compared to utility grade solar. A dollar that goes to subsidize residential rooftop solar is a dollar that would go much, much further if it was used to subsidize utility grade solar or wind. Another example of poor decision making is Germany which decided to start shutting down nuclear power plants while they were still burning coal. So last year hard coal and lignite still produced 35.3 percent in German power production (compared to 35.2% from renewables. (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/coal-germany https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/coal-germany). Before the phase out of nuclear, it generated about 25% of the electricity. It is all really hard to believe...

neom 3y ago
I literally dream about Sovereign Solar. If the Canadian government was like "yo, we're doing a crown corporation and we're gonna transition the country to solar wind and tidal" - that's my actual pipe dream.
dagss 3y ago
I don't think rooftop solar is that simple: 1) Does the extra cost of rooftop solar go to installers doing a lot more manual work per panel? Installers who need a source of income to live anyway?.. 2) As I see it a lot of the pollution in the world is due to fear of people loosing their jobs. One could scale down many sectors, or more aggressively shift to a greener economy, if it wasn't for the fear of people/voters loosing their jobs. -- So when considering options I think one needs to give smaller weight to salaries ("somone had to feed that person anyway") and more weight to natural resource extraction needed...which is the "real" cost. Basically count further CO2 emissions invested, not work hours.
- opo 3y ago
  >I don't think rooftop solar is that simple: Money is fungible and not unlimited - a dollar that goes to subsidize residential rooftop solar is a dollar that would go much, much further if it was used to subsidize utility grade solar or wind. The original poster pointed out: >...We would rather die and kill most of the biological world than face economic austerity, so we get what we order. As I pointed out, it is worse than that - we often waste the small amounts of money we are willing to spend. If people know that rooftop solar is an inefficient use of people's money, but justify it because it can be a jobs program for roofers - that won't help convince tax payers that policy makers are committed to fighting climate change.

pstuart 3y ago

We don't need austerity, we need to steer the money in the right direction. There's plenty of money to be made going green.

djmips 3y ago

I feel frustrated by all the people who resisted fixing the climate and fought and didn't believe, and they will die without any of the consequences.

faeriechangling 3y ago
That would be why they resisted.
- goodpoint 3y ago
  That's why we even see increased consumerism, fast fashion, cars getting ridiculously big. "Enjoy it while it lasts (at the expense of young people)"

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

From a survey [1] released just this month. > In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. And an interview of the authors [2] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3 [2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/interview-why-global-support-for-climate-action-is-systematically-underestimated/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/interview-why-global-support-for...

Phenomenit 3y ago
This is definitely encouraging but I’d rather see a study about people forgoing consumption or voluntarily imposing self austerity rather than what their opinions are.
- inference-lord 3y ago
  Climate change isn't primarily about consumption though, it's about burning fossil fuels, I think the consumption argument is a decoy by the fossil fuel industry. I know a lot of people who are pretty minimal in their consumption, but just waking up in the morning and turning on their heating in their poorly insulated apartment means they're significantly contributing to climate change. Of course manufacturing goods is part of it too, but burning coal, gas and oil is what caused climate change. Not buying clothes or eating food. This year I plan to consume 6 solar panels and self install them on my barn roof. I'd say this is positive consumption?
  - ozim 3y ago
    What about most populated areas in the world cranking up air conditioning. Just not to drop everything on people living in colder climates. ;)
- henrikschroder 3y ago

notadoomer236 3y ago

I think the return on investment on most proposed “changes” is negative. I don’t see any evidence that most of the biological world is hurdling towards destruction from climate. If we turned off the fossil fuel tap today, I think life on earth would get markedly worse for humans, with negligible/no impact on fauna.

oezi 3y ago
Expect for instance mass extinction and an increased natural catastrophies?
- Auracle 3y ago
  Like hurricanes? https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

jaybrendansmith 3y ago

The people always do the right thing when it is almost too late. Same thing as World War II, we Americans ignored and avoided the war as long as we possibly could. I still wonder at the miracle of Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, had they not, it is likely that we'd be in the middle of a Nazi new world order. For this climate challenge, perhaps we can hope for some disastrous flood, or horrific hurricane, to help convince your average voter that this is not something that will just go away by itself and we need to take it seriously.

mlrtime 3y ago
>> it is likely that we'd be in the middle of a Nazi new world order. Ask people born in a former soviet union country who they thought "won" WW2. It is not likely in any scenario that the US would be in the middle of a Nazi world order if Pearl Harbor wasn't attacked, calling it a miracle is disgusting. Fwiw I have direct family that fought in WW2 in the Pacific.
- jaybrendansmith 3y ago
  As do I. But that doesn't change the fact that had we not had Japan force the issue, we may not have been there when needed. And yes the Soviet Union made the brunt of the effort, but the German military was quite strong.