What shouldn't be done...about climate change

[Altherion]

12 hours ago, DMC said:

It's actually striking how much Greta Thunberg's UN speech aligned with the most persuasive arguments of the book that's from.  I have a fundamental problem with the approach the authors take in their arguments, but substantively it's very hard to argue on the empirical facts presented.  Is it pure fantasy land to think that even a small percentage of that list could be realized under the current political climate plaguing western democracies and the US in particular?  Of course.  But that's only because there's far too many people who ensconce themselves in their own abject fantasy land like yourself.

Really? I found Greta Thunberg's arguments a whole lot more honest (albeit perhaps not as persuasive). Here's an article on where she differs from the likes of that book:

Quote

Greta Thunberg’s rebuke of Congress last week took no prisoners and showed no favor to heroes of the left who have styled themselves friends of the environment. Though Thunberg did not utter the words “Green New Deal,” she characterized partisan efforts that envision an idealized future as unhelpful dreams, and her criticism culminated in these words:

“No matter how political the background to this crisis may be, we must not allow this to continue to be a partisan political question. The climate and ecological crisis is beyond party politics. And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. And we can not make ‘deals’ with physics.”

...

“It’s time to face the reality, the facts, the science. And the science doesn’t mainly speak of ‘great opportunities to create the society we always wanted’. It tells of unspoken human sufferings, which will get worse and worse the longer we delay action – unless we start to act now. And yes, of course a sustainable transformed world will include lots of new benefits. But you have to understand. This is not primarily an opportunity to create new green jobs, new businesses or green economic growth. This is above all an emergency, and not just any emergency. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.”

On the other hand, your list is exactly about "great opportunities to create the society [certain people have] always wanted." For example, this:

On 10/27/2019 at 5:51 AM, DMC said:

• Provide for the world's energy via wind, water, and solar (WWS) without resorting to biofuels or nuclear 

is actively counterproductive as far as dealing with climate change is concerned. Nuclear power is a major component of several advanced economies which are relatively low in carbon usage (e.g. France and Sweden) and the countries that can (mostly China, but also, for example, Finland) are scaling up their use of it. It's really, really hard to provide the whole world's energy with a mix of intermittent (wind, solar) and location-specific (hydro, geothermal) sources which is why no sane country is trying it unless they're truly lucky as far as the location-specific ones are concerned. That bullet point is purely ideological. Furthermore, this:

On 10/27/2019 at 5:51 AM, DMC said:

• Develop a better social safety net system
• Create new jobs by implementing greener technologies and increasing reliance on small-scale farming
• Achieve a more equitable distribution of resources via taxation, public works, affordable housing - whatever will do the job
• Stop the "revolving door" between business/lobbyists, agencies, and Congress
• Bring an end to the imposition of increased environmental risks on people due to race, class, gender, and nationality

has practically nothing to do with climate change. These are mostly good things (with a dash of generic identity politics thrown in to be fashionable), but you can do all of them and be no closer to dealing with the excessive carbon dioxide.

Free Northman Reborn is mostly correct: this is the generic platform of the American left with emphasis on climate change. Unlike Greta Thunberg, it makes no attempt at all to transcend politics and, as you point out, it has very little chance of going anywhere in the current political climate.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Here's an article on where she differs from the likes of that book:

Interesting.  Haven't read it yet but I'll try to remember to take a look.  As far as I'm interested in the connections between Thunberg and the book, it was very striking how her speech almost verbatim echoed two of the three main arguments of the book, specifically:

Quote

i.  World leaders have yet to provide true solutions to climate change and are rather still stuck in a “business as usual” approach

ii.  World leaders maintain focus on eternal economic growth that is unsustainable for future generations

As well as mentioning "tipping points" and "feedback loops" which are concepts I want the students to demonstrate they understand as a way to show they at least get the material.  That's why I included a question on it on the test.

19 minutes ago, Altherion said:

That bullet point is purely ideological.

I reject the premise that being opposed to nuclear power and biofuels is purely ideological.  Because it's a ridiculous premise.

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

this is the generic platform of the American left with emphasis on climate change. Unlike Greta Thunberg, it makes no attempt at all to transcend politics and, as you point out, it has very little chance of going anywhere in the current political climate.

Erm, not really.  An entire book attacking capitalism is not the generic platform of the American left.  Maybe social democratic left, but that's not the same thing.  Plus, the authors are hardly hiding the fact they want to radically overturn the dominant economic, and subsequently political system; and do so from a decidedly leftist perspective.  It's right there in the title.

[karaddin]

You can argue that the waste from nuclear plants is a lesser issue than climate change, or that its a risk which can be adequately handled, but to act like concerns about waste material, plant safety, or even substantial the capital and time investment requirements are purely ideological is disingenuous bullshit

[Pecan]

What do you all think it will take to change the debate in the US? I guess it was around 10 years ago, I was talking to my cousin and I told her I thought the situation had to get tangibly worse before the US would sort of wake up and start taking serious steps. And by tangibly worse, what came to mind was really powerful hurricanes laying waste to US cities. That's started happening, but nothing has really changed in terms of policy or how the various segments of the electorate view the climate change issue. 

What if, one of these years, one of these super storms, or maybe a series of them, wipes out Miami or one of the other major cities in the SE or Gulf Coast? What if New Orleans got hit again by a storm much more powerful than Katrina and did so much damage that much of the population just packed up and moved away? Would something like that do it?

[Rippounet]

On 10/27/2019 at 10:51 AM, DMC said:

@Rippounet - I'm teaching an intro course in sociology of all things this semester (don't ask why), and one of the books assigned is What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism (2011).  Trust me, not my choice..well, I suppose I had a choice, but I was way too lazy and unfamiliar with the material to significantly alter the inherited syllabus. 

Anyway, I just finished writing their second exam (yes I have very weird work hours, don't judge!), and the last chapter covered actually provides a list of things that could be done within the current economic system - whereas most of the book is an unbridled attack on capitalism and how it is fundamentally incompatible with solving climate change.  Made me think of this thread (or rather your OP in the original thread), so I thought I'd summarize that list, which "priotiz[es] those issues that are most important" (Chapter 6, 126-131):

Thanks, it's an interesting list.
I mostly agree with Altherion though: not only is the rejection of nuclear energy counterproductive, but much on that list sounds too partisan to be popular.
Of course, I'm the first to think the consumer society is the root cause of the problem, and that dealing with climate change will require a lot of pain.
But not having read the book, just looking at the list makes it seem like some measures are only on it by opportunism, for instance:

- Develop a better social safety net system
- Achieve a more equitable distribution of resources via taxation, public works, affordable housing - whatever will do the job

I'm all for that, but if one is to convince everyone, it should be showed why social and economic justice can help tackle climate change. So I wonder: does the book manage to demonstrate that?

Anyway, it goes back to the question of whether we can address climate change within the current socio-economic framework. We probably could if we were already doing that. But imho, since we're basically doing nothing, a different socio-economic framework seems inevitable.
In other words I tend to think that we could have kept modern capitalism and some parts of the consumer society. But ironically, much of the current elite, in their greed and foolishness, opted to prevent significant measures from being taken. So yeah, a better society will be needed eventually, more equal, more democratic.
Thing is, it's still important to focus on the technical non-partisan measures that could be or could have been taken now first and foremost. Because sadly enough, capitalism will have to fail to implement them before we have any chance of getting rid of it. And even then, there will be many who will still cling to their personal SUVs, shouting stupid stuff like "over my dead body" when they are finally made illegal and replaced by publicly subsidized green transportation systems.

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Pecan said:

What do you all think it will take to change the debate in the US? I guess it was around 10 years ago, I was talking to my cousin and I told her I thought the situation had to get tangibly worse before the US would sort of wake up and start taking serious steps. And by tangibly worse, what came to mind was really powerful hurricanes laying waste to US cities. That's started happening, but nothing has really changed in terms of policy or how the various segments of the electorate view the climate change issue. 

What if, one of these years, one of these super storms, or maybe a series of them, wipes out Miami or one of the other major cities in the SE or Gulf Coast? What if New Orleans got hit again by a storm much more powerful than Katrina and did so much damage that much of the population just packed up and moved away? Would something like that do it?

Possibly, but doubtful. It hasn't so far, and theres no sign of having some absurdly strong weather event. 

What will probably change attitudes is climate based migration pressure, and it will change attitudes to more fuck you, got mine. Alternately what will change us minds is massive external pressure to stop fucking up the planet.  

But really the places most impacted by climate change in the us are already believers. 

[Pecan]

59 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Possibly, but doubtful. It hasn't so far, and theres no sign of having some absurdly strong weather event. 

What will probably change attitudes is climate based migration pressure, and it will change attitudes to more fuck you, got mine. Alternately what will change us minds is massive external pressure to stop fucking up the planet.  

But really the places most impacted by climate change in the us are already believers. 

The storms have been increasing in intensity, although this year has been fairly light. My understanding is that as ocean temperatures go up, strength of hurricanes will as well. Also related, I believe, is the heat in the Sahara, which is one of the triggers for these storms to form in the Atlantic. 

But I don't know if the pace of warming is such that we'll really start seeing a difference in these already-strong storms in say, the next ten years, which are supposedly very critical, which brings me back to my even more gloomy prediction, which is that a whole lot of people are going to die when all of these climate-related impacts start combining systemically to make the planet less inhabitable for our nearly 10 billion world population. 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Of course, I'm the first to think the consumer society is the root cause of the problem, and that dealing with climate change will require a lot of pain.
But not having read the book, just looking at the list makes it seem like some measures are only on it by opportunism, for instance:

- Develop a better social safety net system
- Achieve a more equitable distribution of resources via taxation, public works, affordable housing - whatever will do the job

I'm all for that, but if one is to convince everyone, it should be showed why social and economic justice can help tackle climate change. So I wonder: does the book manage to demonstrate that?

Between this and Altherion linking to an article purportedly detailing the differences between Thunberg and "the likes of that book" - when the article has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book - it seems I should briefly clarify what the book is actually about.  That list is not, like, a comprehensive prescription for what they think needs to be done.  Quite the contrary. 

Their primary argument is that the world capitalist system is "clearly unsustainable in:  (1) its quest for never-ending accumulation of capital leading to production that must constantly expand to provide profits; (2) its agricultural and food system that pollutes the environment and still does not allow universal access to a sufficient quality/quantity of food; (3) its rampant destruction of the environment; (4) its continual enhancing of the inequality of income and wealth within and between countries; (5) its search for technological magic bullets as a way of avoiding the growing social and ecological problems arising from the system's own functioning and operations" (123-124).  

The list I posted is five pages in their concluding chapter that is titled "an ecological revolution is not just possible - it's essential."  Their argument  and actual prescriptions are much more radical than that list, and they spend much of the book taking many environmentalists/leftists to task for encouraging or acquiescing to piecemeal solutions that either aren't solutions at all or are propping up (what they see as) a capitalist system that is anathema to real climate change solutions.  But, they do acknowledge that due to the urgency of the crisis there should be some consideration to what should be done now, within the capitalist system - and that list serves as their olive branch in that regard.

I admit the list looks strikingly like the green new deal, but to conflate the book to the "generic American left" or anything like that is rather absurd if you read the book.  First of all, the lead author professionally works as a plant and soil scientist.  I'm actually with you and Altherion on nuclear power (for the most part), but their objections are hardly ideological.  They are based on its high risk nature, the fact they release exponentially more carbon emissions than alternatives, and how economically inefficient they are (112-113).  Secondly, basically the rest of the book is arguing that solutions detailed in that list are insufficient to truly solve the crisis.  So in that way, my answer to your question would be not only do they assert social and economic justice can "help tackle" climate change, they'd argue it's the only true solution to climate change. 

Is the book convincing in demonstrating that?  That's obviously up to each reader, not really fair to answer that.  I will detail my own fundamental problem with the book's approach:  their depiction of capitalism and particularly the world economic system as it stands is at least very close to a strawman.  They frame all their arguments against what essentially could be described as "unbridled" capitalism, when obviously the entire developed/western world has enjoyed a mixed economic system since the Great Depression.  This was particularly frustrating to me when they repeatedly take reformers to task for attempting to work within the system to try to at least do some discernible good right now.

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Pecan said:

The storms have been increasing in intensity, although this year has been fairly light. My understanding is that as ocean temperatures go up, strength of hurricanes will as well. Also related, I believe, is the heat in the Sahara, which is one of the triggers for these storms to form in the Atlantic.  

We would need a storm that would literally destroy a city. Not just damage things - but essentially wipe it off of the map, volcano style. We would need an eye of jupiter style storm. 

And at that point we'd make a lot of believers, and it would be far too late to do anything except hang people from lamp posts. Which might be satisfying, but it won't solve anything.

4 hours ago, Pecan said:

But I don't know if the pace of warming is such that we'll really start seeing a difference in these already-strong storms in say, the next ten years, which are supposedly very critical, which brings me back to my even more gloomy prediction, which is that a whole lot of people are going to die when all of these climate-related impacts start combining systemically to make the planet less inhabitable for our nearly 10 billion world population. 

Yeah, but most of the people who are going to die aren't Americans, so it's all good

[Altherion]

23 hours ago, DMC said:

Interesting.  Haven't read it yet but I'll try to remember to take a look.  As far as I'm interested in the connections between Thunberg and the book, it was very striking how her speech almost verbatim echoed two of the three main arguments of the book, specifically:

My wording was imprecise: what I meant was differs from that list, not from the book. I haven't read the book and assumed that the list is a summary of its most important points, but it seems not. Yes, Thunberg said more or less the same thing as your two points about business as usual and unsustainable growth. However, she did also speak against part of list in your earlier post.

23 hours ago, DMC said:

I reject the premise that being opposed to nuclear power and biofuels is purely ideological.  Because it's a ridiculous premise.

It's not the opposition that is purely ideological, it's the manner. If the statement was "It is currently not economically feasible to build new nuclear power plants in the US given the availability of clean energy solutions", then that would not be ideological -- it's an argument you can make based on various cost estimates. However, the statement ""Provide for the world's energy via wind, water, and solar (WWS) without resorting to biofuels or nuclear" is definitely ideological (as well as just plain insane). A substantial fraction of the world's power currently comes from existing nuclear plants and shutting them down would delay greenhouse gas elimination by decades (once built, the power production of these plants is mostly free of greenhouse gases). Likewise, if China stops construction of its new plants, it will take a lot longer to wean itself off of coal.

23 hours ago, DMC said:

Erm, not really.  An entire book attacking capitalism is not the generic platform of the American left.  Maybe social democratic left, but that's not the same thing.  Plus, the authors are hardly hiding the fact they want to radically overturn the dominant economic, and subsequently political system; and do so from a decidedly leftist perspective.  It's right there in the title.

Again, I was referring to the list rather than the book as a whole. A lot of people have proposed radically overturning existing systems and some have even done it in the past. It's not actually the hard part -- that would be coming up with a superior replacement... but this is probably a discussion for a different thread.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

My wording was imprecise: what I meant was differs from that list, not from the book. I haven't read the book and assumed that the list is a summary of its most important points, but it seems not.

Yeah, it's not.  And, to be fair to myself, which I always try to be, I kind of said that right before posting the list:

On 10/27/2019 at 5:51 AM, DMC said:

the last chapter covered actually provides a list of things that could be done within the current economic system - whereas most of the book is an unbridled attack on capitalism and how it is fundamentally incompatible with solving climate change.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

However, the statement ""Provide for the world's energy via wind, water, and solar (WWS) without resorting to biofuels or nuclear" is definitely ideological (as well as just plain insane).

Well, first, as I said, I was summarizing.  Their bullet point says more than that, but I'm not a stenographer.  Second, I'm not gonna speak to the veracity of the source but they cite this article within the bullet point, which doesn't seem too ideological to me.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

A lot of people have proposed radically overturning existing systems and some have even done it in the past. It's not actually the hard part

I dunno, seems pretty hard to me.

[felice]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

We would need a storm that would literally destroy a city. Not just damage things - but essentially wipe it off of the map, volcano style. We would need an eye of jupiter style storm.

Scaled proportionately to Earth, I hope! Otherwise it would destroy all the cities, along with most life on the planet!

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 10/29/2019 at 12:47 AM, Pecan said:

What do you all think it will take to change the debate in the US?

I think a change in messaging towards the problem. I mean sure, we could go about talking about sinking cities, hell sinking states, within decades, etc., but if you want much of the right to move(and move hard), the message being climate-change that will get a horde of illegal immigrants pouring imo is more effective essentially appeal to their base xenophobia and racism. People tend to make dramatic, often even ruinous actions based on that. 

Just look at Brexit. Obvious evidence that should this action be taken their country sever economic loss, and reduction in stature on the world stage was overlooked by many because of some vague notion of protecting their culture from those immigrants(particluary the dark, kind), are changing things in their culture-what significant things? Who knows. Let's just reference from vaguely British things like enjoying tea or politeness. How besides existing?  Who cares. 

[Altherion]

9 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, first, as I said, I was summarizing.  Their bullet point says more than that, but I'm not a stenographer.  Second, I'm not gonna speak to the veracity of the source but they cite this article within the bullet point, which doesn't seem too ideological to me.

I think we had a debate over this article in a previous thread (where somebody had linked a full version; I'll see if I can find it later). Briefly, wind and solar differ from nuclear and fossil fuels in that the latter are on-demand whereas the former are intermittent (the sun does not shine with a constant intensity on any given solar panel and the wind does not blow with a constant speed near any given turbine). The article lists the usual ways around this, but they're not nearly enough so it does something very clever which I hadn't seen before. If you build a massive energy grid spanning, for example, Africa, Europe and Russia, the intermittency does not matter as much because power generation is averaged out across the grid.

Of course, the problem with this idea is that somebody has to pay to build a massive amount of infrastructure in Africa and then all countries that are part of this grid will rely on each other for energy with the dependency being far more extensive than, for example, Europe's current reliance on Russian gas. In other words, the abstract isn't lying when it says "Barriers to the plan are primarily social and political, not technological or economic", but it dramatically understates the size of those social and political barriers.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

The article lists the usual ways around this, but they're not nearly enough so it does something very clever which I hadn't seen before. If you build a massive energy grid spanning, for example, Africa, Europe and Russia, the intermittency does not matter as much because power generation is averaged out across the grid.

Literally every alternative has some type of massive logistical problem like this - which again is why I agree with you that it should be a mix and nuclear should be part of the solution.  The point, based on our discussion, is that this is an argument on the merits, not ideological.  If you read the book, it's obviously rooted in some ideological precepts in terms of how they view capitalism (spoiler alert: very poorly), but their policy critiques and prescriptions are supported and reinforced by science/empirical evidence.  Your repeated assertion they're too ideological merely appears to be because you disagree with them, not based on an honest critique of their argument.  Which I guess is obvious considering you haven't read it.

[felice]

10 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

if you want much of the right to move(and move hard), the message being climate-change that will get a horde of illegal immigrants pouring imo is more effective essentially appeal to their base xenophobia and racism. People tend to make dramatic, often even ruinous actions based on that.

If you do that, what's to stop them doubling down on building a wall with an alligator moat instead of taking sensible actions to reform the economy?

[Pecan]

1 minute ago, felice said:

If you do that, what's to stop them doubling down on building a wall with an alligator moat instead of taking sensible actions to reform the economy?

I think a wall is inevitable at some point, though down the road a bit. Assuming the pace of warming continues, the US will face a situation in the future where there are literally millions of people trying to get in, at which point the debate will shift and Americans will unite behind extreme policies to keep the riff raff out. Mark my words, Americans will not tolerate millions of climate refugees.

[felice]

1 hour ago, Pecan said:

I think a wall is inevitable at some point, though down the road a bit.

Why not just nuke Mexico instead? Kill off all the closest refugees-to-be at once, and put a radioactive wasteland in the way of anyone from further south so they can't reach the US alive? Not any less humane than leaving them to starve to death behind a wall.

1 hour ago, Pecan said:

Mark my words, Americans will not tolerate millions of climate refugees.

What about refugees from within the US? A lot of citizens are going to lose their homes in places like Florida; should there be a wall at the top of the panhandle to stop the riffraff escaping? In the longer term, how about a wall along Canada's southern border to keep the Americans out?

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, felice said:

Not any less humane than leaving them to starve to death behind a wall.

More humane, really.

10 minutes ago, felice said:

should there be a wall at the top of the panhandle to stop the riffraff escaping?

If you put a proposed wall blocking off Florida up to a vote from the other 49 other states, I suspect it'd be much more popular than Trump's wall.

[Pecan]

29 minutes ago, felice said:

Why not just nuke Mexico instead? Kill off all the closest refugees-to-be at once, and put a radioactive wasteland in the way of anyone from further south so they can't reach the US alive? Not any less humane than leaving them to starve to death behind a wall.

It wouldn't surprise me if that sort of thing is considered at some point in the future. It really depends on how desperate the situation gets. We're not that far removed from the dark ages after all - I mean we're basically the same type of animal that was trying to survive in what was a pretty brutal world. I'm fairly certain our lizard brains will figure out how to justify genocides, etc.