take their money and arrest those responsible
(midwest.social)
Science Memescross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1097575
Wait but I always say "Thanks ExxonMobil" sarcastically but this looks like I should be thanking Shell?
And God said "LET CORPORATIONS DESTROY THE PLANET AND ERADICATE ALL LIFE".
Guess this is the modern alternative to the flood.
Put a garnishing order on their past 50 years of profits. All proceeds go to infrastructure investments for the developing world in climate mitigation and food security.
Congress. For not taxing carbon emissions according to the damage they cause.
(And other countries' legislatures, but as an American voter, I first need to hold my own legislature responsible.)
I first need to hold my own legislature responsible
Don't think that's really a thing in America anymore.
It's just a vibe I get. It may have something to do with felon rapist pedophiles running the legislature.
I thought it is me, because I'm Not recycling hard enough. Puh, got lucky here /s
But it is us, secondarily because we run our gas cars and such.
I know for a FACT that Shell bought up every patent it could on Hydrogen use in the 1960's. My dad worked in England back then in the main office; way up in the tree and he witnessed this himself. FACT. Maybe I'm not completely clear: F A C T !!! He told me when I was a boy and I never forgot. (Was I clear? FACT!!!)
What do you have to be a TOTALLY ROTTEN COMPANY to even NOW not use those inventions and implement Hydrogen as a fuel so the world will be saved.
I truely HATE Shell with all my guts.
Green hydrogen only works when you have more energy than needed and you're 100% renewable electricity. You could have done that with nuclear power in the 60s in theory. But solar in abundance is the only likely route it will work.
Hydrogen will never be a viable fuel and will never save the world. It leaks like hell, has a low energy density so it needs to be either highly compressed or highly refrigerated to liquify it to be even usable for something that is moving, which needs a lot of energy and induces a lot of constraints.
Basically, everywhere where electricity is a meaningful solution, hydrogen is just outclassed. Which leaves heavy industries and maybe cargo ships. The rest must either electrify, or just go.
We ought to seize all the top companies.
They're just holding companies. They don't make anything. They don't produce anything. They just bleed off a kick, like a mob boss, and use those gains to amass political power.
Seize them all and use the assets (and annual profits) to fund American society.
No thanks, BP and Saudi Aramco already prop up the US enough.
Shell also dodge paying fair taxes. https://www.ftm.eu/articles/shell-shifted-billions-in-profits-to-tax-havens-leaked-files-reveal
Please, dodging taxes is the least of Shell's atrocities.
Y'know we could have had spaceships each since the 1930s, right?
Or even just running our cars on seed oils, like hempseed oil, or plant derived ethanol.
Or even just running our cars on water.
... If they'd stop killing inventors and stop abusing the patent system to secretize emancipatory technologies.
I believe they crush technologies, but most of the things you mentioned aren't true. There were no spaceships possible in the 1930s. Why crush that technology when they could have conquered the world with it? It's not possible to run cars on water. The thermodynamics just doesn't make sense. We have cars that run on biofuel, but mass-converting vehicles to that would drive up costs of food. Ethanol for fuel already does that by using farmland that could grow food.
the last point are just the current status. there are various approaches to solve those issues, which could be explored more.
one examples that comes to mind is ethanol from algae, which live in salty water. i remember seeing a documentary about it, staying that you could just place them in big tanks in the desert. there they wouldn't compete with food for land.
I'm not saying that this example solves everything, just that there could definitely be more research.
Bingo. I used to work for Shell. This is exactly what they do. And whenever I tell people I get told I'm a conspiracy theorist.
Heeh! :D I've just had effectively the exact same thing, except for advertising. "Mind control does not exist" they said, to the face of one saying they used to be one of those doing it!
Nah, they'd use it for themselves to build a Meth star, and blow up Earth, as they float off into space.
I hope the water thing is /s
The whole post is ridiculous. Putting cars on the water and inventing boats is pretty funny though.
I hope the water thing is /s
Why do you want that to be sarcasm?
Wouldn't you prefer that to be true??
You hope differently to me.
Water powered car's been invented more than just that once with the famous Stanley Meyer story. Y'know those blow torch thingies, that use water? Yeah, same basic principle. And remember in that special episode of Top Gear (I think it was maybe the Myanmar episode), where Hammond put a little water in his engine (in with the fuel) to give it more go at altitude? Same principle as many of the "water powered car"s use, where instead of (afaiu) electromagnetic alignment catalyst, they use chemical catalysts (and other starters and combustants etc), to which some eager naysayers throw the baby out with the bathwater and proclaim it all bunk because those designs were not using pure water. ... I'm not sure any use entirely pure water, do they? Didn't even Stanley Meyers design involve some kind of other chemical in the mix too? I'm not looking into it any further than is popularly known. I don't want to be mistaken for an inventor, attracting the attention of the ruthless unscrupulous sorts with a lot invested in their rentier ride. ;)
Amusing aside... can haz steam powered car too. ;) Too contrived to call that water powered? Hehe. Even a Stirling engine?
The only practical way to get power from water is to break it apart and then burn the hydrogen, and it takes more energy to break it apart than you'll get back.
They make cars which run on hydrogen which you can get from water but that process is so inefficient they opt to get the hydrogen from natural gas instead thus defeating the entire purpose. Overall we have better tech now than "running a car on water" and doing that doesn't help the bigger problem of unsustainable use of energy
I'm assuming they were hoping you don't actually believe it to be possible, not hoping that it's impossible.
As far as I know, there's no viable way to get water out of energy. All the different hydrocarbons we burn tend to produce water as a result of the burning process (CO2 and H2O being the results of a clean burning hydrocarbon).
The trouble is, you need energy to break bonds between atoms, and energy gets released as bonds are created. H2O has some pretty strong bonds and there's nothing you can easily make it react with to get more or stronger bonds in there.
Water can be used in internal combustion engines to cool down the combustion chambers if you're running super high performance, but that doesn't meant water injection is adding energy from water, you'd still be burning more fuel to get more power.
To the people who are saying "Yeah but you're the one who buys the oil!!!!!" Please stop. Please think about any of the context surrounding those supposedly individualist decisions. Please think about what the most practical solutions are for fixing the problem. You can do that and be helpful or you can be smug and look down on others.
Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn't:
- Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
- Decide where jobs and housing were located.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against public transit.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against regulations.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against green energy investments.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby for imperialist wars to access oil.
- Spend millions of dollars to spread misinformation about climate change.
- Decide what cars were available to buy and at what price. (Demand driving supply only makes sense if consumers have a way to signal that they want something that isn't being offered. The main market way of doing that would be to not buy anything until the right good is offered... but as stated above, people can't just opt out of needing a car if the places where they can live and work are built around cars.)
- Decide to be too poor to buy luxury goods masquerading as green alternatives.
Framing the issue in terms of individual decisions lets the people who have most actively stood in the way of progress off the hook and ironically shirks any real responsibility to fix the issue. You think by saying that it's us doing it that you take responsibility for your actions and therefore because YOU got a hybrid car or some shit, you did your part and everyone else needs to do the same and it's not your responsibility anymore. Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests destroying the planet takes effort that deviates from your normal life. You have to actually talk to people, work with them, and take part in collective action. And your responsibility isn't over until the problem is solved.
Also, sort of related: I always take issue with how dealing with issues like climate change is framed in terms of making sacrifices. Like sure, are we going to be able to do as much excessive consumption as we do now? No. But there are so many climate policies that would also just make life better for people in the short/medium term. We would be happier, healthier, and safer in a world where we got rid of our dependence on cars and replaced it with walkable cities and good mass transit. But instead of talking about how good it could be, instead the message ends up being "You're a bad person for diving a car. You need to give up using your car and go either walk to your job which is too far away and across a bunch of busy streets or cram yourself onto the underfunded public transportation that is crowded, slow, unreliable, and falling apart." No wonder people get so defensive. We don't want them to have to use the bad infrastructure. We want it to be so good that it's the best option by far. Pitch that future instead of lecturing people.
TL;DR: I WANT TRAINS! GIVE TRAINS!
American comment is American
USA #1!... at a bunch of things you don't want to be #1 at.
I agree, I love trains too!
And regarding your other points, don't forget urban planning. Trains and urban planning go hand in hand. You can't transform transportation by trains alone if everything is suburbs and city jobs, for example.
110%. Walkable cities and trains. Let's do it.
Yes, walkable cities and trains but also planning out where people live and work. Where people live is currently left up to the anarchy of the market, real estate speculation, where employment is located, etc. Then they have to get from where they live to other places they want or need to be, usually work. With some planning these things can be made intentionally dense, closer together, cheaper, and on transit lines.
I don’t understand this argument. On the one had you have sympathy for the average car user who hasn’t the time or resources to struggle with poor transport infrastructure and don’t necessarily have the resources to make preventative purchasing decisions, but then, on the other had you say
Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests… takes effort that deviates from your normal life
You don’t seem to have avoided the responsibility being laid at the individual at all. You’ve kept it firmly in the same place. All you’ve done is allowed those individuals to keep their materialistic lifestyle because “It’s OK, I’m an ‘activist’”.
Activism, for most people, is not sacrifice. Its a jolly good day out with a cool social group, sometimes there's even free music, circus acts, the works. You get to waive a flag, and everyone congratulates you on what an amazing person you are.
What's properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it's on a bus route, or not going out twice a week so you can afford organic cotton instead of polyester, or avoiding that deal trip to Tibet to meditate with monks to save fuel. Zero social credit, zero visibility.
And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won't have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn't make a difference either?
My point is, the important part isn't assigning blame, it's taking actions that actually have some path to success. You really can't ethically consume your way out of climate change. Identifying the corporations and governments most responsible for blocking progress isn't a mere moral victory, it's focusing our efforts.
What's properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it's on a bus route,
Sure, but not everyone can do that. And I don't mean it's just difficult, but literally there are a finite number of jobs and housing options that will fit that criteria. As our societies are set up now, it is not physically possible for enough people to make a sacrifice like that for it to make a difference. That's why collective action is needed to make those big structural changes in the first place.
And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won't have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn't make a difference either?
Oh 100%. I'm deeply concerned that there may be no peaceful, democratic way out of this. But that's step 2. Step 1, regardless of what our strategy ought to be, is organizing. Whether we need voters, protestors, boycotters, or an army, we need people who are able to coordinate with others. It's not individual activism, it's collective action.
You say it's important not to assign blame, yet this entire thread is about blaming companies. You keep using the word "ethically consume", as if consumption is this magical shield that saves you from all responsibility. If I want to see a woman raped and I rape a woman and tape it, that's obviously horrible. But if I instead find someone to PAY to create the video so I can CONSUME it, that suddenly cancels ANY AND ALL responsibility. WTF?
Calling for people to do what they can, which absolutely includes consuming differently, is the only correct choice here. Stop picking and choosing the parts of activism that require no effort from you personally. Stop pretending like the "system" is some kind of nefarious being in a cave we can just slay. We are all the system, we are all responsible to the degree that we have the power to change.
You might agree a little, but then talk about how little power we have. For one, do you think that's true for feminism, or anti-racism? Me not making sexist jokes has a tiny, tiny impact on patriarchy. Can I then just keep doing that, because it makes no real difference? A bunch of rich patriarchs have so much more power, therefore can I just sit on my lazy ass and never do anything feminist, expect call myself feminist? Secondly, again, you're picking and choosing what effort is ok to ask for. You ask for political activism, but draw the line at changing your habits where you can. That is simply non-sensical. Finally, you're just wrong. Global climate change is GLOBAL. You do not get to shirk your duty on the pretense of powerlessness. The average American has the power and influence of ENTIRE FAMILIES in poorer countries. You know, the countries likely most affected?
I don't look at companies like people, because they're not. They're profit optimization machines. Thinking about it in terms of blame is like getting mad at a math equation. The truly depressing thing about all the evils of capitalism is that they're entirely rational and expected outcomes of the incentives and structures of the system. To a company, spending money to make a thing they can sell is functionally equivalent to spending money lobbying the government to get more favorable regulations. There is no moral calculation involved. Sure there are people who make those decisions within the companies, but over time the ones that make less financially lucrative decisions lose out to those who will do anything for a buck.
Recognizing this dynamic as our greatest barrier to progress is a necessary step to solving the problem. In order to be able to fight against such a powerful and organized enemy, we need to get as many people on our side and activate them enough to take coordinate collective action. To this end, we've seen how this individualized blame game has hurt our cause. (And the fossil fuel industry is at least partially responsible for pushing that narrative to the forefront.) People are naturally going to be hesitant to do things that diminish their quality of life and seeing people judge them for not doing so when they're already living with so little while the rich pollute to their hearts content can make people feel alienated from the struggle. It makes it seem like these activists and politicians don't understand or care about their circumstances. It makes it seem like we're being petty and disingenuous by going after relatively small things. Nobody likes to feel like the bad guy, so they may even overcorrect and be more receptive to climate denial. Even if they accept the premise and reduce their consumption, if they're convinced that this is sufficient and take no additional action, we're still screwed. It also doesn't help that the gov has been doing things to make even individual consumption changes even harder. China has made great strides in making cheap solar panels and electric vehicles, but we can't have that, think of the shareholders! Lets put trade barriers up on their import.
Don't get me wrong. I would never tell someone NOT to modify their behavior. If you are in a situation where you feel you can drive less, eat less meat, etc... go for it. My problem is using this framework as an overall marketing strategy for climate action. Look, climate change has just gotten worse over my lifetime. In fact, it's gotten worse at an accelerating rate. Whatever we've been doing... IT HASN'T BEEN WORKING! Whatever tiny gains have been made by changes in consumption have been totally eclipsed by the wastefulness of the elite. If something isn't working... you do something else.
Yep. Solidarity, collectivism.
Which presumably is why the left wing spends 100% of it's time and energy on purity tests, cancelling, essentailist identity politics, and knee-jerk tribalism...
... classic solidarity-building. We should have this problem sorted in no time.
That is exactly what I’m trying to push back against. Guilting people over their tiny contribution to climate change is hurting the cause, not helping it. It’s a problem intrinsic to the consumption-oriented liberal approach to climate activism, but not exclusive to it.
I agree. I was pointing out that (even if perhaps inadvertently), your post just ends up guilting people who don't do enough activism instead. It turns, not on the problem (reducing carbon emissions), but on your comrades (those who share your concern, but disagree about how best to achieve it).
The responses blaming individuals don't seem to be exculpating corporations. They're just adding a dimension they felt was missing.
Solidarity is about accepting into the fold anyone who agrees with a broad aim and working toward that end.
So anyone concerned about our impact on the planet can work together to minimise it. Some by campaigning to reduce consumption, some by campaigning against corporate overreach, some by campaigning for political parties who have better agendas. And each campaign supports and nurtures the other.
What we get instead are endless (and often furious) arguments between each campaign about how they've got it wrong and their approach will never work.
I suppose in the vein of "the one thing I don't tolerate is intolerance", I'd say the one thing I will always say isn't going to work is telling every other well-meaning activist that their campaign isn't going to work.
(The obvious caveat here is determining 'well-meaning', but hey, no system is perfect)
We're all responsible. I'm sure a lot of Romans used this argument when their slaves came after them during the Servile Wars. And it probably didn't go well.
Trains and trams are based af
Buses are pretty great too, to connect the more rural areas
As long as they're not routed through main commute hubs. Where I live (near a major german city, so there indeed is at least something) all the bus connections to the closest subway station of the city are routed over a small portion of a major street. That alone causes massive delays every morning and often also in the evening when everyone pours in- and out of the city in their gas guzzlers.
I'm very much for having waaay more (semi-subway) trains even in rural areas. Even if it's just small ones that never exceed 50kmh or something, having a trustworthy schedule would be worth it. Connect every milk can! (After giving it 5G)
That is definitely true. Buses are way more susceptible to shitty traffic engineering than railways. Though buses can work really well at traffic choke points too, when good traffic engineering is employed. Where I live, the bus can always zip right past all of the morning rush hour traffic and there is nothing more satisfying than looking out of a bus' window and laughing at all the car-idiots standing still, stuck in traffic :3
But yeah, railways rule, I meant buses for the really bumblefuck places out there where rails wouldn't be economical.
I find it hard to be enthused for trains, trams, and busses any more, since discovering over 20 years ago that clean energy and many other technologies and man-made innovations have been suppressed to maintain out dependence on scarce polluting energy because it's easier to put a meter on to extract rents by. ... So much so... y'know we could have had spaceships each since the 1930s? T Townsend Brown was not the first nor the leading pinnacle. Even back to the mid 1800s, when they were rigging their hot air balloons with faraday cages and high freq e.m. fields to reduce, and even eliminate inertia [... 1 small vacuum-proofing hop, and you have rudimentary interstellar flight capabilities]... ... we never needed rockets, we never needed planes. ... we don't really need buses either. Or cars.
But if we make a nice world, buses still could be very nice to have.
Semi-subway trains too.
And cars even too. Track day, anyone? :)
Whole lot of vertical space unused in this world [and beyond]. We have so much headroom without the crooks holding us down. Heck! Even the crooks, even with their billions and trillions, would be better off, if we availed, each and all, all the emancipatory technologies.
Is it also not the fault of the 99% who vote for non-Green parties who then make the laws causing your bullet points?
Waaaaaaaay less than the people who have used their power to corrupt said system. Capitalists wouldn't have spent this much money on lobbying and propaganda if it wasn't needed. They try their best to keep some people from voting and the rest from having any viable choices that reflect what they want.
It's just counterproductive to conceptualize our current situation in terms of individualized guilt. It's not like going to privately check a box every few years is doing much more than choosing to consume a bit less. We need to be organized. Our enemies are and they're winning.
Also the voting thing ignores the failure of electoral reform in preventing the two party system, and divorcing of the peoples intent from policy for the sake of lobbyist and corporate preference.
While more can be done locally, there have been think groups and other money-lead influencers affecting local efforts for as long as the heritage foundation has been supplying fascist mandates to USA presidents.
There were a lot of people trying to make that salient, and decide action in response to it, when suddenly all progressive groups decided the true threat was other progressive groups for some reason, and anyone trying to resolve that or encourage better communication or cooperation between progressive groups is actually secretly supporting the fascists somehow, because we out here dividing ourselves to be conquered.
Issue totally isn't rich assholes with too much time and money pushing some policy sitting between feudalism, fascism, and whatever the fuck you would call what putin did to Russia.
I've been complaining about self segregation and communication issues for decades, and have been chastised/banned from a weird chunk of progressive spaces I've interacted with over this exact problem.
500M MT
~~Stacking metric prefixes. That's how big the problem is. And a (metric) ton is a million grams. 500 Eg (exagrams) to 1 Zg (zettagram). You don't get these numbers even with data volume! (edit: yes, on a global scale)~~
Edit: apparently "MT" is not metric megaton but metric ton. Fuck whoever abbreviates in non-standard ways. https://www.nayuki.io/page/common-mistakes-when-using-the-metric-system
woah. your comment just helped me figure out the difference between a metric tonne (2200 ish pounds yank / 1,000 kg evaporating parisian units) and a short ton. (2000 pounds yank / 900 kg evaporating parisian units)
The kilogram is no longer defined as the mass of the Paris etalon. Now it's defined so that Planck constant ℎ = 6.62607015 × 10⁻³⁴ kg m²/s, where 1 s is 9 192 631 770 oscillations of ¹³³Cs and 1 m is how long light travels in 1/299 792 458 s in vacuum.
They're the same thing.
Duh. Do you think they'd change the value significantly? But now it's actually constant and changes to that piece of metal will change nothing.
yeah, because all y'all didn't notice your precious kilogram EVAPORATED UNTIL 7 YEARS AGO HOW LAME
evaporating parisian units stands as long as the original kilogram did. so i guess y'all gotta live with the shame of "we can't base our system of measurements off a Foot! That's uncouth! it's a body part! let's base it off this evaporating hunk of metal!" until 2149.
The pound has been defined as 0.453 592 37 kg since 1959, having relied on the slightly evaporating Parisian etalon for 60 years. You have no moral high ground.
who said i care about moral high ground, Mx. I Belive In Evaporaton (look, you can't even spell evaporation right. you really need to reprint those business cards)
So I looked it up and the mass change is actually positive, about 1 part per billion per year. Not evaporation but adsorption.
NOOOO now i'm going to have to reprint MY business cards i'm ruined
then where does energy come from?
every big oil company have alot of controversies wtf
Don't the non-auto companies who dump sludge in the rivers count for anything anymore?!
At some point, you realize that ordinary people are not responsible for any of these big "problems" (some doesn't even exist).
Corporations and governments are responsible for all problems we have. They create them with their laws and their greed for power.
But they love telling people to donate money to the problems they cause, or to make us feel guilty for things we have nothing to do with. We should always be in a state of fear and guilt, because that makes us easy to control.
Responsibility comes not from fault, it comes from power to affect change. We do have the power. No individual person has, sure, but we all have a little bit of impact. You people fully understand that concept for racism or sexism, so why are you pretending it's different here? Instead of looking at who has more power, why are you never asking yourself who has less power? You have the power of entire fucking families in the poorest countries in the world. You know, the people you pretend to care about when we talk about the GLOBAL climate change problem? Weird how the global-ness leaves your body the second we talk about responsibility.....
Seriously, there's a really good chance everyone here it in the global top 10%. And just like the local top 10%, we OVERCONSUME!
Compared to India or Africa, yes. Countries with higher standard will have access to more different foods, better technology etc etc. I dont feel guilty over that at all. I was born in this location on earth so I just live here normally.
If I'm born in Africa in my next life, I will live a life with whatever resources they have available.
Individual consumer shaming for society-level problems is usually corporate PR to defend from interventions. The classic example is the invention of the "litterbug" when companies introduced disposable but not easily reusable or compostable packaging and trash was piling up in much larger quantities. There were movements against using the packaging itself. The "litterbug" PR campaign successfully changed the narrative to make this litter an individual problem to shame people for rather than a problem with capital. Similarly, there were many movements against cars in the beginning. It was considered outrageous when "chauffeur's" would hit pedestrians, there were calls for entire bans. There were multifaceted PR pushes to instead shift blame to pedestrians while giving cars exclusive use of the streets, pushing pedestrians to the side and calling them "jaywalkers" if a car hit them. Both of these cases also involved heavy lobbying/bribery of the political class, same as today.
Ah yes companies that famously refine oil only to pour it into a hole and light it on fire for their own amusement, one else uses it at all.
If it's just these companies that would be affected let's just close them down. I'm sure it would make no difference whatsoever.
This is a false choice between huge lifestyle changes for everyday people and regulating the polluters. Regulating the polluters is going to cause huge lifestyle changes for everyday people.
The idea that any of us get to go on as usual is the main roadblock to meaningful climate action.
idk. i got an ebike and my lifestyle didn't change a while lot. just had to get one with a trunk, uh, big basket strapped to the back.
Honestly, I believe the main roadblock is the idea that change will need to happen at all. The sad truth is that most people are fine with contributing to climate change so long as they can keep doing what they're accustomed to doing.
The only way I can see for meaningful climate action to happen is to get people on board with regulation polluters while allowing them to be ignorant to the fact that lifestyle changes will have to follow, and then when they're forced to adapt, they will. People are much better at changing when they can't afford not to than when they have the option to just keep on doing what they always have.
People are also a lot more likely to make sacrifices to keep up momentum after a win like regulating polluters; few people are going to change first when they can see a company like Shell - polluting more every day than they have in their entire lives - going unchecked. A change has to happen to give them hope that the climate can even be saved before they try to make changes themselves to save it.
Well can't we just ban Shell from selling oil, and then get in our F150s to drive to the airport?
Or, better yet, people who "love nature", so they drive an SUV every weekend for an hour to get to a cottage / camp / cabin. Or go camping, or canoeing, or whatever.
Gotta use at least a 350 to transport one person to the airport
i assume F150 is an electric vehicle. electricity doesn't come from nowhere. where does the energy come from?
F150 is a huge American ute that burns tons of gasoline to get around.
they make electric f150s, according to my just right now internet search. i buy japanese cars when i buy cars. statesian brands are soiled.
I'm cool with that. I also don't think it would necessarily be huge in terms of inconvenience for the average person because alternatives would pop up before long. For example, if air travel became prohibitively expensive we might actually see an expanse of passenger rail for domestic travel. It's ridiculous that it's still cheaper/more convenient to take a 45 min flight (plus the time the whole airport experience takes) vs a couple hours (or less with high speed rail) train ride. Certain plastics might also become too expensive so we might see the return to more sustainable packaging. A lot of the oil and byproduct consumption from the average person comes down to lack of choice ratger than people choosing products made from oil ober alternatives.
Americans simply have no idea how much of what they take for granted is simply an unsustainable luxury. That absolutely includes leftists, too.
BLIMPS
It would be a massive inconvenience, but it'll still be worth it. High speed rail takes many years to build. People hate lifestyle changes. Hell, people will be unhappy at the changes to food packaging. Everything will become more expensive and the economy will contract.
If we go in promising it'll be easy people will get mad and balk when it gets hard. If we go in explaining how it'll suck, but that we've got a plan to fix the problems and it'll be worth it then we can succeed
No, we are past that point. A gradual reduction in CO2 levels is not enough any more. If you want to save billions of lives we need to cut CO2 production hard and right now. Since that is never going to happen you happy go lucky scenario becomes impossible. In any realistic climate scenario humanity is already fucked, it's only matter of how much exactly.
Correct, we are likely going to need to do geoengineering for a 100-200 years while CO2 gets reduced gradually.
Baking soda aerosols are looking promising. They can just at 2-3% sodium additive to all jet aircraft exhaust and it will be enough to reverse the current levels of elevated CO2.
Start doing some real chemtrails.
i mean, i'm not sure where you live but we're seeing sizeable towns [populations <10,000] getting eaten by fire on my side of the continent (pacific west coast, north america [i'm in california. it's been a mild year so far but fire season officially started two weeks ago in my town. so far only three fires worth mentioning!]) and before you start on any "need to rake your forest or manage it better or let it burn", people been living there for 400 years if not longer at the one close to me that burned a few seasons back. much longer at the one with 200,000 people that half burned a few more seasons back. kindly leave that victim blamey bullshit at the door.
agreed, we're already fucked. the question now is how fucked and whether we'll be around when the planet recovers.
K that's fine
Nothing changes until the price of an electric car is less than the cost of a gas one when it comes to the vehicle cost.
A Hyundai Sonata is 35k CAD
A Hyundai IONIQ 6 is 55k CAD
Miss me with that bullshit.
Hyundai Sonata is a budget sedan. Ioniq is their top of the line electric. Perhaps look at Hyundai Inster or Hyundai Kona or something.
Budget 😂. In South Africa the Sonata is one of their largest sedans.
Hyundai Accent is the budget one. Elantra is the mid-size one. I doubt either are available in the US.
Dollar converted, the Accent costs about $12k.
The US car market is so cooked.
Ah yes, you're right. I just googled the model and read "affordable midsize sedan" in a result.
This is why buying new cars is dumb,
A used Hyundai sonata 2024 is ~20k USD
A used Hyundai ioniq 6 2024 is ~24k USD
Yeah it may be more upfront, but most people finance any way and your monthly payment will be offset buy your fuel savings.
There's enough of a stock of used EVs, quite often with low mileage, at this point that cost is becoming less of an issue for people then the perceived lack of convenience. That and dealerships/manufacturers not promoting them because they get less maintenance fees and they're lower margin then a giant SUV or pickup.
most people at this point chosing fuel over electric, the main motivation is best case "habit" or worst case political statement, it has very little to do with money or the technical limitations of the vehicles anymore. They just don't like change, they're scared of it. They have driven a fuel car all their lives and they will continue their habits as long as they are allowed to. The range on EV's is crazy now. For christ's sake, an electric bicycle has a reach of 100km! How far out away from what they need do the average 90% of people live... less than a few kilometers.
It's really not that hard to put a price on societal collapse and the end of humanity: the money it costs to try to mitigate that is infinite and every decision every person makes right now should be made in that light of exponentially higher costs later if bad choices which now seem slightly less expensive are made now...
Yeah. If you're paying for the car outright, your free cash every month will be higher, which can go back into savings. If you're financing the car, your monthly expenses will quite possibly be the same or lower, because you pay for gas every month, too.
I just looked in Canada
2024 sonata. 28k
2024 IONIQ 6. 39k
I'm sorry I'm not paying over 10k more for an electric car that's absolutely insane.
Not equivalent, the IONIQ is luxury
Now factor in lifetime costs of repairs and gas/electricity!
BTW I have no idea which one is which of your two cars 😅
Slate is 25k
I bought my fully loaded ioniq 5 for 31K euros Used…
Yes, but regulating pollutors requires a populace that won't accept anything less. Instead people are placated by paper straws.
>>"Spoiler alert: it's not you"
>>proceeds to display a chart of companies who sell a fuel we all use
"I'm not a monster for choosing to drive a gas-guzzling SUV, it's the evil oil companies!"
I'm not pretending these companies are blameless. They certainly lobby to reduce people's alternatives. They probably break any environmental regulation they can get around, and just pay a fine if caught.
But, fundamentally, they're a business. They wouldn't be pumping oil out of the ground if people weren't buying it.
"We're not evil for selling you something that will destroy the environment, you're evil for being forced to buy it from us!"
Well i don't create the system. Given the chance i would rather not be a part of it.
I hope big oil is paying you well for propagating their "personal carbon-footprint"-narrative.
What do do you say? They don't even pay you? ... Then why are you doing it?
Because I don't trust anybody who tells me things I wanna hear like "you bear no responsibility; it's somebody else's fault".
Oil companies couldn't sell if nobody was buying. The idea that the world can be fixed and I won't need to sacrifice a thing is a little too good to be true. Sure, maybe others will need to make more changes than me, and I'm certainly not gonna let them off the hook, but I'm not gonna let myself off the hook either, and anyone who tells me I can is selling me something.
The idea that the world can be fixed and I won't need to sacrifice a thing is a little too good to be true
On one hand I don't think people are saying that. On the other hand, there are some radical views here on Lemmy.
Sure, maybe others will need to make more changes than me, and I'm certainly not gonna let them off the hook, but I'm not gonna let myself off the hook either, and anyone who tells me I can is selling me something.
I am 100% with you here.
If you can spot me $30,000 I'll get an electric car today
if you can repay it tomorrow i can spot you 30k today
just don't ask where i got it
30,000? A domestically manufacturered, highway-capable EV is 10,000 USD here in vn and even cheaper over in China.
Who do you think is responsible for your inability to buy reasonably priced evs?
space karen
First, I have to get a new range hood, repair my foundation drain, regrade my yard, and earn a spare 30k after that.
I think I'd get close to $5 if I traded in my current car, if that helps
I'll give you $3.50
Just do what you can, when you can. It's all any of us can do.
My sister has that as a tattoo (or some variation on that wording).
And yet, it seems to have become an excuse for why she's allowed to buy a big gas-guzzling SUV, and drive it whenever she wants, wherever she wants, and fly around the world for fun.
If she's ever asked, she's an environmentalist who loves nature. But, she avoids ever having to make tough choices about her own lifestyle because she allows herself the grace to just do what she can do, and not agonize over the rest.
Oh, the old "it's the consumers responsibility" fallacy.
Nothing will change if it isn't forced, or if electric cars get cheaper.
Whatcha gonna drive it on? The streets and roads are a major source of CO~2~ by themselves.
If someone can spot me $300 million, I'll get functional public transit going in my city instead.
In the meantime, my options are drive a car, or be unemployed.
You'd also have to deal with all of the residents who pitch a screaming fit any time anybody suggests maybe possibly removing a parking space. Unfortunately, it's a whole, self-reinforcing system, not just the fault of a few corporations.
I'd argue not having to burn your fuel is already a great improvement
"we all use"
Speak for yourself. I refuse to pay them a cent, and have taken every step I can to distance myself from them.
Most of the factories that manufacture the stuff you use are driven by fossil fuels. The food you eat is most likely grown using fertilizer that was made using natural gas. Unless you live in the forest and eat nuts and berries, you use fossil fuels.
ohld on, i'm doing a google. how many Gs is electric grig supposeed to have?
The factories may use fossil fuels, but I do not.
The fossil fuel companies are responsible for their own actions, as are the companies and people who still choose to use fossil fuels.
The people who have made an active choice to avoid fossil fuels (or the people without a choice) are not at fault. Blaming them instead of the people who can make a difference helps no-one.
Whoever said "instead"?
It's trump diddling kids, not me!
- this guy, eating a trump steak on trump airlines.
You realize that fossil fuels or natural gas are not evil by themselves, right?
What causes climate change is burning them and releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
If you use it to create fertilizer, or plastic, or whachamacallit, it doesn't create greenhouse effects.
it's still putting energy into pumping it up. And what happens with the fertilizer, or plastic, or whachamacallit? It gets consumed.
The fertilizer best case becomes plant, gets eaten, pooped out yada yada eventually it becomes the greenhouse gasses. Worst case it's spilled into the environment as overfertilizing runoff, where it offsets soil balance which helps to release... greenhouse gasses.
The plastic: after use: what happens with it? It gets burned best case, which will release greenhouse gasses. Or it end up in the ocean, not greenhouse i guess, but also not that fun.
When we extract fossil carbon from deep down to the surface, there is a very high chance it will become greenhouse gas. Some of it becomes greenhouse gas almost immediately, some of it only after a few decades, but it's still offsetting the balance of the globe and adding to climate change.
Fossil fuels are not evil by themselves (how can anything without consciousness be evil?), but many other uses than burning it to go vroom vroom also pose problems to global environmental systems, many uses will also end into processes that will also have negative influence on greenhouse gas situation. Plastic is a miracle material with many very good uses, but the way it is still mostly used now (use once, throw out, burn) is still adding greenhouse gasses.
Fertilizer helps plants grow (and bind carbon from the atmosphere). Doesn't "become plant". Poop doesn't become greenhouse gasses. Poop will exist anyway, with or without fertilizer. You got most of it wrong.
PS: Plastic can be recycled as well. Even if it's not, you just don't burn it at the end.
That's even more of a reason to focus on buyers rather than sellers.
Should must be china and the usa
Godammit. I've boycotted Exxon and BP, for their negligence that led to spills, for a long time. I knew shell probably wasn't much better but I've preferred them anyhow. Turns out I was helping the worst offender. Awesome.
These companies are monopolies, they can't be significantly materially affected by a consumer boycott. Most of their customers are in industry anyways. Any boycott against them is more about raising awareness than achieving something, it's a diffuse form of political education.
To take on the fossil fuel industry requires having control over big levers at the top of the economy. Those levers are currently pulled, anarchically, by capital, not actual humans. Capital pulls those levers and spurns its highest level servants to get out of the way or feed it more bodies. To end this society-wide violence we must displace capital, it must not be in charge. We must be in charge.
It in fact doesn't matter much which one you buy from, they all sell the same product and the product they sell is the problem.
Yes, it's impossible to effect change as a single person so government action is needed... But the necessary consequence of that is that we also stop consuming as much fuel.
if it's impossible to affect change as a single person, then why do anything at all? Why bother to vote? I hear this logic all the time and it doesn't make sense to me.
- "Don't bother making personal changes, voting will save us!"
- people vote for Trump
- "Wait not like that"
That's not to say that public policy is pointless. "Tragedy of the commons" tells us that regulation is necessary. But I think the framing is wrong. The culprit here is not oil companies. It's oil. If you tell people "oil companies are evil", and tax the oil companies more, these people are just going to get mad when the taxes trickle down to them in the form of higher gas prices.
The correct framing is "Oil and gas cost more to us, than the cost of simply digging it out of the ground. The added taxes are to reflect the true cost". Then people will understand why gas prices need to go up.
Then add on some Infographics and memes that show how much more efficient public transit is. How solar panels pay off over the long term. Etc. Because personal responsibility does in fact make a difference.
"tragedy of the commons" is capitalist myth making
~~Just a friendly heads up, it's affect, not effect.~~
~~The way I remember it is affect is an action, and effect is the result of an action. English is dumb.~~
I was confidently incorrect. See below.
No, they used effect in its verb form correctly.
effect
effected; effecting; effects
1: to succeed in doing or achieving (something) : to cause or bring about (something) : accomplish
effect a transformation in company culture
effected a settlement of the dispute
… a powerful reminder of the potential of technology to effect change.—Chris Gallagher
2: to put into operation
the duty of the legislature to effect the will of the citizens
… an executive grant of clemency … to effect the prisoner swap.—Eric Tucker et al.<
English! 😆
Your point should be that usually "affect" is the verb and "effect" is the noun. I'm having trouble coming up with a mnemonic device, but at least these can be pronounced slightly differently.
Thank you for the correction!
And you base that on... a shitpost on lemmy without a source or even a damn label? It's literally bunch of rectangles.
Cool, you're a jerk.
Shell is an evil demon corporation.
Whoah there, give demons some slack. They aren't destroying life as we know it on a global scale just for a few extra bucks
Who buys and burns most of the fuel they create and why?
- Industry that produces commodities for sale in rich Western countries.
- Industry, military, and direct individual consumption in rich Western countries.
The cause of this is not individual consumer choices, it is capitalism - it seeks to increase capital and nothing else. Capital does not care about the emissions of growing fruit in Central America, packaging in Thailand, and selling in Germany. It cares that you buy the fruit cup for more than they spent on it. And to make that happen, capital had to force wages and production to be depressed and scattered across the globe. And it's not going to waste money on making the processes themselves independent of fossil fuels so long as fossil fuel prices are low enough - and it keeps them low by constantly seeking more extraction for profit.
All these companies make things for people to buy.
That means the people buying the things are not blameless either.
If you want to have a conversation you'll need to reply to what I actually said.
I chose to explain to you why your comment failed to reply to what I said.
My comment directly replied to what you said. I numbered the bullet points, literally the first thing I wrote.
But you're defending consumer's choices to destroy the environment so you aren't replying to what I said you're replying to what you want me to say.
Your question was, "Who buys and burns most of the fuel they create and why?" and I answered it and explained how it works. It's mostly industry The answer is absolutely not simply "consumer choice", which is quite clear if you review my simple 2-point list.
Here I'll write it again:
- Industry that produces commodities for sale in rich Western countries.
- Industry, military, and direct individual consumption in rich Western countries.
The cause of this is not individual consumer choices, it is capitalism - it seeks to increase capital and nothing else. Capital does not care about the emissions of growing fruit in Central America, packaging in Thailand, and selling in Germany. It cares that you buy the fruit cup for more than they spent on it. And to make that happen, capital had to force wages and production to be depressed and scattered across the globe. And it’s not going to waste money on making the processes themselves independent of fossil fuels so long as fossil fuel prices are low enough - and it keeps them low by constantly seeking more extraction for profit.
governments and industry
Who buys and burns most of the fuel they create and why?
industry is speculating. governments are oppressing people.
"there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" has to me always been a clear call to reduce your consumption within a capitalist system. yes, it is these shit heads who shackle us. but when we reduce our dependence on them we begin the breaking of our bonds to a system that kills thousands every year
So I should starve to death so that the multinational conglomerates never have to face any consequences? Miss me on that one.
this is in fact the opposite of what i'm saying
No ethical consumption under capitalism, I scream, at my local farmers market. (Made up quote btw).
But yeah, fuck oil companies, they are real fuckers.
Farmer's markets, co-ops, and mutual aid all exist as forms of resistance to capitalism purely by making sure your dollars go to people within your community rather than get captured by the modern company store through Wal-Mart or Target. At the same time though, they are also not everything. It's a whole thing. Nothing anywhere is or can be perfect. The best we can do is the best we can do. I know that sounds like a thought terminating cliche but sometimes it's important to set aside the things you can't control and to focus on the things you can and have faith that the more people that do that the easier it will become to resist the horrors that surround us all
How is a farmers market a resistance to capitalism? It's in the very sprit of capitalism to increase efficiency and remove the middle man
capitalism is a way of organizing society such that the means of production are owned by private interest, and the working class is employed by the owners to produce goods. a farmer working their own land is not actung as a capitalist.
A farmer farming their land and sell it is absolutely participating in capitalism and moreso if they hired farm labor.
if they have hired labor, that does change the analysis, but selling the product of your own labor is not capitalism.
Increasing efficiency isn't capitalism; letting those with capital decide is capitalism. If you exclude capital and just do the thing directly, you're resisting capitalism.
most farmer's markets where i am have a heavy emphasis on community building and resiliency as well as income stabilization for vulnerable people with the bank's sword of Domacles hanging over them. of the three i mentioned, they are the weakest form of resistance but they still have a role to play, which is why Granges put so much work into making sure they are available to non members of the grange
I always hate that most people are happy to blame corporations, forgetting we are consuming that's why corporations are creating.
yeah, it is like blaming china for a pollution, when that pollution is externality of cheap shit we buy from them. it is our pollution in the end.
that isn't an argument for blaming the end consumer, because that problem is not going to be solved from the bottom, but it is also childish to pretend like we, the consumers, are not complicit.
You should read Terry Pratchett's Boots Theory. Many people don't have the option to pay more up front to consume less, if there is even an option to buy a more expensive but longer-lasting item in a given market any more.
Many people don’t have the option
well many do and they will buy cheap shit anyway. and i am not talking about boots, i am talking about people who have a dog, which is clearly non-essential expense, and they buy him shitty toy from temu. is that rubber toxic? who knows, who cares, look how cheap it is!
Well said
I agree. It's obvious to me that it will never be a tidy "it's just them to blame" scenario but people really want it to be, regardless. I suspect the downvote crew will show up soon...
The corporations blame the consumer, the consumer blames the corporations and everyone gets to consume and profit blamelessly.
Yeah, that's a nice fairy tales to keep burning the planet.
In reality the main consumers are a handful of rich people including those owning the corporations and paying off politicians and media while 95% of the people would not consume anything if not forced to do it and are also contributing only a miniscule amount to the total consumption.
Not true. Our cars account for more than 15% of the problem. Our meat is about the same. With just those two things, we are over the 25% of the "factor 4" from Rio. It is oversimplified, but it gives the idea: if the Ultra richs stop polluting, we are still doomed if the rest of us doesn't do something either.
Sure... people spend hours in congested traffic because they love their cars so much, not because they lack alternatives for transportation. And it's totally normal that I can pay less for 500g of cheap meat than for a 500g bag of rice, and that's not caused by insane subsidies for meat producers.
The issues are systemic and guess what... the majority is not in power to change the system.
The top 10% of people create something like 50% of the carbon footprint which means 90% of people create the rest of it.
No one's blameless.
But that also means that if the top 10% cut their consumption by half, we would have blown past the required targets to not have global warming pass 1.5° C, even if the other 90% didn't change a thing. And they would have still been engaging in massive consumption by anyone else's standards.
I also they've that a large amount of the bottom 90% are paying the top 10% to do it.
Also the difference between create and consume is important. even if shell only had 1 employee and 1 shareholder, that person would have many customers paying. you can measure both of course.
Wouldn't be us if they hadn't lobbied for decades against renewables
It's always easiest to blame someone else.
How am I wrong?
Yeah, we already knew how how propagandists operate. No need to spell it out what your are doing here.
What am I doing here besides pointing out that people buy things that corporations create and no one is blameless here?
You say this like buying only from sustainable companies is something everyone can just decide to do, and there haven't been decades of lobbying and propaganda against policy that would make it possible at a collective level.
That's true, if you're in a wheelchair then I can see an argument for the necessity of cars. But if you have working legs, you don't really need a car.
I'm not gonna ride 50km round trip daily to work on my labour job. I mean i technically can and did with my ebike, but as someone with the lack of time, the time loss is really significant.
The thing about your opinion is, you're assuming everyone work 5km away from home, or can reach it just crossing the street, but the reality of what we're in now, is people often live far from their job because the rent is (significantly) cheaper, room is bigger, and they already have a car, and have near zero public transit availability. There's many lazy people who wouldn't walk 500m, but there's even more people who aren't given a chance to pick their mode of transport.
You live 50 kilometres from your workplace?? What a bunch of bourgeois decadence! Never in human history has that been a sustainable lifestyle choice, except when there was a railway. Other people pay the price for that luxury.
Round trip, that's 25km one way.
And i don't decide that. If i were to live near my workplace, house will cost 3 times more, and rent will be doubled than what i paid monthly for my house loan. If i have the money, i would definitely live in the city, but i don't. Not everyone born and live in a paradise where rent is cheap and public transport is everywhere you know.
because not purchasing anything that is produced or transported with energy from fossil fuels means fucking off into the woods to starve to death naked in a hut made of mud and twigs
As if there is nothing in between "don't do anything" and "go live in the woods"
Exactly. Cutting out all net resource consumption is really difficult, but almost all of the difficulty tends to come in the second half. The first half is worth doing.
Somewhat counterintuitively, switching from a 15 mpg vehicle to a 20 mpg vehicle (and driving the same number of miles) represents a greater reduction in fuel consumption compared to switching from 20 mpg to 30 mpg. Side note, this is also why we probably should've always been talking about fuel consumption per unit distance rather than distance per unit fuel, but it's hard to change the conventions around this.
So there are a ton of examples of products that use far more or less energy than alternatives, or simple changes in time of day that can make a huge difference in fossil fuel demand.
I understand and agree with your general point, I don’t believe it’s counter intuitive but accept than many people do. In any case, you used range distance disparities too close together to be accurate with a shift from a 5 to 10 mpg split. I'll just covert to a unit per distance, as you referenced (gallons per 100 miles):
- 15 mpg = 6.67 gallons per 100 miles
- 20 mpg = 5 gallons per 100 miles
- 30 mpg = 3.33 gallons per 100 miles
- 40 mpg = 2.5 gallons per 100 miles
As calculated upgrading from 15 mpg to 20 mpg would take 1.67 fewer gallons to go 100 miles while upgrading from 20 mpg to 30 mpg would also take 1.67 fewer gallons to go 100 miles. Upgrading from 30 mpg to 40 mpg would only further reduce fuel required to go 100 miles by 0.83 gallons.
Again, I agree with your broader point, 15 to 20 being the same improvement as 20 to 30 is likely just as impactful and also accurate.
if there's a minimum amount of consuming fossil fuels that's required to continue to live in society, and the goal is to eliminate that, then we need change on a societal level. individuals alone cannot solve the problem, and therefore cannot be blamed for the problem existing
Sure there probably is a minimum somewhere, but most people are far above that minimum.
I'm vegan and carfree. I'm probably closer to that minimum than most people in this thread. I looked up the stats once and saw that the average American produces ten times as much CO2 as the average Congenese person. Imagine that, ten times. If you're an average American, you can reduce way more of your emissions than that average Congenese person can! If you eat meat and drive a car, you've got so much opportunity for growth!
De-growth rather.
Are you an AI? It sounds live you live in a binary world.
It's actually the capitalist system as a whole. The large fossil fuel companies of course push for extraction and maximizing their customer base, but it is the entire underlying economic system that ensues it is wasteful and that alternatives for energy production are avoided or limited.
Let's go through some examples.
Just think about all the jobs on the planet. How many of them are actually necessary and doing work that prioritizes sustainability or limits environmental impact? How much is producing pointless goods or forcing them to be grown in wasteful ways in order to maximize profit? Is the fruit in your fruit cup grown in Latin America, packaged in Thailand, and sold in Germany? Is your job in or related to finance, real estate, or insurance (all useless or leech industries)? Are there 30 people doing a job when only 3 are needed because 5 companies are doing redundant hiring between each other?
Look at one of the largest single-entity consumer of fossil fuels on the planet: the US military. More than the vast majority of countries. Now you might say, "hey wasn't this about the economic system?", and yes it is. The purpose of the US military is not "defense" of the United States itself, its lands. The purpose of the US military is to enforce its unipolar status as the primary seat of global capital. Bases all around the world, surrounding shipping lanes and energy. Their most conspicuous targets revolving around either energy (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) or opponents of the capitalist system or peripheral countries trying to assert a slightly higher level of economic autonomy.
The reason for this is that the economic system is driven entirely by profit-seeking, namely accumulating more and more capital via injecting capital into activities. Productive, redundant, destructive, capital doesn't care so long as more comes back through the activity. Environmental sustainability is not something capital considers except as a new way to market selling more products and therefore increasing itself. Capital industrialized entire nations while dooming generations to lung problems from soot and famine conditions and dust bowls from over extraction and the elimination of the commons. It simply does not care, at all, and it is in control of nearly every human on the planet, including those who own businesses, pressing them into the capital-increasing social activities it spurns.
You could end every energy monopoly tomorrow, even nationalize them, and the vast majority of emissions would still remain, as the actual primary engine would be left intact.
The only way to secure an environmental future is to overthrow capitalism and put people, not capital, in charge.
US and Europe carbon emissions have gone down in the past 20 years, while China's has grown rapidly. China accounts for %35 of the world's emissions. Of course lots of manufacturing for goods happens in China, but this just tells me that capitalism is not to blame here, China is. China needs to raise their carbon taxes. Or maybe manufacturing needs to come back to the US and Europe, where it can be properly regulated.
nice stats, now lets talk about emissions per person - neat how you picked the stat that ignores the current state of things and only focuses on how even more emissions the west used to produce
also, the reason the wheels haven't well and truly fallen off of the global economy is because china has halved oil imports recently to avoid the ill advised us war on iran leading to an oil availability cliff. they (regrettably, but perhaps unavoidably) have used coal heavily (in combination with larger oil reserves than the rest of the world combined) to cut their own demand dramatically and abruptly to bail out the rest of the world
it isn't unreasonable to see china's short term reliance on more dirty forms of energy as a tool for energy independence (critical when the us can single handedly cause an international fuel crisis) being used strategically while china continues to rapidly switch to renewables at a rate that puts most western countries to shame
in short, maybe china isn't to blame; capitalism and neoliberalism is
I mentioned this in another thread which tried to use "emissions per capita", but that isn't a great metric because it is biased towards low productivity. We had very low emissions pre-1800s, for example. And North Korea has 4x less emissions per capita than China, are we supposed to follow North Korea's lead?
Also I hate how everybody constantly frames China as a poor helpless victim of capitalism. This was also mentioned in another thread here. China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s. And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions. They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
The US and EU have controlled their emissions, while China's continues to grow. China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
China has all the hallmarks of capitalism - widening wealth gap, massive housing speculation, horrible working conditions, etc. If China gets to use dirty energy as a "short term strategy" with some vague promise to do better in the future, then why not the West? We could call all the evils of the world just "short term strategy".
Capitalism moves manufacturing to a location with less regulation or the overhead from regulation, resulting in more profits for the capitalists. This is clearly not because of capitalism.
::: spoiler Spoiler /s for those who need it. :::
This is not a result of capitalism. It's simply the result of competition. Now if you want to erase country borders, that's a different discussion. But as long as one country doesn't regulate fossil fuel emissions, it doesn't matter what economic system they use, capitalism, communism, or whatever, they're going to be able to produce goods for cheaper. Because they're ignoring the real costs.
Most greenhouse gas emissions occurred when colonizer Western countries were industrialized. They were not "properly regulated", instead they were offshored in order to discipline labor and extract even greater profits. The offshoring was not exclusive to China, GHGs accordingly increased everywhere that further industrialized as a result of this. This effect is about as capitalist as it gets, trying to maximize profits via labor discipline and opening new fronts for increased exploitation (more profit per worker).
China's approach to this shift was to realize it was an opportunity to build their own productive forces, that capitalists would give up productive centers and move them to other countries, and those countries should be able to domestically gain and upper hand so long as they ensured that production could broadly increased with every investment. For example, China requires technology transfer as part of direct foreign investment. China was correct in this and it is why it is an exception to the rule for national development as a former peripheral country. Compare ita development to India, which did not require such transfers or focus on building production.
Now, again, this means that industrial production moved outside the imperial core and into other countries, including but not limited to China. That industry did not suddenly become green nor did it become immune to the global economic system. It meant being wed to it. As we all know China's strategy is one of interdependency with global capitalism even as they try to steer an otherwise anarchic process in a coherent direction via the commanding heights of the economy.
And yet we can see the difference those commanding heights make even on this specific issue. China is the global exporter and consumer of green energy, leading the charge on solar panels that countries like the US sanction and tariff, instead promoting fossil fuels. China is taking the actual steps you'd imagine Western nations doing (even though they never have), like setting public targets and meeting or exceeding them, and sticking to their obligations.
Imagine what could be done if every country could work in concert for those developments. Specifically, against the anarchic tendencies of the market and capitalist profit seeking.
Why are you acting like China is a poor helpless victim to capitalism here. China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s. And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions. They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
The US and EU have controlled their emissions, while China's continues to grow. China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
Why are you acting like China is a poor helpless victim to capitalism here.
I didn't. I gave a pretty dry analysis. Maybe ask yourself why that feels overly sympathetic to you.
China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s.
That's not a particularly accurate or useful description of China's gambit to allow (mostly foreign) capital to exploit its people to build productive forces while maintaining overall control over sweeping aspects of their economy. If China simply switched to capitalism one then has to explain why it is so different from every other capitalist country. China's trajectory is responsible for the vast majority of global poverty index improvements and this runs in dramatic contrast to the rest of the periphery that was already fully capitalist and continues to be. The redirection of funds and productive capacity to infrastructure, education, housing, direct poverty alleviation. The limits/outright bans on the financialization and speculation that characterize imperial core economies. The policy of embedding the party in large firms and turning developed industries into state-meditated co-ops. The lack of imperialist expansion required by monopolized, financialized capital. But I digress.
And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions.
Sure. They could set them to any arbitrary level. What is the correct rate for it to be sustained? Remember, they're almost alone in meeting targets among countries as advanced as they are. What level of production flight should they unilaterally sacrifice, if any, and who picks up the slack? At which limits do they begin sacrificing that production? Are their regulations too loose or strict for the optimal trajectory? Why are we focusing on one of the only countries meeting their targets and making progress on renewables?
They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
It is, in fact, not as simple as that and this ignores the active work and debate within China that produces the results we are discussing. They aren't making their targets because that's just what capitalism does. It's deliberate, literally a result of deliberation, research, modeling, and pulling levers at the commanding heights.
The US and EU have controlled their emissions
lmfao you can't be serious they can't even meet their own targets. France is the only one that ever does and it's because they became a primary source of nuclear weapons materials (producing low emission energy as a nice side effect).
while China’s continues to gro
[Edit: nearly] Everyone's continue to grow. The targets are set, at the moment, for when they will hit peak and then begin dropping. China's peak target is set to 2030 and they are slated to beat that.
China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
Which part of "the only ones taking this seriously" is not registering?
Everybody's economy is different, China is no snowflake. But I am not going to debate whether China's capitalism is "good capitalism" or not, that feels like pulling hairs and is a digression as you yourself said.
How much should China regulate? At the very least enough to stop the growth. I think that's a simple enough answer.
Everyone's continue to grow
Not true. The US and EU have been lowering emissions for the past 20 years.
schmalexa, adjust numbers for per capita emissions
I addressed that here
Everybody’s economy is different, China is no snowflake.
Actually it is. The trajectory of other peripheral countries is quite different. Compare to India, look at poverty stats when China is removed.
But I am not going to debate whether China’s capitalism is “good capitalism” or not, that feels like pulling hairs and is a digression as you yourself said.
You can't debate the topic at all, clearly, but sure want to continue making the claim that it simply switched to capitalism. Maybe don't say things your can't bc defend?
How much should China regulate? At the very least enough to stop the growth. I think that’s a simple enough answer.
It doesn't address the obvious trade-off I laid out. Why are India's Paris commitments currently greater than zero?
So, what was China's target for peak emissions? What does peak emissions mean? How are they doing regarding that target?
Not true. The US and EU have been lowering emissions for the past 20 years.
If you focus solely on production you can eke out such numbers, but it ignores the basics of imperialism and the aforementioned offshoring where industry doesn't just magically become green. Shuffling around where industry is located didn't decrease emissions by itself. Emissions targets do not stick exclusively to production and, I have to repeat again because you keep ignoring it, the US and EU are failing to meet their commitments. Yet you focus on one of the few countries that is. I wonder why. I wonder why you ignore 80% of what I say. Perhaps you should take a little break.
If you include consumption the plots look very different. And I'm not aware of easily available stats that track based on industry ownership.
The reason I'm not debating China's flavor of capitalism is because it's irrelevant. They don't get a free pass on carbon emissions no matter what economy they have.
And yes there's a trade-off, regulating fossil fuels increases production costs. That's the trade-off everybody makes.
Bottom line is that China's emissions are huge and still growing. They are meeting commitments because those commitments were low in the first place. For example China only commited to peak emissions by 2030. The US and EU never needed to make such a commitment because they had already reached their peak in 2005.
And yes they perform a large portion of the world's manufacturing, this "shuffling" of industries that you mentioned. But their lower regulations on emissions is precisely one of the reasons why manufacturing moves there. If they regulated more heavily, then some manufacturing would move out, but at least total global emissions would go down. Every country needs to participate in raising the cost of fossil fuels, in order for it to work.
Compare to India, look at poverty stats when China is removed.
i'm a trained economist and i don't know what this means. why would china be included when looking at india?
the voters who keep electing reoeresentives that allow this to happen ?
We're going to need bigger jails
Basically all of the political class supports the fossil fuel industry, "voters" do not have a ballot option for dismantling it. Some Green parties promise it, perhaps, but they will immediately run into larger economic challenges that require them to take a socialist analysis and approach and this results in them being sidelined by the actual master in these countries: capital.
It's worth stating that this is showing just the private company contributions (private as in not owned by national governments). State-owned oil companies of various nations contribute massively as well, so beyond the ~~bribes~~ lobbying problem there's a direct conflict of interest for many nations that get a substantial amount of revenue from those state-owned oil companies.
Exactly. Don’t spare the governments.
in fact this is in the lead of the shell wikipedia page:
Measured by both its own emissions, and the emissions of all the fossil fuels it sells, Shell was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 1988–2015.
Which makes the graph sort of misleading. Nationalising or abolishing shell wouldn’t solve the problem. It might help, but we need wayy wayyy wayyyy more than that.
Let's bring back this old trope:
GEKOLONISEERD
Fucking adopt renewables already and reserve the criminal calling for the people actively sabotaging the change.
Yeah, many of those people work for some of those companies, but their work is not producing barrels of oil.
As if oil companies aren't the tip of the spear of anti-renewable propaganda and climate change denial.
Striving to maximize profit is what companies do. Blaming them is not useful. Instead, advocate for and promote government policies that would disincentivize fossil fuel use, like carbon taxes.
When you're traveling through the desolation that is Midwest US, you'll notice there's a lot of shell stations. They're kind of like "Casey's" (except you hear about "Casey's" more because of the pizza) located in many small towns that have only a dollar store with a refrigerated section as the only source of groceries. Food deserts full of 200 pound children riding electric scooters while staring at their phone. It's terrible.
..I digress
A fun fact.. in the Midwest US; the reason so many small towns are 14 miles apart is that's how far a horse could carry a full wagon in a single day. So they built train stops every 14 miles. And somehow, 125+ years later, those lil towns still exist. They grow the corn that becomes syrup in candy and soda & whatnot. Also those towns all have a "Shell" station because of some backroom handshake deals done a long time ago.
Actually, it might've been 7 miles. Either way, 7 or 14.. it's true. Look it up :)
This is fantasy. Let the corruption run wild. Let the rivers of the nile run red once again.
They left of china and India...
Why are we blaming these companies when there's a much bigger contributor
Goddamn you really are just sinophobic for capital.
Why blame China? They do this so you guys can have crappy stuff that won't last because your country makes you too poor to buy local 😉
I'm sure you're joking but I do recommend reading Tragedy of the Commons, it's just a few pages long. Amongst other things, it talks about how regulations need to be applied everywhere for them to be effective.
That's all nice in a socioeconomic, or even philosophical, debate, but <gestures broadly at everything> nobody cares. We are like a locust-plague and we will end like one.
So the US, with 1/5 the population of China, produces almost half the CO~2~ emissions that China does? How much is that per person? I wish they could get that Chinese level efficiency, maybe they need more solar panels.
If you want to measure efficiency, population is not the way to do it, economic output is. After all, a person laying in bed does not contribute much to emissions, but also not much output.
The US has 3/4 the GDP of China with less than half the emissions. The EU also has 3/4 the GDP of China, but less than 1/4 the emissions. Both are far more efficient
China builds physical objects for the world. The US sells intellectual property, financial services, with far less manufacturing.
So no, CO2 per GDP is not a useful measure.
When your hospital or HMO decides to jack up the price of a medication, that's measured as an increase in GDP. When your car insurance goes up, that's GDP going up.
Information has tons of value. I'm not a fan of copyright but I also don't agree that physical products are inherently more valuable.
Also regarding insurance raises and other price raises. Prices usually rise when demand rises. So it's a measure of what people want. Much better than just measuring pure survival. Now if all prices rose, that would be inflation, and GDP accounts for that. But if the price of one product rises while the prices of others fall, that's just shifting consumer demand. Of course GDP isn't perfect since there can be monopolies, oligopolies, and state-controlled companies, but imo it's better than using population as a measure.
This is a bad faith argument. You are arguing the efficiency of a country based upon its CO2 per GDP. That's kind of a shit argument because GDP is a human construct. Global warming doesn't give a shit about GDP.
How much "value" a country produces based upon...what, exactly? How much it extracts from the ground? How much value other humans assign to those goods?
Capitalism got us into this fucking mess and you're still using it as the goddamn ruler.
If you want to compare states, fine, I guess that works as a proxy for cultural differences, but if you are going to compare the efficiency of the people within the state, you measure per capita.
Using GDP is just a shit excuse to be able to defend capitalism while simultaneously dismissing the fact that China supports more people with fewer per-capita emissions.
Energy is money, and US will use more of it per capita because we have more money per capita. That’s going to be true until there’s a massive economic recession or a technology that greatly increases efficiency.
Or you reduce consumption, but the line going down is not part of the plan for China or the US.
Fossil fuel emissions are also a human construct. We did fine before fossil fuels, and even coal. Population is a horrible measure because all it captures is if you are keeping people alive. Even North Korea can keep people alive. But people want more than just survival.
But fine, you want to talk about population? You're ignoring the second example I brought up. The EU has 1/3 the population of China and 1/4 the emissions. In other words, China is still the problem.
Edit: I just did the calculation, and North Korea is 4x more "efficient" than China if we are using carbon emissions per capita. I don't think population is a great measure, to say the least
Fossil fuel emissions are also a human construct.
Huh what?
It's a human activity, not a human construct.
What it essentially is, is sequestered carbon from millions of years ago, now being burned off and released into the atmosphere. Lion King's Circle of Life is essentially the Carbon Cycle, and lots of blades of grass don't get eaten. Carbon that returned to the earth in large quantities and under the right conditions became oil/coal, and now we are digging that back up and burning it for funsies.
But that's besides the point. The point is that each individual emits an amount of carbon per year, much of which was formerly sequestered. Some countries, each individual is using less than others.
The problem is that you won't be able to pull out a number that makes America/the west/Capitalism look good, because such a thing doesn't exist...so instead you just try to brush it off as "oh well our country is better because of this number".
It's xenophobia and nationalism. Not science. Not even statistics.
The problem is that you won't be able to pull out a number that makes America/the west/Capitalism look good, because such a thing doesn't exist...so instead you just try to brush it off as "oh well our country is better because of this number".
You're contradicting yourself here. You're saying I can't pull out a number so I...pull out a number?
I'm not even clear what you're arguing here. My point is that the US and EU emissions have been declining for the past 20 years while China's continues to climb.
Is that scientific enough for you?
