This thread is the bimonthly open thread for discussion of climate solutions. A good starting point might be this clear description from Glen Peters on the feasibility of staying below 2ºC. Please stick to substantive points and refrain from attacking other commenters (as opposed to their ideas). The open thread for climate science issues is here.
Some of our fellow human beings think it’s just a game being played. A storm in a tea cup drama over what’s fake news and what isn’t. Thank god the Atlantic Council & Neocon psychopath Bill Krisol’s ‘The Weekly Standard’ are now the #1 Fact Checker on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and providing all that ‘professional academic’ resources to Bellingcat too.
Who believes people like that are going lift a finger generate any climate action in the US or anywhere online?
“Political theorists, from Aristotle and Karl Marx to Sheldon Wolin, have warned against the rule of the uber-rich. Once the uber-rich take over, Aristotle writes, the only options are tyranny and revolution.
“They do not know how to nurture or build. They know only how to feed their bottomless greed. It’s a funny thing about the uber-rich: No matter how many billions they possess, they never have enough. They are the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism. They seek, through the accumulation of power, money and objects, an unachievable happiness.
“This life of endless desire often ends badly, with the uber-rich estranged from their spouses and children, bereft of genuine friends. And when they are gone, as Charles Dickens wrote in “A Christmas Carol,” most people are glad to be rid of them.
[ and most people too stupid, too cowardly or to subjugated by the system the ‘uber rich’ control to stop them when they were alive! ]
“The state apparatus the uber-rich controls now exclusively serves their interests. They are deaf to the cries of the dispossessed. They empower those institutions that keep us oppressed—the security and surveillance systems of domestic control, militarized police, Homeland Security and the military—and gut or degrade those institutions or programs that blunt social, economic and political inequality, among them public education, health care, welfare, Social Security, an equitable tax system, food stamps, public transportation and infrastructure, and the courts.
“The uber-rich extract greater and greater sums of money from those they steadily impoverish. And when citizens object or resist, they crush or kill them.”
“There is no force within ruling institutions that will halt the pillage by the uber-rich of the nation and the ecosystem. The uber-rich have nothing to fear from the corporate-controlled media, the elected officials they bankroll or the judicial system they have seized.
“The universities are pathetic corporation appendages. They silence or banish intellectual critics who upset major donors by challenging the reigning ideology of neoliberalism, which was formulated by the uber-rich to restore class power. The uber-rich have destroyed popular movements, including labor unions, along with democratic mechanisms for reform that once allowed working people to pit power against power.”
“In “The Postmodern Condition” the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard painted a picture of the future neoliberal order as one in which “the temporary contract” supplants “permanent institutions in the professional, emotional, sexual, cultural, family and international domains, as well as in political affairs.” This temporal relationship to people, things, institutions and the natural world ensures collective self-annihilation.
“Nothing for the uber-rich has an intrinsic value. Human beings, social institutions and the natural world are commodities to exploit for personal gain until exhaustion or collapse. The common good, like the consent of the governed, is a dead concept. This temporal relationship embodies the fundamental pathology of the uber-rich.”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-rule-of-the-uber-rich-means-either-tyranny-or-revolution/
I see the US Govt has finally got the SCOTUS to halt the children’s climate action court case that Jim Hansen is behind. There goes that myth!
America the most crime filled dysfunctional judicial system and totally corrupt political system on the planet for decades. Climate science is not the only thing that gets denied in the US and the rest of the world! What a joke it is and yet still people are willing to swallow it hole and pretend if they juts keep fighting those deniers or going for a march on the street that by the power of positive thinking (or maybe miracles) the steps will be taken in the USA and the globe to respond to the serious calls of the IPCC about staying below 1.5C
DELUSIONAL …. it’s a choice – tyranny or revolution. And if the former then it’s back to learning how to “Duck and Cover” I’m afraid. That’s what happens when the psychopaths remain in charge of the zoo. :-)
Here’s another example of what the uber rich climate science denier class are really about …. and YOU are the target no matter where you live, becaseu that ius the reach of the unilateral US hegemony now.
The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they’re openly bragging about it.
Right after Trump’s election, back in December of 2016, Newt Gingrich openly bragged at the Heritage Foundation that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress were going to “break out of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt model.” That “model,” of course, created what we today refer to as “the middle class.”
This week Mitch McConnell confirmed Gingrich’s prophecy, using the huge deficits created by Trump’s billionaire tax cuts as an excuse to destroy “entitlement” programs.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/thom-hartmann-billionaire-funded-fascism-is-rising-in-america/
This information is every where in plain view and has been for decades. Maybe now would be a good time to finally stop ignoring it?
Do you really believe this has nothing to do with the UNFCCC, the Paris treaty, climate change non-action and non-leadership in the USA? That Climate change denial is a separate issue to everything else? That denial and avoidance only belongs to Republicans? That the Republicans and Neocon psychopaths are the only warmongers in the USA?
The “free market capitalist model” is going to drive energy innovation and climate change solutions and grass roots action globally? It’s gonna re-Green the planet? Really?
Without fixing the fixed system, nothing is going to be fixed, no genuine climate change action can be taken that will have the desired effect.
Victor and the obsessive small fry deniers all over the world are not the problem needing to be solved here and now. I contend that ‘YOU’ are;
Climate scientist or not.
—
Inverted totalitarianism also “perpetuates politics all the time,” Wolin said when we spoke, “but a politics that is not political.” The endless and extravagant election cycles, he said, are an example of politics without politics.
“Instead of participating in power,” he writes, “the virtual citizen (YOU) is invited to have ‘opinions’: measurable responses to questions predesigned to elicit them.”
—
The citizen is irrelevant. He or she is nothing more than a spectator, allowed to vote and then forgotten once the carnival of elections ends and corporations and their lobbyists get back to the business of ruling.
“If the main purpose of elections is to serve up pliant legislators for lobbyists to shape, such a system deserves to be called ‘misrepresentative or clientry government,’ ” Wolin writes. “It is, at one and the same time, a powerful contributing factor to the depoliticization of the citizenry, as well as reason for characterizing the system as one of antidemocracy.”
The result, he writes, is that the public is “denied the use of state power.” Wolin deplores the trivialization of political discourse, a tactic used to leave the public fragmented, antagonistic and emotionally charged while leaving corporate power and empire unchallenged.
“Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements,” he writes. “Actually they are a substitute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.”
“The ruling groups can now operate on the assumption that they don’t need the traditional notion of something called a public in the broad sense of a coherent whole,” he said in our meeting. “They now have the tools to deal with the very disparities and differences that they have themselves helped to create. It’s a game in which you manage to undermine the cohesiveness that the public requires if they [the public] are to be politically effective. And at the same time, you create these different, distinct groups that inevitably find themselves in tension or at odds or in competition with other groups, so that it becomes more of a melee than it does become a way of fashioning majorities.”
In classical totalitarian regimes, such as those of Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. But “under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” Wolin writes. “Economics dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness.”
He continues: “The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/02/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism
So what if anything has changed since 1956 (besides it’s warmed a lot)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite
The relevance / connection for this thread Forced Responses?
The Petro-Dollar, Abuse of Power, Corporate Profit, and the Addiction to Fossil Fuels
Pompeo Backed Yemen War For Weapon Sales Profit 23 Oct 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azx90nHiIeg
https://www.facebook.com/notes/helga-ingeborg-vierich/economies-are-trophic-flows/10156616880145833/
The mentioned study: https://www.scribd.com/document/391436603/Toward-a-General-Theory-of-Societal-Collapse-A-Biophysical-Examination-of-Tainter-s-Model-of-the-Diminishing-Returns-of-Complexity-Bardi-2018?fbclid=IwAR1_-3KH2aImRHHh-y3TSWRE5JRElDTwpfF5v7JdNAHtWLDvsyKZQ1rKvRI#download
The following is an interesting and positive eco village development in New Zealand.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=12143793
“The public are invited to share their views on the proposed 139-home eco-village in Pukehina.Public submissions for the Matuku Moana development, which aims to build 139 energy-efficient eco homes on 141ha of natural wetlands, open today.Matuku Moana project environmental and cultural manager Buddy Mikaere said the development would restore historic wetlands in Pukehina.”
“In our proposal every home will be offset with 1ha of wetlands, which act as a natural filter and help clean run-off water from local farms,” he said.
“The 139-home eco-village will incorporate the latest green technology. Each home in Matuku Moana will be energy efficient – complete with solar energy, solar hot water, water tanks to recycle grey water and will use advanced sewerage recycling and disposal systems.”
“Matuku Moana is a chance to prototype a sustainable model for housing developments; the Bay of Plenty will be able to hero this project as the gold standard for future developments in New Zealand and around the world.”
The environmentally responsible design of cities is essential, but makes for some challenges. “Regenerative city” on wikipedia is good information.
Having been involved in urban design for a period of time, I know some of the background. I would posit some simple principles that would point things in the right direction.
* Use renewable materials where possible.
* Use non renewable materials sparingly particularly, those in limited supply.
* Make houses energy efficient, and generally use as little energy as possible but still consistent with a comfortable life.
* Power houses from the sun, so use solar energy, passive solar design principles.
* Minimise or eliminate toxic waste runoff into natural catchments.
* Build smaller houses.
* Pay attention to minimising the need for cars.
There are other principles of course, but the longer the list the more confused people get. You also don’t want to get lost in esoteric definitions of sustainablity, because most people wont understand. You need to keep it simple like this.
Large houses do not in theory have to be environmentally damaging or unsustainable, for example if they are built of timber, but they tend to be damaging in reality because they will 1) require either a lot of energy to build, or will use a lot of human labour that could be better utilised in other ways, that in turn focus on good environmental outcomes 2) large houses will tend to inevitably get fitted out with materials that are less than ideally environmentally sustainable, such as aluminium joinery, lots of lightbulbs and so on.
From a practical environmental point of view, imho society needs to embrace small houses. My house is not large. Currently it looks to me like we are building as much space as possible mainly for show, with little consideration of how many of the earths resources we are using up that future generations will need. But neither should we promote the “tiny house movement” as being suitable for everyone, or going without basic technology or adequate heating and electricity. Causing oneself discomfort has never made a lot of sense to me. It’s more about finding a balance.
One of the greatest difficulties appears to be the debate between highrise apartment living and lowrise eco village living, because there are so may issues for and against both (although in the long term I tend to favour the ecovillage). In the shorter term, there maybe no ideal answer for every community, and it may be a case of building varied types of developments, and applying good design principles to both.
interesting story in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/25/liquid-gold-students-make-worlds-first-brick-out-of-human-urine?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=288493&subid=11249832&CMP=GT_US_collection
seems like it could be a good use of waste material that could produce a usable building brick material that has a much better CO2 profile than a kiln-produced brick.
A company called Carbon Engineering has developed and direct air capture method and a method for converting carbon dioxide to fuel for use in a carbon-neutral fuel cycle to displace fossil fuels. The methods are based on existing industrial technologies. They have had a prototype plant operating for a while. http://www.carbonengineering.com
In a new report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine call for a crash program to develop negative emission technologies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/global-warming-carbon-removal.html
Direct link to the report:
https://www.nap.edu/read/25259/chapter/1
Killian @250, I have never accused you of being a caveman, or of promoting such. You certainly provide no proof I have said that. If anyone lies on this website it is you, repeatedly, OR you are simply confusing me with someone else.
Why would you accept a couple of opinions that sea level rise could be over 4 metres? You have to be a bit wary of outlier opinions. The majority of the published science and modelling finds less.
Theres nothing to prove we would see exponential growth of sea level rise or disintegrating ice. Think man, the warming trend is moderately quadratic and projected to stay this way in climate models, so ice will melt in a similar way. The acceleration of movement of land based ice is very concerning, a disaster, but its constrained by friction and slope etc so its unlikely to be exponential.
You claim Im a climate denialist and I predicted 2 metres of sea level rise, well above the IPCC. Honestly you are insanely ridiculous in what you say.
You say the acceleration of ice melt is not in the western antarctic and its “The Antractic”. But most is in the western antarctic as in this article, one of dozens.
https://www.dw.com/en/rate-of-antarctic-ice-melt-triples-since-2012-study-finds/a-44213680
Go away and stop accusing me and numerous other people of lying, or I will track you down and sue you for defamation. I’m only replying now because I have to defend myself against such ridiculous allegations of lying.
Nobody is lying about you that I have seen. Your writing is unclear as numerous people have pointed out (Al Bundy, Zebra, Alan etcetera) and so people missinterpret you, and you think they are lying when they just missinterpret you. Its a common internet problem, you are not alone but you need to chill out.
Carrie theres some truth in the criticisms you post of the neoliberals, the uber rich, and Americas foreign and domestic policies (and the hypocrisy). However carbon emissions are coming from basically everyone who owns a car or gets a bus, which is a huge strata within western society actually.
Re #256 nigelj said The following is an interesting and positive eco village development in New Zealand.
It not interesting, it’s incredibly stupid #greenwashing that will massively damage the wetlands. It’s not positive, it’s money-grubbing, stupid #greenwashing. And ecovillage? Houses with solar power and wind power equal ecovillage? That’s ridiculous. Ecovillages exist within principles and guidelines that go far beyond where the energy comes from.
the development would restore historic wetlands in Pukehina.”
Then just restore the wetlands. Don’t use them as an excuse for a large development of unsustainable boxes.
“Matuku Moana is a chance to prototype a sustainable model for housing developments; the Bay of Plenty will be able to hero this project as the gold standard for future developments in New Zealand and around the world.”
Bull. Effing Shit. “Housing developments” are a huge cause of destruction of the natural world and cause of warming. Putting one in a wetland does nothing to change what it inherently is: Massively stupid, destructive human “development.”
There’s more, but this is enough to make the point.
but your desired goal is for humanity to live like primitives.
Go and become a hunter gatherer if you want.
So what you actually mean by simplicity is a subsistence lifestyle. Or do we evolve backwards even further?
Liar.
All such comments are an attempt to belittle what I, and a great many other people, understand to be true. Your comments are Straw Men, pejorative insulting, and, worst of all, stupidly not what has been said by me at all.
Was that clear enough? Again, people do not complain that I am unclear, they complain that I write too much. What you are trying to say, foolish one, is that I have been accused of withholding details. So, get clear on this, dumbass: Lack of info and lack of clarity are not the same thing. But you STUPIDLY ask me write about permaculture principles here, e.g., when that is not the purpose of this site and those principles can be found in mere seconds by googling them. Same with other things. And my interviews and graphic are easily found the same way. But you are a goombah. And a liar.
Come get me. My name is real. I do not hide, unlike you, coward(s). Prepare to pay me a great deal of $$.
Here’s another one.
But I dont particularly want to live like an ancient aboriginee if I can avoid it.
A very important development in climate policy: The government of Canada has decided to implement carbon fee and dividend in the whole country. See:
https://canada.citizensclimatelobby.org/media-release-canada-adopts-carbon-fee-and-dividend-to-rein-in-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR1ZjALw-_iJcSg8wwYk8nTNtfcZZTKI9L-zwEJHrl_rPdqEXkm_EwmhJQg
“Canada adopts carbon fee and dividend to rein in climate change
SUDBURY ON., Oct. 23, 2018 — Carbon fee and dividend, the solution to tackle climate change proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, has emerged as the default policy in Canada to price carbon and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming.
Beginning in 2019, Canada’s federal policy will put a rising fee on carbon emissions and return the revenue directly to Canadians. The federal policy is a backstop to cover the four provinces that have not initiated their own carbon-pricing policies. Nearly half of Canadians live in these provinces.
“For years, CCL grassroots lobbyists have pressed both the U.S. and the Canadian governments to enact carbon fee and dividend to bring heat-trapping emissions under control,” said Mark Reynolds, Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. “We’re thrilled that Canada is taking the lead with this policy, and we hope their decision will inspire the U.S. Congress to take similar action.”
The policy announced today by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau applies a tax on carbon starting at $20 per ton in 2019, rising $10 per ton annually until it reaches $50 per ton in 2022. Residents and businesses in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick, the four provinces subject to the federal tax, will receive rebate checks that will exceed the amount of the carbon tax paid by the average family.
Trudeau summed up the problem simply in today’s announcement: “It is free to pollute, so we have too much pollution.” He presented the solution simply too, saying, “Starting next year, it will no longer be free to pollute anywhere in Canada. We are going to place a price on the pollution that causes climate change from coast to coast to coast. We’re also going to help Canadians adjust to this new reality.”
He stated that a family of four would receive $307 with their tax return this spring. That will more than double to $718 by 2022. Using one province as an example, Trudeau said, “Eight in 10 Ontario families will get back more than they pay.” The policy also includes extra support for small, rural and remote Canadian communities. Trudeau emphasized that “every nickel” of the carbon pricing revenue would be returned to Canadians.
Since its inception in 2010, CCL Canada has lobbied relentlessly for Ottawa to adopt carbon fee and dividend, over the years holding 793 meetings with members of Parliament and generating thousands of letters to the editor and op-eds in support of the policy.
“We’re the little lobby that could,” said Cathy Orlando, CCL’s International Outreach Manager based in Sudbury, Ontario. “Our patience and persistence has been rewarded with an effective program that puts Canada on the path to meeting its global obligation on climate change. Today’s announcement is also an affirmation of CCL’s approach to engaging government with an attitude of appreciation, respect and being nonpartisan.””
It makes me very optimistic to read this. I think this may be the most important victory since the campaign to rein in carbon dioxide emissions began. As far as I know there is soon to be a new referendum on this idea in Washington State, US. In the last referendum there the proposal got 42 pct of the vores and lost only by a slight margin. I am myself active in an organization here in Norway to work for this idea. So far the norwegian organization for nature conservation and two political parties, both represented in our national assembly, have adopted the proposal. I look forward to hear from anyone about your opinion concerning this idea.
Killian @264
“But your desired goal is for humanity to live like primitives… (I expanded this to mean peasant farmers).Go and become a hunter gatherer if you want.So what you actually mean by simplicity is a subsistence lifestyle. Or do we evolve backwards even further?”
None of this accuses “you of being a caveman”, so you are lying and putting words in my mouth. You have consistently demanded pedantry on words, so apply some to your own silly rhetoric!
Look in the mirror: you distort things in the way you accuse others of. You abuse people in the same way you accuse others of, only more so.
Do you think your attempts to justify your self convinces anyone reading this website? All the evidence says not, judging by feedback from people.
262 nigelj says:
26 Oct 2018 at 9:22 PM
Carrie theres some truth in the criticisms you post of the neoliberals, the uber rich, and Americas foreign and domestic policies (and the hypocrisy). However carbon emissions are coming from basically everyone who owns a car or gets a bus, which is a huge strata within western society actually.
—
It’s unfortunate that nigelj seems oblivious to the ‘false equivalency’ in his own comments and therefore his thinking (or lack of it.) He is not alone as most people who positively call for some coherent action on rapidly reducing emissions and other actions to address the systemic warming inherent in the economic and political structures also fail to grasp the insidious nature of the combined major causes / drivers that block such positive actions.
While many do present the core issues in a coherent manner, and have done so for decades, they cannot make people think properly about it.
Killian @263 what negative comments. The eco village development is not perfect, and I never said it was, but it’s a step in the right direction.
It’s integrated in a useful way with the wetlands. Ultimately thats what we have to do, integrate workably with nature in a good way. Although some places can be off limits but not all need to be developed.
You have depicted and praised similar developments that dont meet your strict criteria on sustainability, but when I post one you criticise it and call it green washing. Such double standards.
For example I asked you for an example of a good sustainable low tech lifestyle, and you showed me a photo of a woman with a typical sort of rural cottage, and she had a digital camera and smartphone around her neck. This is after all your complaining about technology, and how its generally not sustainable. I had to laugh.
Karsten V. Johansen @266 Canada’s carbon fee and dividend is indeed good news, although they plan to continue to permit mining and exports of their bitumen tar sands and its refined oil. Not such good news.
Killian @ 265 ”
“Here’s another one.But I dont particularly want to live like an ancient aboriginee if I can avoid it.”
And I don’t, but this 1) doesn’t call you a caveman and 2) YOU have sung the praises of ancient aboriginees numerous times on this website. So why would you complain about being called an ancient aboriginee, or of promoting such a lifestyle?
Honestly I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. You would take the world record for being confused and inconsistent at times:)
I’m not making fun of aboriginees either. They could teach us a thing or three, and have been very badly treated by white colonists, but I don’t want to live a closely similar lifestyle is all.
Re #266 Karsten V. Johansen said A very important development in climate policy: The government of Canada has decided to implement carbon fee and dividend in the whole country.
“Canada adopts carbon fee and dividend to rein in climate change
SUDBURY ON., Oct. 23, 2018 — Carbon fee and dividend, the solution to tackle climate change proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, has emerged as the default policy in Canada to price carbon and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming…
“For years, CCL grassroots lobbyists have pressed both the U.S. and the Canadian governments to enact carbon fee and dividend to bring heat-trapping emissions under control,” said Mark Reynolds, Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
It makes me very optimistic to read this. I think this may be the most important victory since the campaign to rein in carbon dioxide emissions began.
Unfortunately, this is a silo issue, not an issue integrated into a long-term transition plan. There are a number of flaws.
1. It will lead to increased consumption by those getting a net-positive dividend – as well as those with a net-negative who do not and/or cannot do the accounting and so just see a big check and think since they got a big check, spending must be in the budget!, which will limit the improvements.
2. The money is simply diffused into the economy.
3. Enoughism.
4. It is self-serving and rude to phrase this solely as a CCL success. That’s ego and politics. It may be true they had a primary part in this, but a great many people have been promoting this for years. In fact, an early criticism I had of CCL is that they did not embrace this. I note, however, that Hansen is on their advisory board, thus… F&D. Good. But others got their before they did. They should have at least obliquely noted they are not the sole promoters of F&D.
Etc.
5. Siloing. Without connecting this to a much broader effort, it will achieve little. What is needed is comprehensive understanding of regenerative aka permaculture aka natural First Principles and an understanding of design process so that decisions are sure to fit within the principles and lead to regenerative systems in the end.
Unfortunately, despite this victory, CCL is an example of Big Green. one big tell? There is nobody on their advisory board who is an expert in Regenerative Design. They have a nuke advocate, but not a permaculture designer or agroforesty expert? I guarantee not one of the people on that board understand economics in any useful way. How can they lead without the guidance of *at least* one heterodox economist, such as Steve Keen, or one regenerative systems expert, such as David Holmgren, Geoff Lawton, or even an unknown like myself – who has produced a model far beyond what any of the people on that board has?
6. This is a BAULite change. The assumption here is economics changes behavior and economics rules human lives. It attacks nothing at the core of the problem and will do much less than it might to alter emissions absent a wider approach. What we need is a change from high consumption, not just FF consumption. It has been pointed out for YEARS that FFs, especially oil, are incredibly fungible. Electricity is not nearly so. You ***cannot*** have the same economy, consumption, products, etc., on FFs as not on FFs. And, no, technology can’t fix this with the possible exception of one day mining the heavens – which is something I advocate as *part* of a long-term plan.
All that said, it is a positive change. A bridge, not a solution. It is important people understand that. Were this part of a much broader program, I would be thrilled, but more silo efforts we do not need.
Carrie @268
“It’s unfortunate that nigelj seems oblivious to the ‘false equivalency’ in his own comments and therefore his thinking (or lack of it.)”
Ad hominem. If you and Killlian were half as smart as you claim, you would realise mocking people doesn’t convince them.
There’s no false equivalency in my views because I didn’t say rich people are a lesser part of the problem. I specifically stated the uber rich are a problem. They obviously get in the way, by lobbying governments not to do anything about climate change and there are other issues you noted.
I was simply pointing out to bear in mind emissions are coming from all strata of society, and whether the rich exist or don’t exist doesn’t change that, or absolve us from the need to try to also reduce our carbon footprints IN ADDITION to government programmes.
I also dont like this scapegoating of the rich.Its as bad as all scapegoating through history that always seems to end badly. I think criticism of rich people is fine, but keep it constructive.
I also note that you have mostly promoted Killians simplification ideology of people leaving the present socio economic system and starting their own low technology communities. So if this view is paramount, what do you really care about the rich? :)
Killian @272, I think those are mostly fair criticisms of carbon tax and dividend, and fair suggestions about having wider skills on the CCL board, but I think its important to give the carbon tax idea a lot of support, as I will explain. And to be fairly unequivocal about it.
One quibble. It’s not really an assumption that economics changes behaviour. Consumption taxes are proven to change behaviour, just look at tobacco or even quite small taxes on sugary drinks have lead to a drop in consumption.
The issue is we all want a change in behaviour towards less use of fossil fuels, and you have an argument to reduce use of materials and energy generally. There are only so many options to try to change human behaviour, such as word of mouth, education, trying to persuade people, force of law and so on. They all come up against one problem in that people are reluctant to change their behaviour unless everyone is doing the same, but everyone isnt changing their behaviour so the result is nobody does (or very few).
The main advantage of a carbon tax is it puts pressure on everyone to change because nobody can escape the tax. This is why its important to get right in behind a carbon tax fairly unequivocally.
Clearly at an intellectual level its not ideal, some of the money will be spent back on petrol, or other useless stuff, but enough is likely to be spent on reducing fossil fuel dependence to have value.
Ideally we need a tax on use of materials that are in very short supply, and that are not renewable resources. Sadly it probably won’t happen for obvious reasons, or not until the situation becomes dire. I think we will have to rely on education and POLITE persuasion of people to consume less.
The younger millenial (?) generation is showing some signs of changing attitudes from an article I read. They are valuing life goals, experiences, and travel more than accumulating huge quantities of possessions, and living in large homes. This may evolve into something useful.
nigel, shut up. Your stupidity is impenetrable. Now there’s a difference between “caveman” and “primitives?” Both are references to Stone Age, H-G lifestyles, you nincompoop.
The point is simple: You have tried to portray simplicity as a primitive lifestyle even though exactly nobody i have ever even heard of has ever suggested any such thing. God knows I haven’t. Yet, those are only SOME of the comments you have made like this. Did you say “caveman?” I think you did, but I got tired of searching. Perhaps it wasn’t you, or perhaps I mixed caveman with primitives. Who cares? Only a complete idiot would think there is any difference in your meaning, your intent, and the actual meanings of those two words.
That was your last chance. I tried for at least half a year to tutor you, for you seemed sincere. You have doubled down on stupid, lies, and fallacies. Now live with yourself.
Re #271 nigelj said, “I have rocks in my head.”
“Here’s another one.But I dont particularly want to live like an ancient aboriginee if I can avoid it.”
1) doesn’t call you a caveman
You are beyond help. I didn’t say you *called me* a caveman.
2) YOU have sung the praises of ancient aboriginees numerous times on this website.
And you still have no idea what I said. I have at no point ever suggested living like a an aboriginal people. Again, beyond help.
or of promoting such a lifestyle?
Because when YOU say it, it is pejorative: I wouldn’t live like THAT/THEM! It is nothing more than an attempt to paint simplicity as deprivation, brutish, hard, etc. It is a massive damned lie. I would never complain about being discussed in the same breath as an aboriginal people, but that is not what you are doing. You are trying to scare people away from sane action with purely pejorative, intentional mischaracterizations.
I’m not making fun of aboriginees either.
Yes, you are. Racist, even.
I don’t want to live a closely similar lifestyle is all.
Repeating the lie. I have never suggested anything like it.
Do not mischaracterize or lie about or distort my words in the future.
Re: #269 nigelj said Killian @263 what negative comments.
Accurate, not negative.
The eco village development is not perfect, and I never said it was, but it’s a step in the right direction.
You do not know what an ecovillage is. That is not an ecovillage, it is a subdivision in wetlands, and absolutely asinine.
Real ecovillages? Findhorn, The Farm, Dancing Rabbit, etc.
It’s integrated in a useful way with the wetlands.
No, it is exploiting a wetlands to sell boxes.
integrate workably with nature in a good way.
If it were, I would have supported it. But you are ignorant and know nothing of such things so are easily fooled.
You have depicted and praised similar developments
Bull.
when I post one you criticise it and call it green washing. Such double standards.
I have never supported anything even slightly approaching a subdivision being plopped down in a wetlands to sell houses to middle class fools via greenwashing.
For example I asked you for an example of a good sustainable low tech lifestyle, and you showed me a photo of a woman with a typical sort of rural cottage, and she had a digital camera and smartphone around her neck. This is after all your complaining about technology, and how its generally not sustainable. I had to laugh.
Because you can’t parse basic English. I do not complain about technology. I do not say don’t use technology. I do the opposite. However, I DO point out it is unsustainable so that people will plan long-term to use these things as little as possible to keep us all from going extinct.
All repeated… again…. and you still can’t sort this stuff out.
No more responses for you beyond a nice, pejorative comeuppance.
You disgust me, in all honesty and sincerity. Disgust.
Slavoj Žižek: Until the rich world thinks ‘one world’
One vision
Fukuyamaist liberal-democratic universalism failed because of its own immanent limitations and inconsistencies, and populism is the symptom of this failure, its Huntington’s disease. But the solution is not populist nationalism, Rightist or Leftist. Instead, the only cure is a new universalism – it is demanded by the problems humanity is confronting today, from ecological threats to refugee crises.
The second reaction is global capitalism with a human face personified in socially-responsible corporate figures like Bill Gates and George Soros. Even in its extreme form – “open up our borders to the refugees, treat them like one of us.”
Yet, the problem with this solution is that it only provides what in medicine is called a symptomatic treatment – a therapy of a disease leaves the basic global situation intact; it only affects its symptoms, not its cause.
Such a treatment is aimed at reducing the signs and symptoms for the comfort and well-being of the patient – but, in our case, this is obviously not enough since the solution is obviously not that all wretched of the world will move into the safety of the Cupola. We need to move from the humanitarian focus on the wretched of the Earth to the wretched Earth itself.
The third reaction is therefore to gather the courage and envisage a radical change which imposes itself when we fully assume the consequences of the fact that we live in ONE world. Is such a change a utopia? No, the true utopia is that we can survive without such a revolution.
nigel–
True. And in fact, the one is explicitly the political trade-off making the other possible. A while back, I linked to a story (in part) about that. And at that, there’s a lot of blowback from the Canadian right about the carbon tax; the Federal opposition is lined up against it, as is the new quasi-Trumpian Premier of Ontario. At this point, it looks as if Trudeau’s Liberals will probably win re-election, but it’s not a lock. As usual, we must hope that sanity prevails. Despite the efforts of an active denial movement there, most Canadians are comparatively well-informed on the topic, and aware that it’s a real problem that urgently needs addressing. At least, that what it looks like to me, from what I can gather.
273 nigelj says, blah blah blah.
You see folks, this is the problem with social media, blogs and forums. It does not matter how much one may try to lift the tenor and intellectual rigor to a higher ground there is always someone who will burn it to the ground with a couple of short posts.
Now of course, this tendency was actually covered in previous comments/quotes presented and here it is on full display yet again. The average Joe, like nigelj and quite a few others here and everywhere else online, simply cannot mentally grasp the sheer systemic complexity nor the insidious nature of the problem at hand.
You see, deniers who are politicians are not the only problem that undermines progress and significant change. There are far too many ‘niglejs’ in this world who vote. Billions of them in fact.
On forums like RC they have no option left but to repeatedly dumb everything down to their level as they try to defend their own ego and gross misconceptions. Making them a total waste of time and space.
It looks like we’ll get to see how fee and dividend works in Canada. It seems to me that there is a high risk of its producing more emissions, not less. The dividend is likely to financially benefit the poor and less well off. These are the people more likely to spend all/most of their income. The more well off may well be able to absorb increased costs, without reducing their spend. So the result of this move, alone, could grow the economy. Trudeau wants to do just that, of course. Unless the fossil fuel portion of energy used to grow the economy reduces faster than the economy grows (and that includes energy consumed elsewhere to provide goods and services in Canada) then emissions will continue to increase. Of course, Canada also wants to export fossil fuels to others, further offsetting any possible reduction in emissions.
I don’t hold out much hope for this move but at least it’s being tried.
Killian @275
“The point is simple: You have tried to portray simplicity as a primitive lifestyle even though exactly nobody i have ever even heard of has ever suggested any such thing. God knows I haven’t.”
Your definition of simplicity has not been clear.
You have repeatedly said humanity needs to move towards a low technology “bridge” lifestyle that is a “temporary thing”, and then move towards an ultimate goal of a “very” low technology lifestyle. Im sure I have heard you categorise the end point of very low technology as simplicity.
And what is that end point of very low technology, if it is not pretty similar to the lifestyle of either a hunter gatherer or early farmer, a primitive?
Just clarify what the hell you mean. It’s possible we have missunderstood you, and frankly you are just not always very clear.
Clearly over millenia time frames humanity could be pushed towards a very low technology lifestyle by circumstances, but I’m not sure I even care about millenia.
For the record, I have no problem with a moderately lower technology lifestyle than presently, in general terms, and I dont see it is primitivism. If this is simplicity, then fine. I initially thought this was roughly what you meant, but you said things that suggested otherwise.
However I think the suggested 90% reductions in use of resources are too much, with too many problems, and is unlikely to be widely adopted. It will be much easier to sell a lesser figure to people, and even a lesser figure will push things towards a steady state economy, make no mistake about that. Anyway its generally best to start with achievable goals, and build on that.
Carrie @280
“273 nigelj says, blah blah blah. You see folks, this is the problem with social media, blogs and forums. It does not matter how much one may try to lift the tenor and intellectual rigor to a higher ground there is always someone who will burn it to the ground with a couple of short posts.”
Nothing wrong with my posts. Take a look at your own, they are full of ad hominems, mocking, bragging, contradictions, and are devoid of your own opinion, and are mostly just cut and paste of other peoples often one sided, simplistic views, and empty hand waving without practical and clear solutions, eg @278.
Yurganov is back:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leonid_Yurganov/publication/328140107_Supplement_to_Methane_Variation_Over_Terrestrial_and_Marine_Arctic_Areas_IASI_Satellite_Data/links/5bbb4aa24585159e8d8c3030/Supplement-to-Methane-Variation-Over-Terrestrial-and-Marine-Arctic-Areas-IASI-Satellite-Data.pdf
Desperate to read some science to dilute the acrimony here? Try this for relief:
http://marvelclimate.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-whole-sum-and-parts.html
Molly Scott Cato MEP on “Why I’m turning from law-maker to law-breaker to try to save the planet”:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/law-breaker-save-planet-direct-action-civil-disobedience
Quote
As a Quaker, I don’t believe that spiritual wisdom resides in books or rituals but in the still, small voice that tells you when something must change. When the inward light, that I believe we all have within us, prompts you to stand up to a fascist bully or to engage in civil disobedience to halt climate breakdown, you have no choice but to follow….
It is no exaggeration to say that our survival as a species is at risk. Enough. Enough of words; of hypocrisy and broken promises. It’s time to act.
#281, Mike–
Don’t forget that the rich will still do *something* with money–basically, either spend it (albeit on things less essential than would the poor) or invest it. And investment still is stimulative. So I doubt, just off the top of my head, that there’s all that much difference in the macroeconomic effect due to redistribution. And don’t forget that the carbon tax is designed to be revenue neutral, which means that in (basic) theory you wouldn’t expect a macroeconomic stimulative effect; the stimulative side (rebates) just roughly balances the opposite tendency from the tax itself.
It seems much more likely to me that the overall effect will be as intended–ie., shifting spending from more carbon-intensive to less carbon-intensive goods and services.
Duly noted:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/29/us-coal-on-track-for-record-capacity-decline-closing-15-4-gigawatts/
The decline of US coal generation accelerates, despite the so-called president.
284/285 Hank Roberts clearly belongs in the UV thread, not here.
America’s Finest News Source on the recent polarization of American democracy:
“The analysis we conducted indicates the growing divide in political attitudes has been entirely caused by those dipshits in the other party,”
“Pomeroy stressed that the only way to reverse the troubling effects of polarization was for the dumbfucks on the other side to disregard all their life experiences and change everything about the way they think.”
https://politics.theonion.com/political-scientists-trace-american-democracy-s-severe-1830136614
Re #287 Kevin McKinney said #281, Mike–
And investment still is stimulative.
The tax is far too small to affect spending by the 1 or even 2%, imo.
So I doubt, just off the top of my head, that there’s all that much difference in the macroeconomic effect due to redistribution.
But bear in mind *speed* of money. A lot of wealth sits pretty quietly not doing much.
And don’t forget that the carbon tax is designed to be revenue neutral, which means that in (basic) theory you wouldn’t expect a macroeconomic stimulative effect; the stimulative side (rebates) just roughly balances the opposite tendency from the tax itself.
Except, if the loss is too small to be noticed by the wealthy or affect the speed of money, but even a small increase is likely to have an immediate effect on the spending of the 98%, it actually seems quite likely there will be increased consumption.
It seems much more likely to me that the overall effect will be as intended–ie., shifting spending from more carbon-intensive to less carbon-intensive goods and services.
While the wealthy do proportionately consume quite a bit more per capita, the effect of 98 or 99% of Canadians spending more will not be small, imo, which is why I have always advocated it being required that the dividend be spent on micro-energy and other FF/energy consumption reduction efforts until maximized. I orginally suggested a one-time grant to all households directly from the gov’t, but then the Fee and Dividend thing came around and that became the obvious better choice for funding.
We could so easily transition every nation on Earth…
http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com/2008/03/build-out-grid-vs-household-towards.html