[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

I agree.  Thirty years ago there was a big push on by government to move to natural gas heating.  Now most houses are heated by natural gas.  Is it a personal choice to buy such a house. Yes. Is there any other choice? Not really no.

[mongers]

Whilst not entirely on the same page as you, I do think you have a valid argument.

After all we're all mature, having lived as adults now for 20-40 years, the heating of the planet has only really been apparent in the last 35-40 years and what have we been doing, .... waiting for inferior governments and the politicians to act.

To be clear it can be both, want/demanding/voting for politicians to act and taking steps ourselves. And maybe more including active climate engineering etc.

Yes we all have individual responsibility, but actual effective change comes from public policy as enacted by our governments - setting out strategic objectives and supporting them with regulation, incentives, enforcement, and funding.

Sure, as residents of democracies we share the responsibility for how our elected governments have set public policy, but the whole "make an individual choice to take one less flight or remember to turn off the light switch to consume less energy" is a crock of shit and an abnegation of our actual political responsibilities to affect systemic change.

You or me choosing to ride our bikes individually means fuck all in the big scheme of things. What matters is shifting the habits of hundreds of thousands and millions of people, and that's not coming through appeals to virtue signalling.

It is also an indictment of our political and economic system that we have allowed capital to undermine the attempts at shifting public policy through their lobbying and PR efforts.

We absolutely have responsibility, yes, but that responsibility is not a matter of consumer or lifestyle choice but of making our governments create public policy that brings capital to heel. Responding to the climate change crisis requires collective and societal changes, and the best tool for achieving such change is through government action.

Who's doing that?

[frunk]

I also don't understand what is special about this environmental crisis such that it should only be up to the individual.  Many other environmental problems are addressed or mitigated through the government either through regulation or support, such as flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, acid rain, water/air pollution or ozone depletion.  Many of the those would be much more serious problems if it was left up to individual action.  What makes global climate change better dealt with at the individual level?

Personally I don't care about responsibility, I care about how to get climate change to be addressed.  Waiting for individuals to act isn't going to get it done.

[mongers]

I also don't understand what is special about this environmental crisis such that it should only be up to the individual.  Many other environmental problems are addressed or mitigated through the government either through regulation or support, such as flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, acid rain, water/air pollution or ozone depletion.  Many of the those would be much more serious problems if it was left up to individual action.  What makes global climate change better dealt with at the individual level?

Personally I don't care about responsibility, I care about how to get climate change to be addressed.  Waiting for individuals to act isn't going to get it done.

Can it not be both at the same time?

[Admiral Yi]

I also don't understand what is special about this environmental crisis such that it should only be up to the individual.  Many other environmental problems are addressed or mitigated through the government either through regulation or support, such as flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, acid rain, water/air pollution or ozone depletion.  Many of the those would be much more serious problems if it was left up to individual action.  What makes global climate change better dealt with at the individual level?

Personally I don't care about responsibility, I care about how to get climate change to be addressed.  Waiting for individuals to act isn't going to get it done.

Who is arguing for only individual action?

[Jacob]

Who's doing that?

Anyone who's arguing that relying on individual consumer choice by itself is an effective strategy to combat climate change.

It isn't.

[mongers]

Who's doing that?

Anyone who's arguing that relying on individual consumer choice by itself is an effective strategy to combat climate change.

It isn't.

So no one in this thread then.

[Jacob]

Can it not be both at the same time?

Sure, but only one of those two things will have a significant impact.

[mongers]

Can it not be both at the same time?

Sure, but only one of those two things will have a significant impact.

edit:

On 2nd thoughts this discussion is pointless, as it seems to stir up lots of emotions, as evidenced by you swearing twice within two sentences, most unlike your usual self:

make an individual choice to take one less flight or remember to turn off the light switch to consume less energy" is a crock of shit and an abnegation of our actual political responsibilities to affect systemic change.

You or me choosing to ride our bikes individually means fuck all in the big scheme of things. What matters is shifting the habits of hundreds of thousands and millions of people, and that's not coming through appeals to virtue signalling.

The 'world is burning' but turns out if you inadverently question some of tenets of a comfortable,well traveled, western lifestyle, you get considerable push back.

We're already way past the 1.5C by 2050, all the UK historical weather stats I've looked at shows the 2020s warming vs the earliest recorded data shows more like 1.7-1.8C, 0.5C of that coming in the first 5.5 yearsof this decade along.

It's 1.85C here in central southern England, around 1.7C at Durham in Josq's neck of the woods.

'We' are way past, the quarter century of costless blandishments that have conviently delayed much necessary action.

Look around you, a habitable world for all of us is dying, but don't worry accumulated wealth and resources should see most of us here and in the West get through it quite comfortably.



And Jacob what does this even mean in the real world, how are you getting on with this? :

an abnegation of our actual political responsibilities to affect systemic change.

[Zoupa]

What's the relevance of your question to the discussion?

I'm asserting that you, I and Jake have made choices that have contributed to global warming.  If you were unaware in the past, or are unaware now, that burning carbon contributes to global warming because of misinformation disseminated by oil companies, in my mind that would tend to mitigate the blame I assign to you.

The discussion was about historical facts. I asserted that inertia, big oil lobbying, collectivization of the consequences of global warming but privatizing profits are more logical culprits for global warming than greens/leftists policy.

I'm not sure why you decided to change the subject. I certainly don't care what you think my share of the blame is for global warming lol. I care even less to mitigate that. What a strange idea.

[crazy canuck]

Who's doing that?

Anyone who's arguing that relying on individual consumer choice by itself is an effective strategy to combat climate change.

It isn't.

So no one in this thread then.

The post Yi made, and with which you agreed, was about individual choices.

Also, I don't think Jacob's frustration is directed at you. 

[Jacob]

On 2nd thoughts this discussion is pointless, as it seems to stir up lots of emotions, as evidenced by you swearing twice within two sentences, most unlike your usual self:

My apologies, Mongers. No hostility intended towards you or anyone else, and no real intense emotion involved either 

I'd just been in some bantery IRL conversations full of casual swearing and failed to register switch while returning to languish.

The 'world is burning' but turns out if you inadverently question some of tenets of a comfortable,well traveled, western lifestyle, you get considerable push back.

My point is not that we shouldn't do something, my point is that we shouldn't let appeals to the feel-good of individual consumer choice distract us from what actually makes a difference: concerted government action and public policy.

I think you'll find that the places that have made the most progress towards various climate targets are the ones where robust public policy has been set to achieve those goals. And the places relying on "if you think climate change is bad you should maybe not buy that massive pickup truck and drive a more fuel efficient vehicle instead?" have been less successful at achieving the goals.

Similarly, "private jets are bad for the climate crisis, please make the individual choice to not fly them" doesn't seem to have much of an impact. Banning private jets in most airports in the world because they're polluting probably would.

On the other end of the wealth scale, saying "hey, those 20 quid Ryan air flights add up to a lot of pollution, maybe don't fly to Ibiza/ Prague/ Barcelona en masse" doesn't appear to work; some sort of tax that increases the price massively or a hard limit on the number of flights would probably have a much greater impact.

China's transition to electric vehicles is an example of how significant change occurs (partially by incentivizing consumer choice in the desired direction). The US' continued love-affair with giant SUVs and pickup trucks is an example of how relying on "if you care, consume differently" doesn't. To be fair to the US, there are some areas where there's been a notable change towards electric vehicle usage, but I think you'll find that those localized changes have been driven by effective public policy.

As an aside: I'm not claiming electric vehicles are the end-all be-all of addressing the climate crisis, I'm just using them as an example of how public policy not appeals for individual consumers to express their concerns via consumption is what drives change.

We're already way past the 1.5C by 2050, all the UK historical weather stats I've looked at shows the 2020s warming vs the earliest recorded data shows more like 1.7-1.8C, 0.5C of that coming in the first 5.5 yearsof this decade along.

It's 1.85C here in central southern England, around 1.7C at Durham in Josq's neck of the woods.

'We' are way past, the quarter century of costless blandishments that have conviently delayed much necessary action.

Look around you, a habitable world for all of us is dying, but don't worry accumulated wealth and resources should see most of us here and in the West get through it quite comfortably.

No argument from me. I agree with your assessment of how serious the crisis is.

And Jacob what does this even mean in the real world, how are you getting on with this? :

an abnegation of our actual political responsibilities to affect systemic change.

Actually tax industries and consumption that drives global warming, provide funding for energy transition and collective transport, enact industrial and consumer policies that significantly encourages shifts towards less pollution, et. cetera.

That is, use whatever political tools you have at your disposal to push for systemic change. Concerted collective action at a societal level is the only thing that's actually going to make a difference.

By all means ride your bike or take the train as much as possible instead of driving a car (I do).

But what is "a crock of shit" - that is "foolish" and in some cases "deliberately misleading" - is arguing that "if you don't ride your bike all the time, then you shouldn't push for concerted collective action at a societal level you hypocrite" (and to be clear, I'm not saying you're doing that Mongers - but it's an argument that comes up).

All that said, and to argue against my own point a bit (    ), pushing for individuals to make personal consumer choices to lessen their impact on the climate crisis is potentially a good way to build political momentum towards systemic change. So in that sense, arguing for individual taking of responsibility is worthwhile in the larger scheme of things.

But given the choice, I think someone who drives a big SUV but provides political support for outlawing combustion cars (assuming for a moment that that's a worthwhile approach) is doing more to help address the climate crisis than someone who drives an electric vehicle but provides political support for a massive expansion of the use of combustion engine vehicles in their country.

[Jacob]

TLDR:

• Public policy that makes it easy for people to make the right choice, and more difficult to make the wrong choice works.
• Appeals to individual virtue and consumer lifestyle choices in the face of public policy that makes it difficult to make the right choice does not work.

The lack of individual virtue and poor consumer choices - especially in the case of 2. above - is not a valid argument against making better public policy (in spite of oil companies funding PR campaigns to explicitly make that argument).

[Jacob]

Who's doing that?

Anyone who's arguing that relying on individual consumer choice by itself is an effective strategy to combat climate change.

It isn't.

So no one in this thread then.

That's a relief.

[Admiral Yi]

The discussion was about historical facts. I asserted that inertia, big oil lobbying, collectivization of the consequences of global warming but privatizing profits are more logical culprits for global warming than greens/leftists policy.

I'm not sure why you decided to change the subject. I certainly don't care what you think my share of the blame is for global warming lol. I care even less to mitigate that. What a strange idea.

I said nothing about green/leftist policies. I said the blame should fall on individual choices.  Each molecule of carbon I release to the atmosphere is one unit of blame.  Same for you, same for Jake, same for everyone on the planet.