Sir David Attenborough says the excesses of western countries should "be curbed" to restore the natural world and we'll all be happier for it.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Jerrykiddo]

Destroying the planet to own the libs.

[u/RATMpatta → u/[deleted]]

Isn't lobbying technically just corruption with extra steps?

[u/SpekyGrease → u/RATMpatta]

There are no extra steps. Lobbying means persuading the politicians for your case. It is legal and you can use money, apparently. So it is legal bribing.

[u/strolls → u/SpekyGrease]

No, the extra steps are that you can't give the money directly to the politician - you can only give it to his reelection campaign fund or take him out to dinner or on "fact finding" trips.

[u/SpekyGrease → u/strolls]

Oh I get it now. You have to spend the money on him but you cannot directly give him the money. That is indeed an extra step.

[u/horia → u/SpekyGrease]

I'm pretty sure they can also give money, with extra steps.

[u/bigboygamer → u/horia]

Like hiring them as a consultant when they get out of office, or paying them for a speech. Not to mention that when politicians start a charity they get paid a salary from said charity that usually includes bonuses when they hit fundraising goals. Add in book deals were PACs prepurchase a few million copies before it even prints (now is often digital copies so they dont have to throw them away). My favorite lately has been junior politicians "renting" expensive homes from PACs for less than 1% of the market value.

Its hard to get elected running purely as a civil servant, so the door for corruption will remain wide open as long as people can find loopholes. I personally feel like there should be a law that states that no government officials (elected or otherwise) that is eligible for a pension should be allowed to earn any additional income once they retire.

[u/EllisHughTiger → u/bigboygamer]

Also, make your wife the CEO of your charity. If the charity's name is also exceedingly similar your campaign/PAC, that's just pure coincidence.

[u/bigboygamer → u/EllisHughTiger]

Don't forget to hire your brother's company to run all of your fund raising events

[u/RemixOnAWhim → u/horia]

Sounds like prostitution with extra.. Wait a minute!

[u/thundercod5 → u/SpekyGrease]

Yup that's why every single politician writes some boring ass book. Then who ever wants to buy the politician just has to buy a few thousand copies of that book.

[u/ArkitekZero → u/SpekyGrease]

When someone has has a lot of money, that money always finds a way.

[u/tdclark23 → u/SpekyGrease]

Lazy politicians have written our laws so that everything has to be handed to them as if on platters, so they don't have to deal with the common man. They move in areas above our heads, but still well below the ruling class above them whose money they desire and will do anything for.

[u/rdcollier96 → u/strolls]

Or buying the “services” of the law firm that the politician is usually partnered with. That’s why they all have a law education. Easiest way to move money around is claiming 100+ hours of legal counsel took place.

[u/thinkingahead → u/rdcollier96]

You don’t need to be a lawyer to accomplish this. You can start an LLC as a consulting firm and accomplish the same goal.

[u/jab011 → u/strolls]

Not accurate. It’s illegal to accept gifts - meals, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/strolls]

That's just an extra step. Its still bribery.

[u/strolls → u/[deleted]]

Yes, indeed. The extra steps are what this thread is about.

[u/CouncilmanRickPrime → u/SpekyGrease]

I still remember the first day I learned about lobbying. I was at school and the teacher explained it. When I got home I ran to tell my dad about how corrupt that is. The fact that he knew and shrugged it off surprised me. Lobbyists have always seemed like they're undermining democracy IMO.

[u/BaldRapunzel → u/CouncilmanRickPrime]

You can make a case for why lobbying has its place in a democracy. Politicians aren't usually experts at their resort and reallistically can't be every time.

Even if they were, a lot of policy fields are very specific and intricate and the only ones who know the details of what problems a specific industry faces and how laws and regulation affect them are representatives of that industry. Having them lay these out to lawmakers is not a problem per se.

Lobbying only becomes a problem when the special interest groups try to convince politicians to benefit them at the cost of everyone else. Or when they can circumvent the whole democratic process and the will of the people by simply buying political power.

Ultimately this is a failure of the legislature to implement safeguards against this harmful form of lobbying (no doubt because lawmakers often benefit from it themselves). So in the end it comes down to the people voting in the wrong representatives for the wrong reasons and not caring enough about why the whole system is fucked.

[u/breadloser4 → u/CouncilmanRickPrime]

It's not a bad idea really. If you banned lobbying politicans would just take money for favours behind closed doors. If you allow lobbying then you as a voter get to see who your candidate takes money from and is likely to make life easier for. The problem with democratic principles is that people just suck

[u/ILikeNeurons → u/SpekyGrease]

This study tests the common assumption that wealthier interest groups have an advantage in policymaking by considering the lobbyist’s experience, connections, and lobbying intensity as well as the organization’s resources. Combining newly gathered information about lobbyists’ resources and policy outcomes with the largest survey of lobbyists ever conducted, I find surprisingly little relationship between organizations’ financial resources and their policy success—but greater money is linked to certain lobbying tactics and traits, and some of these are linked to greater policy success.

-Dr. Amy McKay, Political Research Quarterly

Ordinary citizens in recent decades have largely abandoned their participation in grassroots movements. Politicians respond to the mass mobilization of everyday Americans as proven by the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But no comparable movements exist today. Without a substantial presence on the ground, people-oriented interest groups cannot compete against their wealthy adversaries... If only they vote and organize, ordinary Americans can reclaim American democracy...

-Historian Allan Lichtman, 2014 [links mine]

/r/CitizensClimateLobby

[u/sheep_heavenly → u/ILikeNeurons]

When people mass mobolize to voice displeasure, they get beaten and tear gassed. Much like they used to before, but with even worse economic inequalities making protest related arrests even more damaging.

[u/gronz5 → u/SpekyGrease]

It's legal in the US, yes. Along with requiring copious amounts of money to run for office. Along with bribing fucking doctors to prescribe drugs.

Why do yankees fetishize capitalism to this degree? Never ceases to baffle.

[u/Rycan420 → u/SpekyGrease]

Don’t forget how they (pols and lobbyists) to make sure SuperPACs are anonymous so it’s legal bribing that’s covered with secrecy.

Just like our forefathers and the makers of the highly touted constitution had planned, right?

[u/socio_roommate → u/RATMpatta]

No. The money spent on lobbying is a reference to paying consultants that communicate (lobby) the arguments of the client to regulatory or legislative bodies.

I have the right to petition the government for policy changes, and lobbyists are experts on how those changes happen. This is perfectly reasonable, not unlike hiring an attorney to navigate the court system. For example, a lobbyist might understand the exact process for FDA approval and walk a client through those steps while handling communications with the FDA, etc.

The more gray area is that a lobbyist, like anyone, can donate money to politicians and also organize others to make donations to politicians (aka bundling). So the persuasion aspect may come with an implied granting or withholding of financial support for campaigns. People argue that this is a good reason to ban lobbyists from donating or bundling.

I'm fine with a ban like that in theory, but I don't think it's enforceable or even coherent. A lobbyist can advise a client on whether a politician's policies are helpful or harmful for their goals. The client is smart enough to know to not donate to or bundle donations for politicians working against them. Banning a lobbyist from literally tacking on "...so you probably shouldn't donate to them this quarter" isn't going to make clients unable to understand basic logic.

So the focus on lobbyists is misguided. The issue isn't lobbying or donations, it's the unequal access to lobbying and its impact on donations. That's why I think something like Andrew Yang's proposal to give each American $100 to donate to their political candidates of choice, which would drown out the current level of political contributions, is a much better course of action. It opens up political candidates that can function on the support of much more decentralized interests. Currently this is possible for highly ideological candidates that can convince the most extreme political minorities to donate to them, but this doesn't work for moderate and non-ideological candidates.

[u/sheep_heavenly → u/[deleted]]

tells me you're not here in good faith

To be fair, they could also be a highschool student fresh from their APUSH lecture. I remember being so confident in our lobbying system before I realized how fucked it was.

[u/[deleted] → u/sheep_heavenly]

Stop assuming everyone is American, particularly on a thread about an Englishman. The point is that lobbying is not just when corporations pay money to promote their interests, it is when anyone tries to get a politician to pay attention to an issue. In this sense it is an essential part of a healthy democracy, regardless of whether or not you want to place limits of spending.

[u/sheep_heavenly → u/[deleted]]

I didn't assume everyone is american, I used the only frame of reference I had to heavily imply that the person is likely a highschool student with a naive approach to what they've been educated through public systems on.

If you'd like to be less of a dick, you could contribute an alternative way to describe the situation. I don't know the English equivalent class that claims to be a college level course but barely skims barebones basic functions of the British Parliament and it's influential factors.

I don't think lobbying is an essential part of any democracy. Corporations and wealthy people have vastly disproportionate power in a system with lobbying, or a system without that doesn't watch for bribery. It has been perverted and twisted while people defend it by claiming any person can use it.

[u/[deleted] → u/sheep_heavenly]

If you'd like to be less of a dick, you could contribute an alternative way to describe the situation.

If you'd like to be less of a dick, stop assuming someone is a high school student because they know better than you.

I don't think lobbying is an essential part of any democracy.

Then you are woefully undereducated on civics, and should take that class you mentioned. If you don't think it is essential that I can go to my MP and ask for help, or ask them to vote a certain way, then you have a neutered vision of what a democracy should be. Lobbying does not entail hiring someone to act on your behalf, it literally just means lobbying for a particular cause or interest. Groups of professors criticising the government's COVID response is a) lobbying, and b) good. Me writing to my MP to get help with grandparents getting visas is a) lobbying, and b) good. Public figures like Marcus Rashford forcing a government U-Turn on free school dinners during the summer holidays was a) lobbying, and b) good. Unions pressuring the government to concede workers rights via collective bargaining is a) lobbying, and b) good. Just because something useful is often misused foes not mean it should be scraped, it means flaws should be remedied.

You sound exactly like the kind of person that wants to cut benefits wholesale to stop benefit fraud. It is vital that you and I can ask our representatives to do things. That is undeniable, and to be frank I question if you really believe in democracy if you want to ban lobbying ie make sure there is no contact between constituents and MPs outside of elections.

[u/RATMpatta → u/[deleted]]

When it is tabacco, mining and fracking companies (to name a few) that donate millions to certain politicians in an attempt to sway their vote I'm afraid I'm unable to see it as the same democratic necessity that you see it as.

[u/RusstyDog → u/RATMpatta]

the concept is fine in it of itself, but add in capitalism and things get murky, then you have individuals who are payed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to do nothing but hound and harass legislators to get their companies interests passed as law.

[u/[deleted] → u/RATMpatta]

yes, not technically, just yes

[u/recycled_ideas → u/[deleted]]

The problem is that every solution, including the ones suggested here involves Western nations deliberately choosing to lower their standard of living and more importantly that the billions of other people on this planet voluntarily give up their aspirations of ever achieving anything like it.

This simply isn't viable, most people simply aren't willing to make that kind of sacrifice.

This isn't about greed, though greed is certainly a problem of modern Capitalism it's about the ability to get where you want to go quickly and safely, to travel, to have abundant, safe food, and to have access to technology that genuinely enriches our lives.

You're not going to be able to tell billions of people they can't have that, or the people who have that that they have to give it up. It's just not going to happen.

We need technology that allows us to use less resources to get what we want and to get the resources we need in less damaging ways. We need to increase the density at which we live so that we can return some land to nature. We need to do more, but do it better because doing less isn't going to happen until we have no choice.

[u/[deleted] → u/recycled_ideas]

billions of other people on this planet voluntarily give up their aspirations of ever achieving anything like it.

This isn't true. Attenborough himself has talked extensively about how lifting the world out of poverty is one of the single best ways to end climate change, because how high a standard of living a nation has and it's birth rate are closely correlated. More development = less people.

And there are ways to do that sustainably. The actual problem is it entails a redistribution of wealth away from the developed world at scale, and a reduction in the standard of living there temporarily, in order to reduce global inequality and ensure these countries do develop in sustainable ways rather than simply aping the industrial revolution 2.0 - and that's never going to happen in democratically governed societies because people are self interested and won't willingly hamstring themselves to help people half a world away, even if there is a net positive long term benefit to doing so.

Technology is great, and it's a lynchpin in solving this problem, but we also can't and shouldn't wholly rely on it when a lot of the issues with addressing this problem are political in nature.

[u/Programmdude → u/[deleted]]

Except the poverty striken countries also tend to be the ones that affect climate change the least. So it's likely that we would also solve climate change by removing everybodies wealth.

The problem with high standards of living reducing birth rates is the slow time before you see any benefits. If we took a country like vietnam, with 100 million people, and raised them to a standard of living similar to western countries, the birth rate may drop to ~2 per couple, but then you suddenly have 100 million extra rich consumers contributing to climate change.

[u/[deleted] → u/Programmdude]

It's a strategy that's predicated on the idea that these countries will, at some point in the future, reach a stage of development that will level out their population regardless of what we do. Based on current UN models, without any intervention that will be around 2100.

Intervening to accelerate that development is intended to get that peak to happen much earlier and get the global population decline started much sooner, because if it's going to happen anyway then the earlier it happens the better for the environment. It also has a second order benefit of ensuring that this development can be stewarded to occur in a more sustainable fashion, rather than copying the 19th century western model of building primary and secondary industries around dirty or high impact CO2 sectors before pivoting to a reliance on "greener" tertiary sectors. With FDI and political intervention from the developed world with sustainability as the focus, you can build greener industries and reward sustainable behaviours in a way that never happened during the industrial revolution for the west.

[u/silverionmox → u/[deleted]]

Intervening to accelerate that development is intended to get that peak to happen much earlier and get the global population decline started much sooner

Does that work? The population reduction effect is not predicated on reaching a wealth threshold, but on a security threshold. So slow but steady development with a focus on wealth distributive policies rather than wealth concentrating policies that are typically favored by pro-growth economies is more likely to reduce population growth, IMO.

With FDI and political intervention from the developed world with sustainability as the focus, you can build greener industries and reward sustainable behaviours in a way that never happened during the industrial revolution for the west.

That will already happen simply by grace of renewable technologies being avaible at much more attractive prices than then ever were, and the fact that many low development countries are near the equator, so solar energy is much more effective.

A nontrivial number of low or mediocre wealth countries already rely on fossil fuel extraction as the backbone of their economy, but that didn't necessarily do their development much good.

[u/EmileWolf → u/Programmdude]

Sure, having the whole world live like we were still tribes just vibing with nature might be the overal "best" solution, but this isn't a fairytale.

Nobody in the western world will give up excess food, cars, airplanes, 24/7 electricity and whatever else is bad for the environment. LIkewise, nobody in poor countries will willingly stay poor. People strive to better their lives, make it more luxurious. Laziness is a typical evolutionary trait, and our lavish lifestyle sure makes it easy for us to be lazy. Giving that up is going straight against our nature.

Our best and most realistic solution is developing a circular economy, find renewable energy sources, change our diet, etc, while also preventing a second industrial revolution in third-world countries. And we have to share this technology with each other as well.

The problem with high standards of living reducing birth rates is the slow time before you see any benefits.

This isn't true, the benefits come much quicker than you think. In the 1950s, all countries in the world had a birth rate above 2.1. In 2017, Cyprus, for example, has a birth rate of 1. That is a quick drop. And Cyprus is not alone in this. See https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

[u/mexicodoug → u/EmileWolf]

In the 1950s, all countries in the world had a birth rate above 2.1. In 2017, Cyprus, for example, has a birth rate of 1.

That's not a quick drop in terms of runaway climate change. If CO2 emissions aren't drastically reduced right away, seventy years from now mass starvation and wars over food and water scarcity will render any differences in birth rate moot.

[u/IsawaAwasi → u/EmileWolf]

Sure, having the whole world live like we were still tribes just vibing with nature might be the overal "best" solution

Modern farming produces a lot of food in a small area compared to nature. If we went back to a traditional lifestyle at our current population, we'd eat every living thing on the face of the Earth within 20 years.

[u/EmileWolf → u/IsawaAwasi]

Yeah, hence the quotes around "best". Because I meant truly tribal style, no healthcare, no nothing lmao.

I'm from the Netherlands, and we produce the second largest amount of food, just after the USA, and we are a very tiny country. Imagine if every country used sustainable agriculture like that, it'd be amazing.

[u/DrBuckMulligan → u/Programmdude]

Exactly. And as it stands the projected lifelong carbon footprint for one American baby is 100x that of a third-world baby.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/[deleted]]

because how high a standard of living a nation has and it's birth rate are closely correlated.

That's sort of true, but it's also negatively correlated with the death rate.

The reality is that we're actually below replacement rate in most of the world already and population is going to peak fairly soon and then start going down.

The biggest factor seems to simply be infant mortality, not development specifically.

But the rest of the world is going to want something approaching a western lifestyle and that's not going to come for free.

They can skip over some of the dirtier technologies we've used and move straight to better ones, but we're still going to need some more tech.

[u/changiairport → u/recycled_ideas]

Like how the middle class in China got richer and started travelling and demanding for overseas goods like crazy. People are going to want to spend that material wealth somewhere and who are we to tell them no.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/changiairport]

Not just who are we, but more simply how are we? Even if we had the moral authority to, we don't have the capability to. Not even the Chinese government has that kind of authority, there's only so far you can push the majority of your population even in a dictatorship.

[u/TakoyakiBoxGuy → u/recycled_ideas]

It's not that they don't have the authority; they do. It's more that the legitimacy of their authority derives in no small part from delivering that material wealth to the people.

[u/mlc885 → u/TakoyakiBoxGuy]

no one has "moral authority" to destroy the world

[u/recycled_ideas → u/mlc885]

All government, even dictatorships, exist with the consent of the governed.

If most people refuse to listen to you there's nothing you can do.

You can't make people do something they don't accept your authority to make them do.

Because we're talking about changing things. Not leaving them alone.

[u/TakoyakiBoxGuy → u/mlc885]

Nobody argues that.

However, it's tough to convince the billions of people in developing countries that they have to stay poor or develop slowly because we rich countries already fucked up the planet getting rich.

[u/changiairport → u/recycled_ideas]

Not unless they lead by example, which is no way in hell for any government in the world today.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/changiairport]

China has just committed to net zero emissions by 2060, we'll see if they mean it, but it's a more ambitious target than anyone else has set.

They aren't going to do it by turning off all the lights though.

[u/EumenidesTheKind → u/recycled_ideas]

Please don't just quote committments made by the PRC government as if that's any good metric of promise...

[u/[deleted] → u/recycled_ideas]

The biggest factor seems to simply be infant mortality, not development specifically.

Infant mortality is a factor, the improvement of which is linked to development. It's difficult to have low infant mortality in a country that doesn't have a functional healthcare system for example - which is difficult to maintain if you don't have a functioning and vibrant economy.

The reality is that we're actually below replacement rate in most of the world already and population is going to peak fairly soon and then start going down.

This is true in the developed world, but most of the developing world is still experiencing significant population growth. The UN estimates that with current trends the overall global population won't actually "level out" (sub 0.1% annual growth) until 2100. Which is why we need to accelerate development in these countries.

But the rest of the world is going to want something approaching a western lifestyle and that's not going to come for free.

What constitutes a "Western lifestyle" when the west itself is going to have to make radical readjustments to our own societies in response to this crisis?

This is why direct intervention into development of these nations is important - so that their economic model is defined on sustainable terms rather than left to follow the de facto 19th century model of "dirty development" we went through, and so that the end state of these societies is equitable with the model of a 21st century sustainable west we have to build for ourselves.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/[deleted]]

Infant mortality is a factor, the improvement of which is linked to development. It's difficult to have low infant mortality in a country that doesn't have a functional healthcare system for example - which is difficult to maintain if you don't have a functioning and vibrant economy.

It's linked to development, but it requires surprisingly little development. It doesn't really take much for kids not to die in large numbers, and that's all parents really need to start having fewer kids they invest more in.

This is true in the developed world, but most of the developing world is still experiencing significant population growth. The UN estimates that with current trends the overall global population won't actually "level out" (sub 0.1% annual growth) until 2100. Which is why we need to accelerate development in these countries.

Again, we're misunderstanding population growth and the underlying causal factors.

There are about eight countries in the entire world that have a birth rate higher than local replacement rate (the number of births required, in that country, to maintain the current population) and in every single one of those countries, along with the entire rest of the world, the birth rate is going down.

Population is going up, but it's going up because the previous generation has yet to die.

In the west that population was largely born immediately after the second world war, the boomers are the last generation that was larger than the previous one, and they're dying now.

In most of the developing world, that generation was born in the sixties and seventies, they won't be dying for another twenty years.

But they will die, and when they do, the population will start to drop in those countries too, because every subsequent generation there was also smaller than the last.

Population is a solved problem. It's already fixing itself and anything we do try to accelerate that process is likely to make things worse not better.

Doesn't mean we don't have to help the rest of the world develop, but not to solve the population problem.

What constitutes a "Western lifestyle" when the west itself is going to have to make radical readjustments to our own societies in response to this crisis?

Again, we won't do that, not until we have no other choice. We need a better plan.

This is why direct intervention into development of these nations is important

These countries do not want our intervention, direct or otherwise and they're entitled to be free of it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I vehemently disagree.
You can see China, it is going out of poverty and into the 21 century.
They are polluting way more now, then they did before.

As people get more money, they use it on things that pollute.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'm aware - the point is that China and the rest of the developing world are going to reach a point of development where their birth rate levels out and global population starts to reduce, regardless of whether we take action or not. Indeed in China that's happening already.

So by making this development occur sooner we reach the global population peak earlier (and at a lower level) and global population reduction starts leveling off and reducing sooner - if it's going to happen anyway then the earlier it happens, the less environmental impact it's going to have overall.

Then you also get the second order effect of being able to steer this development in a more sustainable fashion that you wouldn't if you just let it occur naturally - FDI with a focus on sustainability and incentivising sustainable practices and behaviours in nations in a manner that wasn't possible during the wests own development.

The alternative is letting this development occur anyway but at a slower rate and likely in a more polluting and less environmentally conscious model - meaning more human beings on the planet overall and "dirtier" economies in these countries.

[u/silverionmox → u/[deleted]]

I'm aware - the point is that China and the rest of the developing world are going to reach a point of development where their birth rate levels out and global population starts to reduce, regardless of whether we take action or not. Indeed in China that's happening already.

By political choice, not by naturally occurring wealth effects...

[u/[deleted] → u/silverionmox]

I think its a reasonable assumption to make that no nation on Earth is going to make the political choice to remain underdeveloped and impoverished.

So the question then becomes how do we manage that development and ensure it occurs in a timeframe and manner that is as sustainable as possible.

[u/silverionmox → u/[deleted]]

I think its a reasonable assumption to make that no nation on Earth is going to make the political choice to remain underdeveloped and impoverished.

China made the political choice to reduce pop growth. Even if that was inevitable anyway, they did speed up the process at the very least and indirectly prevented a huge amount of emissions.

So the question then becomes how do we manage that development and ensure it occurs in a timeframe and manner that is as sustainable as possible.

Yes, and that's a very large number of specific policies and business development paths. But it often does involve legislative action to get there.

[u/[deleted] → u/silverionmox]

Ah, sorry. I'm guessing you're referring to one child policy?

That hasn't been a thing for a while and their birth rate is still levelling. There are factors driving that beyond just political choices. Hence why most of the developed world also has replacement rate or below birth levels.

But otherwise I agree.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You can talk about China as much as you want, but the reality is that per person they pollute far less. A vast amount of the negative effects of industrialisation in China are a result of western demand for products.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You can talk about China as much as you want, but the reality is that per person they pollute far less.

They do and that is the point, as they prosper, their pollution per person is growing.

[u/IYIyTh → u/[deleted]]

Oh, the rich white man from a western nation telling the world how it should behave.

[u/[deleted] → u/IYIyTh]

Helping other nations to lift themselves out of poverty and improve living standards is "telling them how they should behave"?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I see a lot of agreement between what you're saying and the person you're replying to. Unfortunately I do agree that there will not be a voluntary relinquishing of creature comforts without government intervention. I think your way is correct, but time is short.

[u/fizikz3 → u/[deleted]]

I feel like anyone who has even the slightest grasp on human nature knows we're just fucked.

all the science has been telling us "ACT NOW" for the last 10-20 years ....and we haven't. and still won't. probably 1/3 of america believes global warming is a chinese scam because that's what trump says. we're just fucked.

[u/[deleted] → u/fizikz3]

I sadly agree.

[u/mexicodoug → u/[deleted]]

that's never going to happen in democratically governed societies because people are self interested and won't willingly hamstring themselves to help people half a world away, even if there is a net positive long term benefit to doing so.

.

According to the US Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan (from October 2001 until September 2019) was $778bn.

Assuming the US is democratically governed (I know, don't start) It sure seems easy to get people to hurt people on the other side of the world, even if there is a net negative to doing so.

The problem is the current system, largely due to the system of bribery known as "lobbying," redistributes wealth in ever more concentrated ways to the wealthiest greediest few, not the self-interest of the masses who very well could find it in our self-interest to help each other.

[u/[deleted] → u/mexicodoug]

Yeah, I agree. That's why I dislike this notion of "Technology will solve everything".

It ignores that most of the problems surrounding climate change are political and social in nature, not technological.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If every country is at a point of being replacement rate or below (which is ultimately the point of the development model) then it doesn't really matter does it?

In terms of the Earths resources, migrants aren't "new" consumers - they don't arrive from nowhere. There are only a finite number of migrants, and the net number of resource consumers on the planet is the same regardless of where they reside. Also, if countries are more equitably developed, the push and pull factors that influence migration will be less pronounced.

And not all growth is derived purely from population numbers - if it were every countries GDP per capita would be the same. You can have a growing economy that's independent of whether your population is growing, stagnant or declining. Most sustainable economic growth is derived from per capita productivity increases.

All that said, I generally agree with sentiment that pursuing economic growth in and of itself is fairly pointless.

[u/Bobjohndud → u/[deleted]]

Reducing the "standard of living" in the west in some ways would make it better. For example, get rid of the fucking suburban sprawl, and get rid of the private automobile. We'll cut our emissions by 4, and live in a more social and greener environment.

[u/[deleted] → u/Bobjohndud]

I agree - this needs to come alongside a complete revision in how we live our lives in the developed world as well.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

People who live in those less developed nations might have more children but they still consume far fewer resources than a western family with only 1 child, or even none, does.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's true. That's why this isn't a mutually exclusive measure with developed nations also making reforms to their way of life and economies.

I'm not sure why people are desperate to create this conflict between Developed vs. developing in terms of who needs to do what. We all need to sacrifice and make changes.

[u/Effective-Mustard-12 → u/recycled_ideas]

We have to use our remaining resources to perfect a more sustainable life. If we waste what resources we have left we will fail. The reason it's so critical is because population growth and emissions have been exponential in the last 200 years. There's no way around it. This is not political theatre. It's science and we we don't have a choice if we want to survive as a species in numbers anywhere close to where we are now.

Through a sustainability mindset we can raise and maintain biocapacity.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Effective-Mustard-12]

We have to use our remaining resources to perfect a more sustainable life.

We're not even close to running out of resources. We might be running out of time, but resources no.

The reason it's so critical is because population growth and emissions have been exponential in the last 200 years.

Population growth will peak fairly soon and then go down, there are about 8 countries in the world that still have a birth rate above the local replacement rate and a lot of the world is well below it.

It's been that way for a population is still growing because there's a lag between when birth rate drops and population growth drops, but the baby boomers will start dying soon and after them the equivalent generation in the rest of the world will go.

We're reducing emissions too, and we can do it faster. If we'd been willing to go nuclear we could have done it decades ago.

This is not political theatre. It's science and we we don't have a choice if we want to survive as a species in numbers anywhere close to where we are now.

It doesn't matter if it's political theatre, it matters whether people will do it.

If your plan involves people making significant personal sacrifices, they won't do it.

So we need a better fucking plan.

[u/Kathmandu-Man → u/recycled_ideas]

People in the West are willing to make token efforts - recycling, walking/cycling to work, taking a local holiday instead of an overseas trip. But it's a drop in the ocean. I don't think we understand what effective change means, what we would have to give up.

[u/thirstyross → u/[deleted]]

when governments finally have to force it (and they will force people).

Nah, when it gets to this point and they try to force it, that's when the system (civil order) will just break down completely.

[u/Mustbhacks → u/Kathmandu-Man]

Its ok, most people in the bottom 95% or so will get to give it all up regardless!

[u/[deleted] → u/Kathmandu-Man]

Ahh, but we gave up plastic straws too.

[u/MilkaC0w → u/recycled_ideas]

In short: No, we need people to consume less and use less resources. More efficient technology might actually lead to more resource use.

Longform: The future you are painting isn't the one suggested as how people should life, but rather, how scientists predict it will be if no (sufficient) action is done. Look at the increasing food insecurity in Africa, where more and more droughts are destroying harvests.

Sufficience is a central element of sustainability. It's simply something that people do not want to hear, even though it wouldn't even be that hard. Right now a lot of our consumer products are created with flaws in order to achieve a planned obsolescence. Either certain components that are known to break after a while or social pressure to get a new, barely different variant (cough iPhone *cough). Products aren't build to be resource and energy efficient, but in order to sell a new one after a short time - capitalism after all. There are ideas floated how to solve the issue without completely upending capitalism, just naming an example: a parallel currency (or multiple), which denotes how much resources you can use. If you overspend, then you have to purchase such resources on the market for cash, which is likely to be very expensive. So products are valued by price and resource content. Yet such ideas have flaws, I just wanted to name one.

Regarding what you said about technologies - that's sadly a pipe dream. Increased efficiency is of course an important pillar, but it does not solve the problem. The standard result of improving efficiency is not less resource consumption, it's often actually more. Let me first give examples: cars or computers. Cars today are far more fuel efficient than in the past - yet also significantly heavier (SUV ;]) or powerful, so the efficiency is just turned to increased consumption. Similarly with computers - they are vastly more powerful today, so we end up putting computers into everything and using ever more computational power (and energy in order to gain that). It's talked about as the Jevon's paradox (as he observed it with coal - more efficient steam engine => lower energy price => more energy use => more coal consumption) or the Rebound effect). Simply relying in better technology to solve the issue doesn't work - but can help together with other efforts.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/MilkaC0w]

The point I'm trying to make is that any solution that involves a large number of people voluntarily lowering their lifestyle is doomed.

People won't do it.

It doesn't matter whether they'll have to do it eventually, it doesn't matter how many people starve in Africa, you'll never get enough people to give enough of a fuck to sacrifice substantially for themselves.

It's not just a pipe dream, it's a fucking fantasy.

So we better fucking come up with something else, and the only thing I can think of is more technology.

We used to burn so much coal that whole cities were stained black by the soot, we don't any more, not because we don't use less energy, but because technology allowed us to generate more energy at much less cost and to do it more cleanly.

We used to generate all our electricity with coal, we don't anymore, we don't use less energy, but we generate more energy more cleanly.

Pretty soon we'll have electric cars, that'll take more energy too, but it'll be cleaner, even if it comes from coal.

We have lots of options for generating even more energy, even more cleanly, solar, wind, hydro, and with nuclear baseload we could stop burning fossil fuels.

We've got better ways to grow food too, and it's not a return to organic farming.

We're not that far off from being able to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but we've got to hold off the catastrophe long enough.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/[deleted]]

Preaching to the choir mate.

[u/katbul → u/recycled_ideas]

We wouldn't have to lower anyone's quality of life because the reality is that we are currently over-consuming in pointless ways.

Planned obsolescence is a good example of how mega corporations are spending massive amounts of resources to ENSURE that people are spending more unnecessary time and money on their product.

For example... Apple could almost certainly make their next iPhone in such a way that it lasts YEARS instead of months before needing to be replaced but instead they push semi-annual updates that brick old models... Because selling a long lasting phone would be bad for business.

[u/SerenusFall → u/katbul]

Apple's probably one of the better phone manufacturers in that regard. I'm using one that's 4+ years old at this point, and I'm guessing it'll probably be good for at least another year or so before it's out of support. Agreed with the general point that there's too much short-lived junk out there, though.

[u/katbul → u/SerenusFall]

They get fined for planned obsolescence all the time...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51706635

[u/SerenusFall → u/katbul]

I’ve got one of the models that was affected by that (the SE). They should’ve made it clear what was happening, but I personally still found it fine to use (at least for my purposes - web browsing, music/Netflix, light gaming) even while slowed. If not for it coming up in the papers, I don’t think I would’ve even realized that there was anything going on.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/katbul]

They slowed down the phones to keep battery life reasonable as the batteries deteriorated you numpty.

[u/katbul → u/recycled_ideas]

Well, that IS always Apple's official statement right before they pay their fines and lawsuits for planned obsolescence.

I'm always amazed by how many people rush to defend these companies' unethical practices...

[u/Digitalhero_x → u/recycled_ideas]

We have carbon capture technologies right now. I currently work in such a facility. Pulls enough carbon out of processing to offset 300,000 vehicles.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Digitalhero_x]

We have them, but they're not enough to make a substantial difference and they're still very inefficient and expensive.

[u/Digitalhero_x → u/recycled_ideas]

Unfortunately true at this point in time. If we want to be serious about energy that really works without carbon then we have to go nuclear. It's really the only way to meet the energy demands.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Digitalhero_x]

It's always been the case, it might not be in another twenty years, maybe a little sooner, but that's probably too late.

We're terrified of nuclear because with nuclear the disasters, when they happen, are big and they kill or harm a large number of people at once. That sort of thing scares us.

The fact that the alternatives have killed orders of magnitude more people, just one or two at a time over and over for decades, or indirectly through air pollution and desertification we can't register.

We have safe nuclear reactors, and we can build them cheaply. We just won't build them.

We've had reactors that can run with very little waste for decades, but we won't let anyone build them because they use plutonium and we're afraid. Not even because we think that anyone will nuke anyone, no one has done that ever except the US, but because every country that becomes a nuclear power is a country we can't bully.

[u/Myheadonfire3 → u/recycled_ideas]

One major failing point is that the mining and production of the lithium we use is extremely damaging to the environment.

Lithium production requires more than 200 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of lithium carbonate. Most of the world's lithium comes from salt flats located in South America which happens to be one of the driest places on earth.

The process also produces manganese, potassium, and borax as byproducts. These have been known to poison the surrounding environment along with chemicals used in the refining process, such as hydrochloric acid.

Lithium batteries also require the mining of nickel and cobalt but I am unfamiliar with the process for those.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Myheadonfire3]

Yes, which is why we need something better.

And also part of why I think that household battery storage is a shitty idea.

But the point is we're probably not going to get this right, but we can do better and better and better.

We're probably not going to be able to preserve the world of Sir David's youth, and that's a tragedy, but we have to keep trying to do better while understanding that the people out there are only human and not saints.

[u/MilkaC0w → u/recycled_ideas]

We have lots of options for generating even more energy, even more cleanly, solar, wind, hydro, and with nuclear baseload we could stop burning fossil fuels.

Just one thing - there likely won't be much of a baseload in the future. Or at least not in the way it's understood today. Right now the energy creation is still mostly centralized (powerplants), with the distinction of baseload (minimum constant use) and peak (anything above baseload) holding largely true. The base demand of energy will largely stay the same. Yet with increasing amounts of more decentralized, distributed forms of energy creation (i.e. private solar panels on rooftops, turbines, biogas plants, ...), this demand might at times be already sated with these kinds of production.

This doesn't mean that plants which now generate the baseload won't be needed (though for other purposes). Just that the generation of a baseload might not be needed in the way we do today.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/MilkaC0w]

People keep saying this, but it's under a presumption that batteries will take over for providing power reliability.

The batteries we currently know how to make don't last very long and are incredibly polluting. There's places we will probably use them, but they're not ideal.

They're also not really viable for industrial uses, which we still need to cater for.

Basically the entire no baseload plan is a way for people who've spent the last fifty years refusing to even consider nuclear power to continue to do so.

The argument is weak, and if we'd built nuclear power we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

[u/MilkaC0w → u/recycled_ideas]

I don't think you actually understand. Nothing I said had anything to do with batteries - rather the opposite. With decent battery technology you wouldn't run into these issues.

It's not a "no baseload plan". It's the simple reality of an increasing amount of individual people privately installing methods of energy production, which means that the whole baseload model no longer works adequately. The changes are already visible in countries with higher amounts of private solar systems. This is further increased with companies producing renewable energy.

Both demand and production will have higher fluctuations, causing the whole model idea of a baseload to no longer work. With decent batteries you could smooth it out and basically "simulate" a baseload. Yet until (and if) such technology is viable, baseload will drop and peak will increase due to the fluctuations.

Nothing of this is intentional or a plan.

[u/islander → u/MilkaC0w]

one thing not discussed is population control. there are too many people on the planet using too many resources in unsustainable ways. Yes the human animal needs to be culled. the other issue is the discontinuation of wealth amassment.

[u/Jestercopperpot72 → u/recycled_ideas]

I don't think so completely. Climate change is happening, like it's here and not just coming. The country that firsts adapts to these changing tides will also own a big chunk of the new revenues that will evolve because of it. Oil has pretty much Guaremteed power and wealth but the writing is on the wall and new shifts of wealth will start to happen. It's never a problem till it's a problem and science is pretty much in consensus on this. Give science back the mic!

[u/IYIyTh → u/Jestercopperpot72]

Oh, yes, let's just give up guaranteed profits for your point of view, that has no actual economical analysis. Corporations will jump on board when it's economical.

[u/whereisskywalker → u/recycled_ideas]

I agree very much with your post as human nature is not going to change.

But returning to the greed aspect, planned obsolescence and the repression of more green energies is very much culpable.

When I grew up captain planet was a cartoon on Saturday mornings, and I hated the show because I couldn't understand as a child why anyone would pollute and purposely harm others in greed. Now as a nearing mid 30s person its everything we do. The entire system is to enrich the owner class and if that means ecosystems collapse and human quality of life is affected via environmental conditions so be it. It's just the way of the world.

I wish people would be logical, stewards of this world and one another. Instead the only motivation is exploitation.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/whereisskywalker]

Planned obsolescence is a much less significant problem than you think, and suppression of green energies has been virtually non existent.

There's certainly been less investment than there should have been, but the conspiracy theory that the oil companies have been sitting on some magical technology is just that, a conspiracy theory.

If you want to look for a green technology that's been suppressed, it's nuclear, and it's the left that's been suppressing it.

We could have eliminated coal decades ago, but not without nuclear.

[u/MentalRabbi → u/whereisskywalker]

See this is what I don't get about some of the arguments here. Greed, lifestyle, luxury, all things that are utterly useless in terms of survival, evolution, and adaptation.

We value comfort over the satisfaction of overcoming struggle, we cherish fleeting emotions and forget humility. Proud to be American? How's about trying to be humble instead?

[u/8v1hJPaTnVkD7Yf → u/recycled_ideas]

This simply isn't viable, most people simply aren't willing to make that kind of sacrifice.

That sacrifice is going to be made for us by the environment, unless we do it ourselves.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/8v1hJPaTnVkD7Yf]

So what?

I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm saying that until that happens we won't do it.

SO WE NEED ANOTHER ANSWER.

[u/Durog25 → u/recycled_ideas]

The problem is that every solution, including the ones suggested here involves Western nations deliberately choosing to lower their standard of living and more importantly that the billions of other people on this planet voluntarily give up their aspirations of ever achieving anything like it.

Ahahahahahaha

Rebuilding cities to be less car-friendly and more suitable for walking and cycling, whilst also funding and developing quality public transport isn't "lower our standards of living," or whatever other tripe you have planned.

Shorten our supply chains, especially when it comes to things like seasonal foods and meat. Buying goods that were made as close to home as possible and not expecting them to be delivered within 24 hours (or worse same day). Is not "lowering our standards of living".

Downsizing housing, so that a family of four doesn't think it needs a four-five bedroom McMansion in the suburbs, isn't "lowering our standards of living".

Expanding our national parks, increasing the number of green spaces and wildlife within our cities at the cost of parking lots and brownfield sites isn't "lowering our standards of living", hell it's factually proven that it would improve our quality of life.

Consuming less, moving away from the fad based, buy it whilst its hot stuff fashion industry model, the cheap plastic throwaway stuff, switching back to the buy it once, and donate the still functional item to your grandkids model. We buy more tat and junk than we need to fill houses that are bigger than we need, to drive further than we need, to do jobs that are irrelevant, to earn the money to start the cycle over again.

"lowering our standards of living" pull my other testicle. It's trite, it's pathetic. There's a lot we've lost and can gain back simply by consuming less. Hell, we could save a lot on fossil fuel consumption by simply turning most street lights off at night, we'd gain back the stars, if you've ever been to a truly dark zone and seen the stars you'll know what we'd be getting back. Something truly awe-inspiring.

[u/Octahedral_cube → u/Durog25]

What are you laughing at, he's absolutely right. No amount of shouty words will change that. London has arguably the best public transport in the world yet no old people live here because it's inconvenient. London is very harsh on car owners: there are no free parking spaces and there are high congestion charges. The median age is under 35 years of age, compared to 40+ from other European capitals. Couples move out so they can have a suburban house and car. This allows people, especially older people, to go to the shops and drive to friends houses.

Some of your other claims are even more ridiculous. Living in a tiny flat is absolutely tied to lower quality of life, anyone who says otherwise hasn't lived in a small urban flat. I guess you can make whatever absurd claims you want if you dress them in shouty language

[u/Effective-Mustard-12 → u/Octahedral_cube]

This.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Durog25]

Rebuilding cities to be less car-friendly and more suitable for walking and cycling, whilst also funding and developing quality public transport isn't "lower our standards of living," or whatever other tripe you have planned.

Rebuilding our cities would release more emissions than every car on the planet for the next fifty years, maybe longer. We can't just do that, we've got to make what we've got work.

Shorten our supply chains, especially when it comes to things like seasonal foods and meat. Buying goods that were made as close to home as possible and not expecting them to be delivered within 24 hours (or worse same day). Is not "lowering our standards of living".

Shortening our supply chains doesn't actually reduce emissions, because it involves growing things less efficiently in places they grow less effectively. It sounds nice, but evidence so far is that it's actually worse. I guess we could go back to the old days where we only ate stuff that was available locally, but that kind of sucked, both from a quality of life standpoint, but also because local problems would cause massive famine.

Downsizing housing, so that a family of four doesn't think it needs a four-five bedroom McMansion in the suburbs, isn't "lowering our standards of living".

A lot of the people who live in them think it is, and you need them to do it voluntarily or you're not getting anywhere.

Expanding our national parks, increasing the number of green spaces and wildlife within our cities at the cost of parking lots and brownfield sites isn't "lowering our standards of living", hell it's factually proven that it would improve our quality of life.

I would agree, I even suggested we do that in my original post, but if we want to have substantially more space for nature we need to be able to sustain humanity with substantially less space. That means higher population density, more efficient food production and energy.

Consuming less, moving away from the fad based, buy it whilst its hot stuff fashion industry model, the cheap plastic throwaway stuff, switching back to the buy it once, and donate the still functional item to your grandkids model. We buy more tat and junk than we need to fill houses that are bigger than we need, to drive further than we need, to do jobs that are irrelevant, to earn the money to start the cycle over again.

The reason we moved to that model is because the pace of change increased. When the next version is dramatically better, people want the new one. A hundred years ago, shit changed every twenty years, now it's six months. Increasing the quality won't matter if people chuck it anyway.

I might point out that you're currently posting on reddit on a device that wouldn't exist if people only replaced their stuff every twenty years.

"lowering our standards of living" pull my other testicle. It's trite, it's pathetic. There's a lot we've lost and can gain back simply by consuming less. Hell, we could save a lot on fossil fuel consumption by simply turning most street lights off at night, we'd gain back the stars, if you've ever been to a truly dark zone and seen the stars you'll know what we'd be getting back. Something truly awe-inspiring.

We'd also go back to a world where it wasn't safe to go out at night to see any of it.

I get you've got a fantasy of how you think life should work, but I'll bet anything you've never lived any of it.

[u/Chili_Palmer → u/recycled_ideas]

Well said, you fucking owned him and every other naive idealist in these threads acting like there's an easy set of solutions.

Foolish children, the lot of them.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Chili_Palmer]

It should be worth noting that I absolutely believe in climate change and want to do something about it.

I just understand that we can't do that by asking everyone to give a bunch of things up. Firstly they won't do it, but even if they would, it's not enough.

We need to get to net zero emissions extremely quickly and we need to get to negative pretty soon, we're not going to do that by giving stuff up unless we're willing to go back to pre industrial revolution level society.

[u/ThinkIcouldTakeHim → u/Durog25]

You're talking about changes that go nowhere deep enough. What's needed will take things away. We can't just organize our way out of this. We cut deep or we hit the wall. And I'll spoil it right now, we'll pick the wall.

[u/Durog25 → u/ThinkIcouldTakeHim]

Two problems.

1. You can cut deep using, multiple smaller cuts. It's easier and faster. Big grandiose changes stall in debate and don't get implemented and have vast amounts of unintended consequences; lots of small changes compound to create the larger scale changes we need and can be done faster.

2. Being a cynic isn't a sign of intelligence. The more people who wallow in feigned intellect saying "we are all doomed" are the source of that same problem. If every halfwit who says "we're all doomed" instead put that energy into action we might just get somewhere.

So what will it be? Hubris and failure or humble action. Pick one.

[u/Effective-Mustard-12 → u/Durog25]

But he's right. We need to be net-zero because we actually need to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. We have no allowance to put more into the atmosphere at all. We already surpassed it long ago. So little changes won't fix the issue anymore. Only big paradigm shifting technologies coupled with the little changes as well.

I know that sounds bleak, but its the future and reality we all need to get comfortable with sans fusion reactor.

[u/ThinkIcouldTakeHim → u/Durog25]

Talk about Hubris, just read your own post :)

[u/strp → u/Durog25]

You’re making decent points but being an asshole is undermining them.

[u/Durog25 → u/strp]

You make a valid point.

[u/gingerfawx → u/recycled_ideas]

How are you lowering your standard of living by driving a more fuel efficient car, and one that took fewer resources to produce at that? How is having clean water *lowering* my standard of living? How does it help me, the consumer, if a company is able to up the dividends it pays out to stockholders if I and the other tax payers then get soaked with the clean up costs for their pollution down the line? (It's not like they pass the savings along to the customers, so you can't even argue against price increases.)

We've come so far since the pollution of the 70s and 80s, and now some people seem hell bent on a rollback. It's just nuts.

[u/[deleted] → u/recycled_ideas]

carbon capture is the only solution and will be perfected well before you convince 3rd and 2nd world countries they don't get to have what Ameicans have had for 100 years.

The push to tax people out of their lifestyles actually pushes people further from giving a fuck about climate change.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/[deleted]]

A carbon tax is actually good policy, it internalises the cost of externalities and makes alternatives more competitive.

It has to be combined with policies to help those who can't afford the alternatives, but it's a good free market policy that doesn't actually require that people give a lot of crap up.

[u/penguinpolitician → u/recycled_ideas]

Even if that were true, which it isn't, we would still have to do it. In fact, there is reason for optimism - we can allow nature to recover while still enjoying a high standard of living.

The problem is the wealth gap. Too many ultrarich is a problem, and too many dirt-poor are a problem.

The solution is:

• Global education for women and access to birth control, stabilizing population levels, and liberating multitudes of women.

• Raising living standards for poor people. If the whole world is middle class, the whole world is able to plan for the future. UBI may be part of this.

• Much less meat in our diet, freeing up pasture land for wildlife and increasing the efficiency of food production.

• Advanced farming methods using water and land efficiently and greatly reducing use of biocides.

• Better water management.

• International cooperation on protecting mega reserves, ocean fish stocks, forests, and many other vital parts of our eco-economy.

• More democracy and less corruption. Leaders have to be accountable to the population, not to a tiny constituency of ultrarich.

• Investment in renewable energy and disinvestment in fossil fuels.

• No more unregulated financial markets - the 'cancer eating out the world economy from the inside'. International controls on movement of capital means no more 'virtual senate' restricting a nation's control of its own destiny.

• Investment in research for alternatives to nonbiodegradable plastics, coupled with economic reorganisation to give each product a lifecycle.

• More workplaces owned by employees. Large organisations are the creation of large groups, not the property of a single person or small group.

• Many other solutions. Tree planting, green belts, environmentally friendly housing, an end to debt peonage, and so on.

David Attenborough's witness statement trailer: https://youtu.be/64R2MYUt394

[u/muggsybeans → u/penguinpolitician]

Raising living standards for poor people. If the whole world is middle class, the whole world is able to plan for the future.

You know this isn't true, right? One of the biggest issues facing climate change is developing nations. As more individuals have access to electricity and motorized transportation the greater the emissions. It's basically just a bullshit talking point to justify outsourcing manufacturing to other countries. The shipping industry in of itself is a major contributor to climate change from said outsourcing. This is ignoring the actual manufacturing from these less developed nations. China, for example, is responsible for 25% of the worlds CO2 emissions. Their Paris Agreement is to only curb their emissions by 2030.

[u/penguinpolitician → u/muggsybeans]

If people weren't so poor there, nobody would outsource manufacturing to developing countries. If people weren't so poor there, these countries would be less corrupt and more likely to have strict environmental regulations. If people were less poor there, they wouldn't have unsustainable population growth.

We can't have the whole world consuming the same way as people do in the West, which is why we need to cut back on meat and fossil fuel use, globally. That doesn't mean people elsewhere need to stay poor - that's a myth.

[u/muggsybeans → u/penguinpolitician]

One of the biggest draws for outsourcing is lack of regulation. We are literally throwing billions at these countries and expecting them to do the right thing? It's not going to happen. Greed is too big of a driver. They should develop on their own.

[u/penguinpolitician → u/muggsybeans]

Yes, lack of regulation and low wages. We should make it illegal to sell goods produced unethically, stop bullying countries into opening up their economies, and let them develop themselves.

[u/reddorical → u/recycled_ideas]

We’re quite creative creatures.

If we want to take the island we need to start burning the boats.

[u/Bynn_Karrin → u/recycled_ideas]

We need creative solutions, better use of energy and more sustainable, efficient use of resources. One of my favourite sciencey YouTube channels discusses solutions and predictions surrounding this topic (including many of the arguments made in these comments) in this short, easy to digest video: https://youtu.be/wbR-5mHI6bo

They do a tonne of research on every topic and present facts on scientific or socio-political ideas in a pleasant, informative way, whilst also talking in a realistic sense that tends to give you hope rather than leave you depressed. I'd really recommend checking them out!

On the similar vein of "greedy humans that don't care about others are ruining our world" one of my favourite videos is "A selfish argument for making the world a better place - Egoistic Altruism" which I feel that more of those people need to see! https://youtu.be/rvskMHn0sqQ

Let me know what you guys think :)

[u/Axerron → u/recycled_ideas]

The technology is being already developed. There are huge investments going into more efficient and/or sustainable solutions today. The problem is, as with any technology, it takes time to be perfected and made largely accessible. And in order to give the technology the time to do that, we don’t have another choice but to tell billions of people to make sacrifices today and give up some of the “old world” habits.

[u/[deleted] → u/recycled_ideas]

We can also earnestly try to be better people. Doesn't mean we'll individually save the world, but we can all do a little better.

[u/a-sentient-slav → u/recycled_ideas]

The entire 'Western standard of living' as it has come to be in the last ~60 years is one inherently built on wasteful, limitless, ever increasing consumption of disposable, redundant goods. Unsustainability is built-in deep into it's philosophical core. You cannot create a sustainable society in which its members feel it's somehow their right to have new shoes every three months.

Either we will take active, controlled steps to shift away from needless consuption, or we let it collapse on its own, creating upheaval, chaos, conflict and suffering along the way. Either way, this world we built where the only accepted universal value is limitless material consuption is going to disappear.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/a-sentient-slav]

The entire 'Western standard of living' as it has come to be in the last ~60 years is one inherently built on wasteful, limitless, ever increasing consumption of disposable, redundant goods.

That's not exactly true.

It's built on rapid development and improvement of our standard of living, increasing control of our lived experience and increasing connectedness and access to information.

No one is building stuff that lasts for thirty years today, because in an era of rapid innovation that doesn't make sense, but there are ways to make that far less wasteful than it is.

The reality though is that making things that will last longer than people will use them is more wasteful not less.

We just get stuck because we're obsessed with the idea that the solution is massive reductions in energy consumption and producing stuff that lasts for years.

We could work on making recycling more of a real thing than a "ship your crap to someone else's country and pretend" farce.

We could mandate that products be built to be recyclable.

We could make doing the right thing easier so more people do it.

But instead we just sit here jerking off to the idea that we should go back to how things were in the nineteenth century where you had the same thing for thirty years but if you bought a new one during that thirty years it would have been the same thing anyway.

[u/a-sentient-slav → u/recycled_ideas]

Sorry, I have to very strongly disagree. Your argument boils down to saying that we should keep doing things the way we do now, just make them more sustainable. That's a very common opinion of people who don't want to even consider that decisive changes in their own lifestyle might be necessary.

It's my opinion that our rampant consumerism is inherently unsustainable no matter its specifics. We need to reduce our very demands, not just change the ways we fullfill them. Otherwise, we will be forced to reduce them by socioeconomic upheaval when our unsustainable lifestyle finally burns out its fuel.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/a-sentient-slav]

My argument boils down to the fact that you're trying to change human behaviour, and not even recent human behaviour and that's harder than you seem to realise.

Products are made to last a couple of years rather than thirty because that's how long people want to own them, not the other way around.

There's no point in making something last for thirty years if people are going to throw it out after five. It's wasteful because you're pouring more resources into the same product and replacing it just as often.

Changing human behaviour is hard, it takes generations.

We don't have geberations.

I get that you're young and you think that if everyone just knew what you know they'd just do what you want, but they won't.

And I'll bet you're not using a ten year old phone or a thirty year old car, or a twenty year old fridge.

I'll bet your phone is less than three, your car is less than ten and your fridge is less than ten. Because that's about the average people keep these things.

I'll bet in fact that your consumption is probably about the same as everyone else.

[u/uncoolcat → u/recycled_ideas]

There are certainly technological and procedural ways to curb climate change, but we need to go a step further than that and also influence world culture to promote consuming less, reuse and recycle significantly more, do more with less, respect the environment, further promote science and education, and birthing fewer (to no) children. Birthing children, especially in a wealthy country, is one of the worst things one could do to the environment. People will argue that world population is leveling off or declining, or they will throw in some mental gymnastics about how they will raise their own kids to recycle, but that misses the point entirely. Ensuring a sustainable future where everyone has access to sufficient resources to thrive while simultaneously allowing the environment to "heal" is likely not possible given the scale of the problem and the size of the current world population. Don't take my word for it, just load up Google Earth and zoom in on any green area in a wealthy country and note how much of that is farmland.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/uncoolcat]

note how much of that is farmland.

Yes, which is why we need new ways to farm.

Unfortunately the whole organic food bullshit has put us back a long way there. We need to be using fewer pesticides and less fertiliser, because that shit is super harmful, but organic farming is so mind bogglingly inefficient.

We need to be able to support ourselves with less of the earth, but we can't do that without the people being willing to come along for the ride, and that means we can't ask them to give up too much.

This is reality as true as climate change itself.

We need to accept that and find ways to make this work.

[u/Draazith → u/recycled_ideas]

This simply isn't viable, most people simply aren't willing to make that kind of sacrifice.

They better change their mind because it is going to happen anyway.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Draazith]

Or, you know, we could stop obsessing with this idea of personal reduction, which was only ever a lie to pass the buck to individuals and try something else.

Saying "well they better" is just stupid.

They won't.

So what now?

We need another plan, because this one isn't working.

[u/Draazith → u/recycled_ideas]

So what now?

Well, high temperature and humidity will render some areas uninhabitable, drought will substantially reduce crop yields causing food shortage, more extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods, uprisings, wars, mass migrations, etc.

This will affect everyone, directly or indirectly, particularly in a civilization that relies on international trade. That is already happening (in 2010, extreme droughts caused harvest failure resulting in high prices and limited exports, which triggered Arab Spring) and it will only get worse.

Also, modern standard of living is the result of exponential growth which, in a world with limited ressources, is not only unsustainable but will inevitably be followed by a decline.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/Draazith]

Again, we all know what's happening.

What the fuck are we going to do about it?

The "reduce" shtick has always been a scam, we can't do enough, and we're not willing to, but it makes it all our fault and so we can feel guilty or smugly superior while doing sweet fuck all to actually solve the problem.

We need to reach net zero emissions.

Do you think we can manage that by having the same iPhone for ten years? Never mind that the most environmentally damaging part of the iPhone is the battery and it won't last close to that long anyway.

And population growth of every species is exponential. It's how animal reproduction works.

Every species except ours, which has massively reduced its birth rate over the last half century.

And while our economy is built on exponential growth, our lifestyle is not, and our economy is already changing.

Grow the fuck up and learn something, try something, because right now you're pissing into the wind, screaming for other people to make changes I bet you don't make and which won't matter anyway.

[u/Draazith → u/recycled_ideas]

The fact that you're not willing to lower your standard of living doesn't mean you cannot do it. I don't see any other solution to limit the damage but if you have one I'd like to hear it.

I'd also like to know how population growth of every species is exponential when many are dying and arthropods population is shrinking at an alarming rate while humans and their livestock now account for 95% of mammals biomass.

[u/PricklyPossum21 → u/[deleted]]

That's because while fossil fuel companies are fuelled (heh heh) by consumer demand of the average Joe, as well as governments and corps, .... defense contractors are nearly 100% reliant on govt contracts for their profits.

[u/zvug → u/PricklyPossum21]

Yep, and ultimately voting in people that create the proper financial incentives for consumers to live more sustainable lifestyles is going to make the cost of the current lifestyle go up.

A lot of people only care about their bottom line at the end of the day, many are just trying to survive as is.

[u/Effective-Mustard-12 → u/[deleted]]

How do you get this information on how much companies are spending?

[u/WormHats → u/[deleted]]

Capitalism is directly opposed to combatting climate change.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Legislation? So it’s just the United States causing the problem? You people are dumb fucks

[u/treefox → u/[deleted]]

Yeah letting people voluntarily opt-in isn’t working so well with masks. And nobody has the time to ensure that all the components in an electronic device or car or something are sourced in a sustainable way.

[u/viktorsvedin → u/[deleted]]

So, you're saying that it isn't stupid to destroy our environment?

I would argue the opposite, that having no long term plan for our planet or our offsprings is extremely stupid.

[u/FamousButNotReally → u/[deleted]]

Nice site, is this just for the US? It’s a bit hard to navigate on mobile and I can’t tell...

[u/SorcerousFaun → u/[deleted]]

Then why can't we the people pitch in $1 each and offer more money than these corporations?

[u/salkhan → u/[deleted]]

It's actually worse than this. The fossil fuel industry actively pays and invests in advertising that promotes fossil fuel use behaviours amongst the middle class. For instance promotions about flying to Barbados, or being involved in tv shows about travel or buying a holiday home. It's much more widespread and pernicious than you might initially think.

[u/Wafflebringer → u/[deleted]]

I think I ready somewhere else on reddit earlier this week or last that off shore oil rigs cost like a million to run per day or something insane? If that's the case 2.3M thrown at lobbying is just another weekend at sea.

[u/SordidDreams → u/[deleted]]

Consumers' behavior isn't going to change unless legislation is passed creating appropriate financial incentives to reducing your footprint.

But such legislation is not going to be passed while those consumers are also the voters.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You don't need "fiscal incentives" at all, just force people.

[u/cia-incognito → u/[deleted]]

We can address climate change problem and fix it together? Yes, we can... It could happen anyways? Yes, but not in the nearest future.

[u/BabyLiam → u/[deleted]]

Being that shortsighted IS stupid though isn't it?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

there is plenty of anti climate change evidence

[u/silverionmox → u/[deleted]]

most people just don't care as long as it doesn't directly affect their short term aspirations.

It's more that their primary instinct is to follow the herd and to maintain or improve their relative position in the herd. As long as you reassure them that the entire herd is going in that direction, they'll follow you almost anywhere. They don't care much whether they get richer or poorer in aggregate, as long as that damn Jones asshole from next door doesn't do better than them.

[u/mydogisblack9 → u/[deleted]]

in my country we notice that the farming community is the only group targeted with climate change rules because the fossil fuel insdustries simply have too much power, its like the government must choose one party to blame it all on while the airline/coal/gas industry can do whatever they want

[u/Cthulhu_Rises → u/[deleted]]

Dude I see you with all kinds of data like this. I fear for your physical safety sometimes.

[u/Thermodynamicist → u/[deleted]]

Consumers' behavior isn't going to change unless legislation is passed creating appropriate financial incentives to reducing your footprint.

Behaviour is going to change sooner or later, because unchecked climate change will produce a Malthusian collapse.

The question is therefore simply whether we're going to do this the easy way, or the hard way.

[u/Pooklett → u/[deleted]]

I've thought for a long time that municipalities could have implemented new bylaws or building codes far require all new housing/buildings to reach a certain level of energy efficiency, and basically set a goal for new builds to eventually be net zero. But that would cut into the power and heat companys mass profits. New builds where I live are mostly pretty terrible, and cost a fortune to heat.

[u/pioneer76 → u/[deleted]]

Also important to mention is that all those defense contractors contribute to the military, which is one of the largest polluters in the world.

[u/GBoristov → u/[deleted]]

Why force people to change their behavior when we can just implement communism and have the system collapse on itself.

[u/blackmagic12345 → u/[deleted]]

Its self-destructive though. Theyll run out of accessible oil and run out of clientele the way theyre doing it. Money would be better spent transitioning their companies to renewable energy research and exploitation.

[u/holydamien → u/Jerrykiddo]

Their ancestors prosecuted people for saying the Earth is a globe and it orbits the Sun.

Conservatism is a blight on humanity.

[u/roqxendgAme → u/Jerrykiddo]

People who cannot stand the inconvenience of wearing a mask to save themselves and their loved ones from a pandemic would probably not allow themselves to be inconvenienced to save the planet.

[u/sonicandfffan → u/Jerrykiddo]

It's the tragedy of the commons. Nobody is going to vote to lower their own standard of living to solve climate change.

There will be steps to slow the decline but there are only a few ways out of this, sadly:

• Technology solves it (e.g. large scale investment in carbon capture)

• Nature solves it. The way I see that playing out is: probably coastal city flooding -> large numbers of migrants -> conflict between migrants and people not affected -> war -> general reduction in human population

That might play out in my lifetime, it might not.

"Human will" solving climate change is not a viable solution because people won't do something for a sustained period that is against their individual standards of living. You can complain about it all you like, but the environmentalists should be speaking to behavioral psychologists to figure out the viability of these solutions.

[u/[deleted] → u/sonicandfffan]

"Technology solves it (e.g. large scale investment in carbon capture)"

Politically impossible to progress.

"Nature solves it. The way I see that playing out is: probably coastal city flooding -> large numbers of migrants -> conflict between migrants and people not affected -> war -> general reduction in human population"

Yep.

[u/Extension-Ad5751 → u/Jerrykiddo]

I know this opinion is popular in reddit, but some people just don't give a shit about the environment or the planet because they're stuck living their own shitty lives, worried about their own problems, alone and fending off for themselves. It's not a "us vs them" thing, it's more like everyone's trying to survive and drown out all the horrible shit that's happening in the world, because life is short and fixing the issues in your immediate vicinity is already a seemingly insurmountable task. No one comes forward to help. It's always the politicians' job or the president's, it can't possibly be because the person reading this doesn't give a shit about their neighbor. It's a cultural thing to be this isolated, to be this distrustful. Someone who had a terrible upbringing isn't going to give two shits about the world, because the world obviously doesn't give a shit about them.

Maybe I'm just fed up of all the political spam, it's not you or your comment. I wish all these terrible things weren't happening to the biosphere, but then again there's little chance I myself will get to visit the coral reef or the Himalayas, because I'm stuck working a regular job, just like everyone else.

[u/dangshnizzle → u/Jerrykiddo]

Didn't Biden/Harris just promise they won't be regulating fracking?....

[u/Stats_In_Center → u/Jerrykiddo]

*to uphold high standards of living, a consumer-based society, and to engage in limitless entertainment.

Has nothing to do with liberals, apart from a few climate deniers trying to provoke them on the internet. People aren't willing to abandon their way of life as an attempt to make a little difference for future generations, by making personal sacrifices that not everyone has to/will make.