Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

But we want to retain our lifestyle broadly and we don't have the technology to decarbonise without a significant change in quality of life. We also know that decarbonising will have huge social impacts. I think any project that is around shifting the economy to zero carbon will need to protect people's lifestyles and employment.

For example we're moving to an electric future in all sorts of products, including vehicles. We're nowhere near producing enough energy for everything that could be electrified to be electrified. At the same time we don't have the tech anywhere in the world for our current electricity grids to work on majority renewable energy. Similarly what does a decarbonised construction industry look like?

So I get the point on reducing carbon emissions, but this is about building a zero carbon economy. I think the policies will need to be broader than just direct reduction of emissions - that's part of the shift from a cost/benefit economic policy of reducing emissions, to the larger shift of our entire economy.

So now you're talking about mitigating the economic effects of zero carbon, which really has nothing to do with either bold experimentation or with the Green New Deal.

[Oexmelin]

You call New Deal art funding messy and incoherent, I call it stupid and pointless.  That's hardly a compelling argument for including elements unrelated to the stated goal in the Green New Deal.

I'm straining to find polite language to describe my reaction to your insinuation, delivered in your elliptical literary style, that debt forgiveness will unleash creative solutions to climate change.

It's not an insinuation. It's part of the rationale. I don't think we'll find common ground here.

There are alternatives to the Green New Deal, the most obvious being a carbon tax and cap and trade.  Why doesn't the absence of a rightist plan buttress those alternatives instead of the Green New Deal?

Because, as Sheilbh mentions, this seems to be utterly insufficient to address the magnitude of the challenge, utterly unsuited to create necessary dispositions in people to undertake collectively that massive challenge, and seems, in that regard, quite counter productive. The Green New Deal is amorphous enough to be compatible with carbon tax and market mechanisms. By insisting that only carbon tax is legitimate, that right-wing position undermines any other attempts at changing course.

This is why I made my point about the lack of a right-wing plan. It seems to me you want a detailed plan, or nothing at all. I tend to think you have to first promote the idea that this is an extraordinary challenge that requires an extraordinary response. And to enact changes of that scale, you need collective and political buy-in that goes well beyond market mechanisms. It requires strong pressures from state institutions, regulations, international cooperation and diplomacy and collective mobilization. Unfortunately, a certain right has repudiated most of these collective and political buy-in, and has, indeed, done its best to undermine them. I'd actually be grateful to see anything from the right that is not "something else, but not that", "more of the same, but better", or "it'll all turn out well in the end".

[Sheilbh]

You and other posters have mentioned several times that the right is doing nothing, as if that somehow buttresses the Green New Deal.  How the fuck does that work?  There are alternatives to the Green New Deal, the most obvious being a carbon tax and cap and trade.  Why doesn't the absence of a rightist plan buttress those alternatives instead of the Green New Deal?

It's not that the right are doing nothing, but that they're ceding the field. So carbon tax and cap and trade is in place in large parts of the world - the EU, China etc. It has issues, it's very open to lobbying and special interests (see the EU system) and there is a class issue of it increasing costs for the working class and supported by the middle class. But it's an efficient policy which is probably just not enough if we're working towards zero carbon.

But it is an alternative. The point I'm making is you can't be surprised if you get a left-wing policy agenda when the entire policy debate takes place between, say, the Greens on the left and New Labour on the right. I think the biggest threat to the left-Green movement is that the right does engage on a level beyond trolling.

So now you're talking about mitigating the economic effects of zero carbon, which really has nothing to do with either bold experimentation or with the Green New Deal.

This may reflect how it's been used over here (again an advantage of the branding), but all of the conversation is around how you get to zero carbon and how that transition is done in a way that's just and doesn't abandon people. The transition to zero carbon is bound to require bold experimentation because it's going to be a huge shift in our entire economy.

[Admiral Yi]

It's not an insinuation. It's part of the rationale. I don't think we'll find common ground here.

I'd be happy to support a pilot project to prove you wrong.  Say we forgive the student loans of 1,000 people, and see how many earth-saving inventions they come up with.

Because, as Sheilbh mentions, this seems to be utterly insufficient to address the magnitude of the challenge, utterly unsuited to create necessary dispositions in people to undertake collectively that massive challenge, and seems, in that regard, quite counter productive. The Green New Deal is amorphous enough to be compatible with carbon tax and market mechanisms. By insisting that only carbon tax is legitimate, that right-wing position undermines any other attempts at changing course.

This is why I made my point about the lack of a right-wing plan. It seems to me you want a detailed plan, or nothing at all. I tend to think you have to first promote the idea that this is an extraordinary challenge that requires an extraordinary response. And to enact changes of that scale, you need collective and political buy-in that goes well beyond market mechanisms. It requires strong pressures from state institutions, regulations, international cooperation and diplomacy and collective mobilization. Unfortunately, a certain right has repudiated most of these collective and political buy-in, and has, indeed, done its best to undermine them. I'd actually be grateful to see anything from the right that is not "something else, but not that", "more of the same, but better", or "it'll all turn out well in the end".

No one has ever said only a carbon tax is legitimate.  People are totally free to propose other policies that actually reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

You claim the right has repudiated the political buy-in (with is obvious) but use that to defend a plan which purchases that buy-in from constituencies of the left.  If both left and right are indifferent to climate change, then they both are the problem.

[Admiral Yi]

It's not that the right are doing nothing, but that they're ceding the field. So carbon tax and cap and trade is in place in large parts of the world - the EU, China etc. It has issues, it's very open to lobbying and special interests (see the EU system) and there is a class issue of it increasing costs for the working class and supported by the middle class. But it's an efficient policy which is probably just not enough if we're working towards zero carbon.

But it is an alternative. The point I'm making is you can't be surprised if you get a left-wing policy agenda when the entire policy debate takes place between, say, the Greens on the left and New Labour on the right. I think the biggest threat to the left-Green movement is that the right does engage on a level beyond trolling.

What does surprise have to do with it?  I've been talking about the desirability of  various policies, not how surprised I was when GND was announced.  And the absence of the right from the debate doesn't increase the desirability of a lefty proposal; that's a function of the merit.

This may reflect how it's been used over here (again an advantage of the branding), but all of the conversation is around how you get to zero carbon and how that transition is done in a way that's just and doesn't abandon people. The transition to zero carbon is bound to require bold experimentation because it's going to be a huge shift in our entire economy.

If you want to mitigate the economic impact of zero carbon that doesn't require bold experimentation.  You give money to coal miners and companies, oil drillers, pipeline workers, etc. etc.  Basic national income and student debt forgiveness are not bold experiments to mitigate the economic impact of zero carbon.  They're not experiments of any kind.

[garbon]

It was a bit eerie walking through Trafalgar Square this morning. Felt rather like a police state with police nearly at same numbers of tourists and workers walking to work. This being after last night when the police cleared out all of the protesters and encampments in the square.

[viper37]

You call New Deal art funding messy and incoherent, I call it stupid and pointless.  That's hardly a compelling argument for including elements unrelated to the stated goal in the Green New Deal.

I'm straining to find polite language to describe my reaction to your insinuation, delivered in your elliptical literary style, that debt forgiveness will unleash creative solutions to climate change.

It's not an insinuation. It's part of the rationale. I don't think we'll find common ground here.

There are alternatives to the Green New Deal, the most obvious being a carbon tax and cap and trade.  Why doesn't the absence of a rightist plan buttress those alternatives instead of the Green New Deal?

Because, as Sheilbh mentions, this seems to be utterly insufficient to address the magnitude of the challenge, utterly unsuited to create necessary dispositions in people to undertake collectively that massive challenge, and seems, in that regard, quite counter productive. The Green New Deal is amorphous enough to be compatible with carbon tax and market mechanisms. By insisting that only carbon tax is legitimate, that right-wing position undermines any other attempts at changing course.

This is why I made my point about the lack of a right-wing plan. It seems to me you want a detailed plan, or nothing at all. I tend to think you have to first promote the idea that this is an extraordinary challenge that requires an extraordinary response. And to enact changes of that scale, you need collective and political buy-in that goes well beyond market mechanisms. It requires strong pressures from state institutions, regulations, international cooperation and diplomacy and collective mobilization. Unfortunately, a certain right has repudiated most of these collective and political buy-in, and has, indeed, done its best to undermine them. I'd actually be grateful to see anything from the right that is not "something else, but not that", "more of the same, but better", or "it'll all turn out well in the end".

People from the right will always be fearful of any broad plan increasing govt intervention in all sectors of the economies, especially when it is ill defined and does not seem to really, totally, adress the situation it aims to solve.

Yi is right in that the left is using the environment to enact sweeping change to our society, how it is governed, how wealth should be (re)distributed, not created.

It is the same as with the debate on sovereignty in Quebec: the sovereignty is only a by product of the leftits economic policies.  Both parties promoting the idea want it to impose on us their radical, destructive, thinking.  Environment is the same: it's not as important as leftwing economic&social policies, and when a political party diverges from that, it is branded "as not a true leftist party" and is abandonned by the left.  Then the same left complains there's no plan to fight climate change and other environmental issues from the right...  You guys just won't vote for a rightwing party that proposes a figth to climate change if it is not accompanied by leftwing economic & social proposals.  Just as you said years ago the left would not accompany a rightwing party on the sovereignty issue.

As long as we are there, it will be extremely difficult to get a majority of rightwinger on board with the figth.

[mongers]

On going Extinction rebellion protests in London, this time its the grand parents having a say:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50063449

Extinction Rebellion Grandparents: Our generation is partly responsible

"This is a rebellion, our house is on fire," sang a crowd of pensioners to the tune of Elvis Presley's Hound Dog as they stood outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.

"If we don't act now, it will be our funeral pyre."

The group, called Extinction Rebellion Grandparents, is part of the wider Extinction Rebellion campaign, which is currently in the middle of two weeks of protests in London.

.....

Satnam Kaur Khalsa, 63, from Hounslow, was joined at the protest by her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren, all who travelled from Mexico for the ongoing rallies.

"I want to help make sure there is a place for these children to live and prosper," said Ms Kaur Khalsa, "Like we had an opportunity to when we were young.

"We could plan our future. Their future is murky at the moment, they don't know what's going to happen.

"We didn't really think of the consequences."

Ms Kaur Khalsa's daughter, Harmeet, who has lived in Mexico for the past 15 years, said she wanted to join the Extinction Rebellion movement after seeing footage of the earlier rallies in April.
....

Maybe they still haven't thought of the consequences?

[Tamas]

That's OK, Germany wants to tax short distance flights. Its the plebs moving around in Europe that's the apparent scourge, not  well-of people criss-crossing the Atlantic for some virtue signalling

[Admiral Yi]

That's OK, Germany wants to tax short distance flights. Its the plebs moving around in Europe that's the apparent scourge, not  well-of people criss-crossing the Atlantic for some virtue signalling

Trains and buses aren't really an option for Mexico to London.

[Eddie Teach]

Taxing short flights doesn't stop you from also taxing long flights.

[Tamas]

Taxing short flights doesn't stop you from also taxing long flights.

Except that has not been talked about in Germany AFAIK.

[Tamas]

That's OK, Germany wants to tax short distance flights. Its the plebs moving around in Europe that's the apparent scourge, not  well-of people criss-crossing the Atlantic for some virtue signalling

Trains and buses aren't really an option for Mexico to London.

I guess just not travelling so far for such a mundane reason is out of the question, right? Let's protest that everyone changes their life dramatically, but not me because my family is divided by the Atlantic so I cannot possibly be inconvenienced.

[Tamas]

Also, do the climate protesters have some easily definable demand? The whole civil disobedience thing is a good idea, but I think it helps greatly when the goal can be defined more accurately than "let's fix global climate somehow" Like "Brits out of India". That was easy to define 

[Admiral Yi]

I guess just not travelling so far for such a mundane reason is out of the question, right? Let's protest that everyone changes their life dramatically, but not me because my family is divided by the Atlantic so I cannot possibly be inconvenienced.

Are you supporting taxing intercontinental flights taken for the purpose of protesting climate change?