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What should be done... about climate change


Rippounet

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What should be done about climate catastrophe?  Make money from it, of course!

https://slate.com/business/2019/09/climate-change-crisis-companies-rich-lucky-farming-firefighting.html

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Below, you’ll find stories about the inevitable next level of corporate consciousness: people who have positioned themselves to make money as the planet warms. Theirs are assets for which demand rises along with CO2 levels in the atmosphere; you can think of them as climate goods.

The moral valence here is murky. This is not a package about bankers getting rich while the world burns. In some cases, the line between getting rich and providing an essential adaptation service is not so clear. The two fastest-growing occupations in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are solar panel installers and wind turbine technicians.

But winning, of course, is only a relative term. There is no point where we choose between global cataclysm and cooperative carbon phaseout—it will be one and then the other, a centurylong dance between destruction and adaptation. One day, your business is set up to help the world mange its warming oceans. The next, it has been destroyed by a hurricane.
—Henry Grabar

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Triskele said:

If the worst case scenario starts to play out will there not be politicians that run on exacting vengeance against those still living that can be blamed?  

Which one of my campaign managers talked? Tell me now and I'll only kill his entire extended family. Amnesty for the individual who helps repair this breach of confidence is a matter of course, of course.

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On 9/18/2019 at 10:49 PM, ThinkerX said:

given that something on the order of 1/5th of the US populace is a fundamentalist christian of one stripe or another, it's likely both. fundamentalist Christianity is a self contained bubble universe.

 

Hmm, I remember this Vice documentary a few years ago about how some Texans were dealing with the drought during the time. Some Christians went imo full “primitive” and started literally holding sermons outside begging for rain. I fully expect many Americans to act the same way even while cities and states are submerged under water and proceed to ask god for help rather than forcing the government to try to combat climate change(though perhaps it’d be too late anyway).

On 9/18/2019 at 8:29 PM, Triskele said:

Debatable whether these people are most contemptible or the people who have issues with birth control for any reason.  

Of course, sometimes it's the same people holding both views.  

I would say typically.

On 9/18/2019 at 12:08 PM, Zorral said:

They seem to have forgotten entirely about The Flood, and the promise of the rainbow sign, "Not water but the fire next time."

Anyway don't all these types believe in the end times and the rapture, so wot the eff does it matter to them?

Yes. God is the ruler of the universe so obviously he has everything under control. Hell even if the worst predicted consequences for climate change comes true, they’ll still take that as simply evidence that the rapture is fast approaching and buckle down on their dogma.

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9 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Hmm, I remember this Vice documentary a few years ago about how some Texans were dealing with the drought during the time. Some Christians went imo full “primitive” and started literally holding sermons outside begging for rain. I fully expect many Americans to act the same way even while cities and states are submerged under water and proceed to ask god for help rather than forcing the government to try to combat climate change(though perhaps it’d be too late anyway)

Back during a terrible midwestern drought, my family's pastor and congregation, went out into a field with a big kettle of water, threw it up in the air, sprinkled it on the ground and begged for rain.  I couldn't believe it -- back in the day the previous pastor would have condemned them all as superstitious, anti-believers in the true faith.  This was when the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod turned into a backward, anti-everything, from a very text-based faith -- the texts being the Bible, particularly the New Testament, Martin Luther's Catechism and his other writings, those writings of other protestant pioneers, and history.

 

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16 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Wait. The climate is trying to kill us?

We should kill it first!

That will be the next step: schemes to deliberately modify the climate on a large scale.  I seem to remember a 'B' movie or two where such schemes resulted in a global ice age.

 

That said, the logical extension of 'Climate Change is a Libtard Hoax,' is going to be 'Libtards deliberately caused Climate Change to ram their socialist one world agenda down our throats,' accompanied by demands that liberals 'turn off' said climate change.  Schemes like the 'Green New Deal' are automatically off the table, of course.

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9 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

That will be the next step: schemes to deliberately modify the climate on a large scale.  I seem to remember a 'B' movie or two where such schemes resulted in a global ice age.

Makes me think of the end to that old show Dinosaurs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9b9aoINXzk

Now that was a sad ending.

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Here's an interview with the guy who looked at current climate solutions and figured out which ones are the best. Refrigerant management wins! (the whu with the huh? A/C is bad and you should feel bad)

Interesting that eating more plant based food is a big deal, and interesting that educating women and girls and having planned parenthood is a massive win. 

Also interesting to me is that none of these solutions, even combined, come close to meeting goals. 

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Just wanted to mention this, guess I'll put it here.  I went to the one of the Climate Strike rallies yesterday (in Pittsburgh), and it was a pretty impressive turnout.  I've never been much for protests and am usually skeptical of their potential efficacy - which will happen when your formative experiences with protests were the 2000 recount and 2003 Iraq War.  But I gotta say I was really encouraged seeing so many young people (some almost too young) not only passionate but taking the initiative on the issue.

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On 9/20/2019 at 12:18 PM, ThinkerX said:

That said, the logical extension of 'Climate Change is a Libtard Hoax,' is going to be 'Libtards deliberately caused Climate Change to ram their socialist one world agenda down our throats,' accompanied by demands that liberals 'turn off' said climate change.  Schemes like the 'Green New Deal' are automatically off the table, of course.

Sure. Massive migration will inevitably happen and any attempts to aid in this travesty that involves letting people in will inevitably lead to screeching, and crying about how this isn’t America’s fault(even though they’re one of the world’s biggest contributors to Climate change), and how these immigrants don’t have sufficient American/Western values(which will never be heavily elaborated on-just mushing of how Americans like freedom and cheeseburgers and other nice things) and blaming the people trying to not die for their suffering such as saying “if you(black/brown) people didn’t have so many kids you wouldn’t be in such dire straights. It’s a good thing you’re dying world’s too overpopulated(with non-white people)” 

It is to think of so many people be guns hoe about America committing regime change with the justification of it needing to save millions from suffering, and then be vehemently against actually granting sanctuary to those fleeing an American made catastrophe.

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29 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

“if you(black/brown) people didn’t have so many kids you wouldn’t be in such dire straights. It’s a good thing you’re dying world’s too overpopulated(with non-white people)”

No need to sugarcoat it. It's not just that climate change will fuel ethno-nationalism/neo-fascism. The logical conclusion of ethno-nationalism/neo-fascism is also that climate change will end up being a good thing. The competition between individuals, nations, or "civilizations" that is at the heart of many (if not most) right-wing ideologies will look favorably on global warming sooner rather than later.
It's not just that such callous cynicism will end up condoning crimes against humanity, it also means that even if humanity pulls through, the survivors will have to deal with the weight of such crimes. The two world wars, the holocaust, and the mass destruction enabled by technology that culminated in the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were traumatic enough. The climate wars will engender a form of collective guilt that will be crushing.
Though of course, perhaps it is the only thing that can save humanity in the very long-run... But for the soul of mankind we must nonetheless endeavor to prove we are better than that.

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

The climate wars will engender a form of collective guilt that will be crushing.

Maybe and maybe not. The kind of guilt that you speak is relatively new. The vast majority of history consists of various groups slaughtering and/or enslaving other groups and while individuals may have felt some guilt (or maybe not; we have relatively few records on this score), the groups were quite vocal in celebrating these actions. In fact, even today, the guilt is specific to certain cultures and far from universal even within these cultures. I am not sure of this, but I believe it to be a cultural luxury enabled by unprecedented prosperity and so I think it's much more likely to fade away than intensify should the worst case scenarios come to pass.

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This "guilt" is far too "distributed" to work. For an atomic bomb or a death camp you could name authors or at least nations who were responsible. (And as has been pointed out certain nations/groups deal with clearly attributable atrocities in quite different ways as everybody knows but for some reasons hardly ever bothers to mention.)

But almost everybody (and therefore nobody) would be "responsible" (in the vague and indirect sense of contributing to climate change aka living a normal western lifestyle) if a drought or flood gets worse because of climate change than usual and 100k people die instead of only 10k. As for wars, there is no more obviously just war than the one fought defending your home and your family. It's almost irrelevant if the attackers are fleeing from flood or fire, they are aggressors and you are the defender.

Furthermore, almost all mainstream parties and factions in Western countries seem mostly fine with aggressive wars to secure resources/access etc. in distant regions under thin pretense. These wars are clearly unjust (compared to home defense) and de facto supported and sustained by most liberal/leftist parties. So we are fine with unjust wars, why should we have qualms with justifiable home defense?

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9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Maybe and maybe not. The kind of guilt that you speak is relatively new. The vast majority of history consists of various groups slaughtering and/or enslaving other groups and while individuals may have felt some guilt (or maybe not; we have relatively few records on this score), the groups were quite vocal in celebrating these actions. In fact, even today, the guilt is specific to certain cultures and far from universal even within these cultures. I am not sure of this, but I believe it to be a cultural luxury enabled by unprecedented prosperity and so I think it's much more likely to fade away than intensify should the worst case scenarios come to pass.

I don't think we're talking about the same type or level of guilt here. This wouldn't be guilt over some very specific historical offenses committed by one's ancestors or nation. We'd be talking about:
- Guilt over destroying our planet's environment and making huge swathes of it uninhabitable because of individual and corporate greed (themselves stemming from the consumer society and non-traditional forms of capitalism).
- Survivor's guilt and grief. Even in states that do not fail and societies that do not collapse, the death toll linked to global warming could still be horrendous. Just think of the heat waves in Australia in the next decades!
- Guilt over modern means of pillaging resources and waging warfare. While it was common to celebrate victory or domination over enemies or "others" when you had to confront and kill them face to face, war progressively became less glorified with the advent of modern technology. Machine guns in the American Civil War, artillery and gas in World War I, massive bombings and atomic weapons in World War II... Weapons of mass destruction remain highly controversial today, and the modern media can incite massive awareness and guilt over remote events... You'd need massive censorship for people not to feel guilty about living comfortably through the next century.

Yes, it's still relative to culture, and I agree that should even the most developed nations be on the brink of collapse the guilt would temporarily fade away. My point is that the survivors would eventually feel that guilt once prosperity came back... several centuries later.

Of course, you could say that's not a given and that people could simply see themselves as the "better" humans while looking down on the societies that didn't make it. But in that case, wouldn't that mean... the victory of fascism? Genuine question here. A humanity that would not be crushed by guilt over global warming could hardly be considered humane...

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

This "guilt" is far too "distributed" to work.

I beg to differ. The Swedes already have a term describing the shame of flying because of the massive carbon footprint (flygskam) , many people in the West are going vegetarian or vegan because of environmental awareness. Even conservative-minded folks show willingness to switch to electric cars and LED lighting...
And global warming is still in its infancy. This is nothing. By the time we are hit with the full force of global warming anyone publicly using a combustion engine will probably suffer insults and worse - though it will no doubt become illegal at some point.

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

Furthermore, almost all mainstream parties and factions in Western countries seem mostly fine with aggressive wars to secure resources/access etc. in distant regions under thin pretense. These wars are clearly unjust (compared to home defense) and de facto supported and sustained by most liberal/leftist parties. So we are fine with unjust wars, why should we have qualms with justifiable home defense?

This is misleading. Very few wars are openly about securing or pillaging resources. The Gulf Wars for instance were always officially described as being waged in the name of democracy and self-defense. We are not yet at the point when any major political party or faction can openly advocate for military competition over resources.
And my point is that while this point will no doubt come eventually in some places, it will leave people with a profound sense of guilt after the fact. Think of the way some feel guilty about nationalism and ethno-nationalism, colonialism and slavery, materialism and consumerism... and then raise that by several orders of magnitude.

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I don't doubt that psychotherapists might become busy. But a lot of this is lipservice and affects only very few people, probably often overly sensitive or with pre-conditions. Look at # and sales of cars in the last 20 years, look at # of flight miles etc. and nobody will believe that such curves will suddenly turn around, they might get less steep but even if the become flat we are a very long way from a turnaround. It is socially and economically impossible. Everything that is happening right now is actually strengthening this impression for me despite lip service to the contrary.

I grew up in German "hereditary guilt culture" (although for some reason it was different in the 1980s, probably because of more first hand contact with grandparents who only remembered their suffering in the war, not what they were responsible for) and I think it is absurd to feel personal guilt for things that my grandfather was to some extent (if only by not dying as a martyr to prevent them) responsible for. This hand has been overplayed and we already feel a rightwing backlash. And here we are dealing with very concrete atrocities where we can name names.

I think it is downright pathological to feel guilt for more distant or more general historical conditions like slavery. This existed since the dawn of time and we might as well be proud that "we" (western European nations in the last 200 years) were almost the only civilization that abolished and fought slavery. Although this pride would be silly as well because *I* didn't risk any wealth, health or career by supporting abolition. (And of course we still had and have and support conditions not so much better than slavery.) Do all what you can to fight slavery and similar conditions NOW but don't waste any guilt about distant history. History was what it was and it was brutal most of the time, but that's the snow of the last millenium.

And the same applies to people feeling guilt for what they think of as simply living their lives and doing their jobs. Nobody who is not somewhat pathologically oversensitive or whatever one would call such a condition will fall for this. Call it repression but it is a "normal and healthy" repression.

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1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

Look at # and sales of cars in the last 20 years, look at # of flight miles etc. and nobody will believe that such curves will suddenly turn around, they might get less steep but even if the become flat we are a very long way from a turnaround.

About +1,5°C to +2°C away I'd say. Which -unless you're already a bit old- will probably happen in our lifetimes.

I think you're underestimating how bad things are going to get. In fact, I'll daresay you're still not taking the warnings seriously.
Heck, you're not taking what is already happening seriously.

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

I don't doubt that psychotherapists might become busy. But a lot of this is lipservice and affects only very few people, probably often overly sensitive or with pre-conditions.

I think we're already past the point where people who are anxious about the future are "overly sensitive." I'll even go as far as saying that the ones developing mental issues are the ones burying their heads in the sand and acting as though nothing can or should be done. Global warming is not  abstract or theoretical. In itself, anxiety isn't constructive of course, but there are already a great number of ordinary people moving way past lip service. The only question is how soon that number reaches a critical mass in our societies to translate into actual political and economic action.

And even on that front... Among Democrats the environment has recently shot to being #1 issue, rivaled only by healthcare. The politicians are riding the wave, perhaps, but some of them are no doubt sincere. The proposals made by some of the Democratic candidates may sound fanciful today, but they'll be common sense to a majority within just a few years. To borrow a leaf out of the other side's playbook: the Overton window has already been shifted.

In a nutshell, this is a movement whose growth is ineluctable. The debate is already everywhere, the issue on everybody's mind. The question isn't really whether something is going to be done about it, the question is whether it will be done soon enough.
If our generation acts, there's hope. If we leave it to our children we are truly despicable.

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

And the same applies to people feeling guilt for what they think of as simply living their lives and doing their jobs.

I strongly disagree. To be sure I mostly blame corporations and politicians, but I'm already starting to think that people who think individuals can carry on as normal are dangerous lunatics.

Oh, and about slavery... I think you're missing the point. It's not really guilt over something like slavery that matters, it's about understanding the logic and structure of exploitation. Understanding what's been done is part of understanding what's being done. The past is a means, not an end.

 

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I think there was a misunderstanding. I was not talking about climate curves. I am not sure about them but I don't at all want to dispute their plausibilty.

I was talking about curves representing the # of cars and flight miles etc. I wrote all this many pages ago. When did the bloody conferences in Rio and Kyoto take place? 1995? Look at the development since then. It went in the WRONG direction: More cars, more planeflights. About the only thing that has been flat or slightly decreasing since the 90s (actually stable/decreasing since the 80s in Germany) is meat consumption so many love to preach about. In virtually anything else (including exotic plant foods brought in by plane, like every vegan's favorite avocado) we became worse, often much worse in the last 30 years. While being environmentally conscious all the time with our loud mouths. And for people born in that time this is simply their accustomed lifestyle. They have trouble imagining it could be any different. They are not aware how much energy the servers use so they can live "minimalist" lifestyles without shelves of videotapes like their consumerist 1980s parents because they stream everything at anytime. And so on. Without the force of something like the French or Russian revolution nobody will make western Joe and Jane Sixpack change their lifestyles as radically as it would be necessary. Maybe we get such a revolution (it would have the additional "benefit" of killing a few million or so) but I seriously doubt that. If politicians take away people's lifestyle (and recall that in many countries under/middle class people have been struggling or just getting by for a decade or two), they will not be re-elected. Then you will have Bolsonaro types im power and no climate conscious policy at all.

If there will be catastrophic developments the people the respective region will simply have to suffer them. The world is not changing their lifestyle and it very probably is economically impossible anyway (again "impossible" short of a 1917 scale worldwide revolution). Because worldwide is the next important word. IF the west had done something in 1997 or so, it would have had a large impact because they were the main resource wasters. Now the impact of Western Europe and even the US is comparably small compared to India and China. Germany and France are almost irrelevant on that scale, Sweden most certainly is neglegible.

 

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