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MiddleOne posted:All individual actions to reduce emissions are meaningless in the grand scale of the climate threat. That is not an opinion, that is a fact. If you actually want to do something about the climate threat then the energy and time you'd devote to honorable pursuits like living carbon neutral would be much better spent in politics through participation or activism. That is where the future of this planet is ultimatelly going to be decided because for future generations to live good lives there needs to be systematic change. Changing your consumer choices and lifestyle (which absolutely influences politics through taking money away from damaging companies), is a systematic change!
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May 5, 2017 07:49
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We already voted, we already elected Trump and Turnbull (in Australia), the general public at large has elected governments that don't give a poo poo about climate change because the general population doesn't give a poo poo about climate change. To tackle this problem we have to work together. And its simply not possible when a large fraction of the population simply does not give a poo poo and will not give a poo poo. Collectively, there has been very many different campaigns to try and educate the general public why this matters. It was not effective. Everything that could conceivably be tried to educate, has failed. We are out of time. Yes, I personally still try. It helps me sleep at night. But I also understand the futility and hopelessness of the situation.
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May 5, 2017 07:57
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Salt Fish posted:This is cognitive dissonance unfolding in front of our eyes. See? My emissions don't contribute to the problem if uh.. you like look at the GRAND SCHEME of things! If the looming environmental crisis could be stopped with individual action then we wouldn't be looking at a crisis in the first place.
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May 5, 2017 07:57
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Son of Rodney posted:Changing your consumer choices and lifestyle (which absolutely influences politics through taking money away from damaging companies), is a systematic change! Ethical consumer choice has really poor history in enacting meaningful change. As long as living sustainably means actively sacrificing your own living standard (while others can opt out and keep theirs) then enough people will never get engaged. Ehtical consumption is in the end a fashion choice, your own piece of personal branding. That is fine for animal rights and labour rights where incremental change is better than no change, but we don't have time anymore with the environment. Change needs to happen on a state and supranational level and it needs to happen within the next decade.
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May 5, 2017 08:05
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What is the goal of 'ethical consumption' here? Seems like it could be useful for promoting cultural change. That would benefit mitigation and adaptation, probably with negligible opportunity cost.
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May 5, 2017 08:09
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But incremental change does make a difference here; just not one you'll see within your lifetime. Not caring about making GBS threads things up because it'll be the problem of future generations is how we got here.
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May 5, 2017 08:09
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Accretionist posted:What is the goal of 'ethical consumption' here? Tell me this. If ethical consumption couldn't stop child labour in clothing manufacturing (a clear-cut problem that has gone unsolved for decades) then how does it have a hope in hell in arena where the stakeholders are even more entrenched? This is systematic issue and it can only be resolved through politics. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 08:31 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 08:28
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Son of Rodney posted:Changing your consumer choices and lifestyle (which absolutely influences politics through taking money away from damaging companies), is a systematic change! My personal view on it is, if it doesn't really cost me anything, why the gently caress shouldn't I reduce consumption and be conscious of my choices? Nowadays I very rarely eat beef, sticking mostly to poultry and such. I always buy locally sourced meat and vegetables. I drive a terrible car, but when it's time to exchange it I'll go for the most environmentally friendly choice. I hate flying, so instead of going flying on vacations I'm building my own cabin from reclaimed lumber I can hike to, literally the most environmentally friendly vacation there is. I don't consume very much of anything, I live in a very enviro-friendly (for the consumer) country. I could have very easily gone the other way on this, but it really honestly doesn't inconvenience me all that much to just do these little things that over time will reduce my carbon footprint from "normal" consumption. Now, as some of you say, this doesn't make a lick of difference to overall pollution because the effects are insignificant compared to everything else. I agree. I do this as much for myself as for the environment, but I don't see the loving reason for A: Not living as green as you can and B: Telling people it's all hopeless. If you expend some personal effort, your own arguments for political action/community action/policies ring that much more true. We got into this mess from a huge aggregate of reasons, and any solution will have to come from everywhere, individual actions included. I know there's a certain sense of "I'm not the loving problem here" when our individual contributions aren't significant at all to overall global warming, but in addition to the fact that practicing what you preach is a good idea, our overall individual contributions are part of the problem no matter which way you slice it. It really boils down to being a part of the solution, showing you're part of the solution and getting people on board with being part of the solution. The problem is of course with assholes who constantly say you should do more than this basic effort. I have a tougher time seeing the arguments for going above and beyond what it takes to live in a society (hippie communes, growing all your own foods, huffing hemp fumes, whatever) and to try and judge people for not expending massive personal effort. There's a reasonable limit to personal effort here, before it's really not justified anymore. I don't know if it's worthwhile to even discuss where that limit is, because I'm happy just asking people to make an effort.
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May 5, 2017 08:31
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MiddleOne posted:Tell me this. If ethical consumption couldn't stop child labour in clothing manufacturing (a clear-cut problem that has gone unsolved for decades) then how does it have a hope in hell in arena where the stakeholders are even more entrenched? A hope of what? And what does, "this is," refer to? These discussions almost never involve goals or what 'success' is Promoting healthier and more sustainable eating can't hurt, might help. So why not? Why not target the culture in small ways? What's the opportunity cost here?
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May 5, 2017 08:37
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Accretionist posted:A hope of what? And what does, "this is," refer to? Thanks, that's a lot more concise than mine. I just don't seem able to help going all 
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May 5, 2017 08:41
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Using less electricity is good but when the vast majority of it is coming from coal, there is no way not to be part of the problem. Individuals fundamentally don't have the power to influence the energy mix of a country. That's a group choice that's largely made through voting. Using a fuel efficient car and driving less is good but it is still a major part of the problem. The solution is to have good and reliable public transport. Implementing that isn't something an individual can influence, its a group choice. quote:Why not target the culture in small ways? What's the opportunity cost here? Small influences aren't enough to stave off the worst of the climate change disasters. We need huge, far reaching changes at this point to have any hope of staving off of the worst climate change disasters.
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May 5, 2017 08:45
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BattleMoose posted:Small influences aren't enough to stave off the worst of the climate change disasters. We need huge, far reaching changes at this point to have any hope of staving off of the worst climate change disasters. So? Edit: Why must it be all-or-nothing? Are we hurt by seemingly harmless efforts to benefit mitigation and adaptation?
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May 5, 2017 08:56
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Accretionist posted:So? In real terms, whats the difference between doing nothing or doing a little? (The answer is that its not going to matter to the millions of climate refugees.) There is also the very real chance of the natural environment emitting enormous quantities of greenhouse gassses, from permafrost, or the ocean or clathrates or the biomass. It might actually be an all or nothing problem, we just don't know.
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May 5, 2017 09:03
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BattleMoose posted:In real terms, whats the difference between doing nothing or doing a little? I'm just spit balling here but... Less resistance to mandatory dietary changes. Greater support for shifts in agricultural subsidy. Greater acceptance of carbon taxes on ranges of goods. Promotes individual responsibility for climate change in culture and ideology. A campaign about diet pulls double duty as propaganda. BattleMoose posted:It might actually be an all or nothing problem, we just don't know. What if on Jan 1 2051, humans aren't extinct and a climatologically beleaguered west is still humming along? Will they look back and praise inaction?
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May 5, 2017 09:10
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BattleMoose posted:In real terms, whats the difference between doing nothing or doing a little? (The answer is that its not going to matter to the millions of climate refugees.) Also in real terms, it can be argued that we're still living in the paradigm of mass consumption, liberal consumer late-stage capitalism economy, and that a paradigm shift towards reduced consumption and green living is an absolute requirement for mitigation of global warming. In which case, we need to start supporting individual action more to promote a change from current consumerist thinking towards sustainable living, literally making personal overconsumption and a high carbon footprint a disgusting and anti-social action in the eyes of the public. And the only way to do that is to promote greener living. We have to start somewhere, and doing nothing won't start any kind of avalanche effect, which is what we need. Again, there's no good reason that I've seen for just not trying.
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May 5, 2017 09:13
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Accretionist posted:I'm just spit balling here but... I actually take a lot of personal action regarding climate change. I also hold the view that if everyone else doesn't come on board its going to get very nasty. And that they aren't going to.
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May 5, 2017 09:13
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And when they are subject to forced lifestyle changes, how much friction do you think there'll be? Perhaps we should start greasing the skids now?
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May 5, 2017 09:17
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i hope those are the skids that lead to the guillotines
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May 5, 2017 09:28
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Accretionist posted:So? quote:THAMES WATER LEAKAGE We're in a similar situation with regards to energy usage and creation of waste. Should individuals change their behaviour? Of course — and if lots of people do it, it can have a real effect. But the really big wins will come from tackling waste at the top, and until we start seriously going after those wins a lot of people are going to understandably think "why should I bother?"
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May 5, 2017 10:20
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Accretionist posted:A hope of what? And what does, "this is," refer to? Political capital and mental real-estate. For example. take ecological food and recycling. They require both attention and money from the individual while accomplishing very little for the environment as a whole. (while being good for other reasons) A middle class urban family in Stockholm will carefully spend time sorting through all their trash and select everything they buy with care to make sure it has the right labels. They do this because they want to make a difference and this makes them feel that they do. And yet, regardless they'll then just as sure still jump on that plane to Thailand every summer. In Oslo we can see the same thing with electrical cars. Money and political capital that could go towards public transit is instead being channeled into subsidizing the purchasing, parking and driving of electrical supercars which doesn't even make a dent. Germany is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. On the German countryside you'll struggle to find any town where many houses don't have solar panels and still just as sure the same Germans will drive big cars to their workplace which needs the baseload power of coal and natural gas to operate. We are not a time-scale where these kind of measures will do a meaningful difference and they do steal attention way from things that would. Responsible consumption is fine as a lifestyle choice, and I'd be surprised if most of us in this thread aren't already doing it regardless, but it cannot be parroted as a genuine political solution because it is anything but. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 10:46 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 10:43
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MiddleOne posted:Political capital and mental real-estate. For example. take ecological food and recycling. They require both attention and money from the individual while accomplishing very little for the environment as a whole. (while being good for other reasons) A middle class urban family in Stockholm will carefully spend time sorting through all their trash and select everything they buy with care to make sure it has the right labels. They do this because they want to make a difference and this makes them feel that they do. And yet, regardless they'll then just as sure still jump on that plane to Thailand every summer. In Oslo we can see the same thing with electrical cars. Money and political capital that could go towards public transit is instead being channeled into subsidizing the purchasing, parking and driving of electrical supercars which doesn't even make a dent. Germany is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. On the German countryside you'll struggle to find any town where many houses don't have solar panels and still just as sure the same Germans will drive big cars to their workplace which needs the baseload power of coal and natural gas to operate. I agree in part, because most of this is very well true. However, I disagree that attention is a zero-sum game where focusing on individual action or choices somehow takes away from the political will to implement systemic changes. In fact, I think the opposite: Changing individual action not only spreads awareness and ideology, but also prepares for a world where that kind of living isn't any longer laudable, but expected and completely necessary. I also don't feel like it's being portrayed as some sort of complete political solution, but just something for the sadbrains crowd and the rest as well to focus on in addition to the real important job of voting right, organizing right and getting friends and family/local community on board with the same. It's not either/or. It's all of the above.
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May 5, 2017 11:09
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Nice piece of fish posted:I agree in part, because most of this is very well true. However, I disagree that attention is a zero-sum game where focusing on individual action or choices somehow takes away from the political will to implement systemic changes. In fact, I think the opposite: Changing individual action not only spreads awareness and ideology, but also prepares for a world where that kind of living isn't any longer laudable, but expected and completely necessary. The media can generally only focus on a tiny amount of issues at any one time. Its pathetic but that is what it is. You focus attention on one thing, you take it away from everything else. Attention in the general media is very much a zero-sum game.
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May 5, 2017 11:22
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It's not just the media. When you get back home after working for 10-12 hours a day, you only have so much time and mental energy left, and you gotta use it sparingly. That's especially true in America where many people are overworked.
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May 5, 2017 11:25
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What's going to stop the rest of the world from picking up the economic slack caused by even a couple million Westerners deciding to live low-impact lifestyles? Won't resource consumption end up growing at the same rate as before, only now with the developing countries becoming a little bit richer a little bit faster? I struggle to see how even collective action at the national level is effective at this point. This kind of resilience to local perturbations in the demand of resources seems to be built into our global economic system. Where ever there's extra resources to consume, someone will consume them.
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May 5, 2017 11:56
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BattleMoose posted:The media can generally only focus on a tiny amount of issues at any one time. Its pathetic but that is what it is. You focus attention on one thing, you take it away from everything else. That's flipping the problem upside down. You and your actions aren't the media. The media will adapt to the kind of stuff people are concerned about, if everyone's talking about the environment and what they personally can do, the media will adapt and it will be environment-pieces everywhere. Especially once it starts to hit people what climate-refugees are and what the realestate market is going to look like in a +1 meter sea level world. You can't rely on the media to be a forerunner for anything today anyway. The paradigm shift has to be on a grassroots level. Old-timey news media (if that's even a thing that matters in ten years) will follow the current. Always have, always will. The day of the thinking investigative reporter in commercial/capitalist media is pretty much over anyway, so what else can really happen? parcs posted:What's going to stop the rest of the world from picking up the economic slack caused by even a couple million Westerners deciding to live low-impact lifestyles? Won't resource consumption end up growing at the same rate as before, only now with the developing countries becoming a little bit richer a little bit faster? I struggle to see how even collective action at the national level is effective at this point. This kind of resilience to local perturbations in the demand of resources seems to be built into our global economic system. Where ever there's extra resources to consume, someone will consume them. What economic slack? Consumerism? Things will not shift overnight, and I'm not even sure that the economy works like that. It's not a lever you pull and the column in the western world goes down while the column in east africa goes way up. Even if such a shift is possible and is backed with industrial-economic theory and whatnot, it would take years. There's also the question of population, because split per person, the consumption of the average chinese person compared to the average american person is vastly different and won't "balance out" through some kind of magic means. The thing is, resources are also not a zero-sum game in globalist economic terms. If you buy electric in the US, a man in Mumbai will not buy a V6 SUV Diesel to "compensate". That's not how it works. The actual math is carbon out, vs carbon in. If you can reduce the "carbon out" part, that's a net gain for the globe as a whole, and I don't think you have evidence or reason to suggest that it will also automatically mean more "carbon out" elsewhere. In real terms, everyone is effectively racing to put out as much carbon as possible, regardless of what everyone else is doing. If someone pumps the brakes, so much the better. If everyone does, even better, but at least something is starting to happen when there's less people contributing to CO2 output.
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May 5, 2017 12:31
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Alternatively, find a way to kill off 90% of humanity.
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May 5, 2017 12:59
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At this point political violence is the most expedient answer and it probably won't work either. When Republican strategists made climate change a culture war issue they halted progress. Those fuckers.
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May 5, 2017 12:59
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MiddleOne posted:If the looming environmental crisis could be stopped with individual action then we wouldn't be looking at a crisis in the first place. Last weekend I was picking up litter at a park I like which is about a mile from my house. I'm up there walking/running a few times a week so I don't mind doing a little work to keep it clean. I was standing at the top of a hill with a bag full of trash I had collected and I remembered that individual action doesn't matter, so I dumped the trash out and let the wind spread it out. MiddleOne posted:Ethical consumer choice has really poor history in enacting meaningful change. As long as living sustainably means actively sacrificing your own living standard (while others can opt out and keep theirs) then enough people will never get engaged. Ehtical consumption is in the end a fashion choice, your own piece of personal branding. That is fine for animal rights and labour rights where incremental change is better than no change, but we don't have time anymore with the environment. Change needs to happen on a state and supranational level and it needs to happen within the next decade. Ethical consumer choice is different than choosing not to consume. We have a situation where everyone needs to change, but nobody wants to be the only one not consuming as quickly as possible. If nobody is willing to be the first one to change then we need the entire world to change at once, and that seems a lot less likely to me. I would compare it to the odds of the entire world embracing global communism at once. Salt Fish fucked around with this message at 14:53 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 14:48
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I thought this article was well-written.The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it posted:For many, the accumulation of facts about ecological disruption seems to have a narcotising effect, all too apparent in popular attitudes to the crisis of the Earth system, and especially among opinion-makers and political leaders. A few have opened themselves to the full meaning of the Anthropocene, crossing a threshold by way of a gradual but ever-more disturbing process of evidence assimilation or, in some cases, after a realisation that breaks over them suddenly and with great force in response to an event or piece of information in itself quite small.
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May 5, 2017 14:59
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quote:Perhaps the intellectual surrender is so complete because the forces we hoped would make the world a more civilised place – personal freedoms, democracy, material advance, technological power – are in truth paving the way to its destruction. The powers we most trusted have betrayed us; that which we believed would save us now threatens to devour us. Now this right here is the kind of reversal of causality I hate to see, because it ruins an otherwise good article. Personal freedoms, democracy, material advance and technological power aren't what is paving the world to its destruction and it's also not what betrayed us. We did. Our technological power is crippled by inaction, democracy by corruption and personal freedoms by people being selfish dumbasses. This argument in a nutshell: A stranger stands with a smoking gun over a bunch of hole-ridden corpses. He screams to the heavens: "The gun is evil! It has betrayed us!" But if we destroy all guns, that same stranger will just switch to snapping people's necks, since the core of the problem was never touched. (He is the problem.)
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May 5, 2017 15:34
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Humans are basically the same as we always were, but those forces have increased our ability to do harm beyond our capacity to recognize and handle it. There may have been a different path, but that's not how it has worked out. When you compare this present unique moment in the entire history of life on Earth, with all its amazing possibilities, with the way people are going about their lives, with they way they perceive the world and other people and living beings, a deep sense of sadness is the only reaction I have left. If we never invented fire, at least there would still be a stable world in which to scrape out an existence. Mozi fucked around with this message at 15:49 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 15:45
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Libluini posted:
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May 5, 2017 16:12
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StabbinHobo posted:oh hell yes, who'd have thought this thread could get worse after 170 pages of repeating the exact same arguments... GUN CONTROL CROSSOVER! Hell yeaaaaaaaaaaah
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May 5, 2017 16:14
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Arglebargle III posted:At this point political violence is the most expedient answer and it probably won't work either. Unfortunately political violence has a high carbon intensity
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May 5, 2017 16:34
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Crazycryodude posted:Alternatively, find a way to kill off 90% of humanity. Every time you want to try the "Lol everyone should just die" answer to global warming remember that womens' rights to bodily autonomy as well as good efforts to make sex education and contraceptives available will drastically lower the human population growth rate! Now instead of being a whiny nihilist you can bring something productive to the table!!
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May 5, 2017 17:04
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Every time you want to try the "Lol everyone should just die" answer to global warming remember that womens' rights to bodily autonomy as well as good efforts to make sex education and contraceptives available will drastically lower the human population growth rate! Now instead of being a whiny nihilist you can bring something productive to the table!! This makes no sense. Everything you listed lowers the growth rate, not the overall population. The population will still grow, just at a lower rate. Thanks to the things you listed, the world pop in 2050 will be 9 billion instead of 30 billion, but that is still too much. There is no way to get that number down without oppressive government intervention.
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May 5, 2017 17:36
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people die when they get old enough. its true!
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May 5, 2017 17:42
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Bishounen Bonanza posted:This makes no sense. Everything you listed lowers the growth rate, not the overall population. The population will still grow, just at a lower rate. Thanks to the things you listed, the world pop in 2050 will be 9 billion instead of 30 billion, but that is still too much. There is no way to get that number down without oppressive government intervention. "9 billion instead of 30 billion" hmm yes both numbers I've heard thrown around with RCP 8.5 quite a lot :thinking_emoji:
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May 5, 2017 17:50
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Nice piece of fish posted:My personal view on it is, if it doesn't really cost me anything, why the gently caress shouldn't I reduce consumption and be conscious of my choices? Nowadays I very rarely eat beef, sticking mostly to poultry and such. I always buy locally sourced meat and vegetables. I drive a terrible car, but when it's time to exchange it I'll go for the most environmentally friendly choice. I hate flying, so instead of going flying on vacations I'm building my own cabin from reclaimed lumber I can hike to, literally the most environmentally friendly vacation there is. I don't consume very much of anything, I live in a very enviro-friendly (for the consumer) country. I could have very easily gone the other way on this, but it really honestly doesn't inconvenience me all that much to just do these little things that over time will reduce my carbon footprint from "normal" consumption. The people who suggest that stuff are just trying to take their power back and maintain the illusion that they have some kind of personal control over their fates or they're trying to retain some kind of karmic virtue in the face of disaster. We need massive systemic and ideological changes to overcome climate change - a bunch of people with sadbrains moving to the forest will do nothing. Yes, we should all do what we can to minimize our environmental impact - there are a lot of easy things to do that make a big difference when a lot of people do them - but telling people they need to go live in permaculture communes to combat climate change just increases their desire to smoke'em while they got'em and watch it all burn while they enjoy an amazing first-world standard of living.
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May 5, 2017 18:06
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BattleMoose posted:Attention in the general media is very much a zero-sum game. Whaaaat? The internet's introduced massive parallelism and balkanized the landscape. Take advantage of that. MiddleOne posted:Political capital and mental real-estate. It looks like you're working backwards from the assumption that this is a national campaign pushed by conventional media, the parties and the government, to the exclusion of other programs. You can get the idea out there by pushing it at Whole Foods and on Instagram. Weave it into the whole organic anti-GMO thing through social media marketing, branding, etc. Get vegetarians to incorporate climate change into their pitches and propaganda. Apply slight, constant pressure and hope it snowballs or at least enters the culture. If it succeeds, it'll help downstream.
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May 5, 2017 19:21
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