Cont: Global warming discussion V

[Aridas]

Putting all the blame for stuff like this on Big Oil is a mistake, because it ignores that fact that a lot people would be anti-global warming anyway. We saw this sort of contrarianism with Covid vaccines - which attracted widespread opposition but not from 'Big Pharma' or other corporate giants with an interest in it. In fact the contrarians were against it in part because Big Pharma was for it!

There are contrarian scientists in every field, and they are not all lackies being secretly paid off by big whoever. Having research like this published is good because challenging the consensus helps to confirm it - or if it doesn't shows up issues that should be addressed. Even if such studies were funded by 'Big Oil' they should be welcomed, and thoroughly reviewed to identify their flaws.

Just for the fun of it -

Scientific consensus on climate change

There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific organizations, many of which explicitly agree with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis reports.

Nearly all actively publishing climate scientists say humans are causing climate change.[4][5] Surveys of the scientific literature are another way to measure scientific consensus. A 2019 review of scientific papers found the consensus on the cause of climate change to be at 100%,[2] and a 2021 study concluded that over 99% of scientific papers agree on the human cause of climate change.[3] The small percentage of papers that disagreed with the consensus often contain errors or cannot be replicated.[6]

Going a little further there, it's fairly certainly not wrong to observe that, of the tiny minority of official dissenters, an overwhelming majority fairly certainly have ties, often financial, to industries that would be negatively affected by measures to combat climate change, with big fossil fuel companies being especially prominently represented.

The existence of contrarians is worth remembering, of course, but in cases like this where there are huge financial interests in play and quite the extensive record of those huge financial interests engaging in various forms of systematic foul play to mess with the playing field as a whole, it's more reasonable to assume that this is more likely to be just more of that foul play and its effects than contrarianism.

Also, valid research that disputes paradigms and alerts of flaws and difficulties certainly can deserve to be published regardless of source, depending on its relative merits and potential space constraints, but deeply flawed research does not deserve to be published. Higher bars for scrutiny are also entirely reasonable to apply when there's obvious conflict of interests in play and problematic records.

 

[dann]

Two of the authors of the withdrawal study "were named as signatories of the World Climate Declaration, a text that repeated various debunked claims about climate change, an AFP fact check article found."

I guess there is reason to assume that this is another example of fraudulent science paid for by Big Oil.

That would be a WAG, not evidence.

Your powers of observation are remarkable. In spite of my attempts at misdirection, you manage to reveal that my guess wasn't evidence. It was actually a guess. Congratulations.

Putting all the blame for stuff like this on Big Oil is a mistake, because it ignores that fact that a lot people would be anti-global warming anyway. We saw this sort of contrarianism with Covid vaccines - which attracted widespread opposition but not from 'Big Pharma' or other corporate giants with an interest in it. In fact the contrarians were against it in part because Big Pharma was for it!

I think that the difference between the two cases, global warming and the pandemic, should have occurred to you: Why would Big Pharma spread conspiracy lies about their own product? The product they themselves are selling and profiting from? There is always reason to be skeptical of Big Pharma's advertising, but in this case the studies appear to be solid: The vaccines work! Not as well as we hoped for in 2020 and early 2021, but they still have a considerable impact on the virulence of the virus, and the side effects are negligible.

If you want to take a look at who spreads the conspiracy lies about COVID-19 and the vaccines, you should look somewhere else:
Jeffrey Tucker: COVID-19 pandemic and Brownstone Institute
American Institute for Economic Research: COVID-19
Great Barrington Declaration (Wikipedia)
The “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” promotes antivaccine misinformation (Science-Based Medicine, Jan 24, 2022)
My guess is that Jeffrey Tucker doesn't have much money (or Bitcoin) invested in Pfizer, BioNTech or Moderna ...

There are contrarian scientists in every field, and they are not all lackies being secretly paid off by big whoever. Having research like this published is good because challenging the consensus helps to confirm it - or if it doesn't shows up issues that should be addressed. Even if such studies were funded by 'Big Oil' they should be welcomed, and thoroughly reviewed to identify their flaws.

There are indeed contrarian scientists in every field and not all of them are lackeys being paid by Big Oil Big, Big Pharma or other Bigs. Many of them have their own vested interests.

The studies or the researchers of contrarian climate studies are unsurprisingly often funded by Big Oil, and those studies are thoroughly reviewed and their flaws identified, but much too often it doesn't happen until after they have been published in peer-reviewed journals. See post 897.

Your idea that "having research like this published is good because challenging the consensus helps to confirm it" is absurd. Faulty studies help sow doubt about the consensus, and they are spread on the internet and applauded by other contrarians and the Troll Army of Big Oil for a reason. And that reason isn't that they 'help confirm the consensus'. On the contrary.

According to your idea we should be celebrating guys like Andrew Wakefield for his contribution to the scientific consensus on vaccines! Or David Relman for helping make it clear that the U.S. diplomats in Havana weren't the victims of microwave attacks.



ETA: ‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us all (Newsroom.co.nz, April 26, 2022)

 

[dann]

They spend what the people who voted them in want them to.

That would be a WAG, not evidence, wouldn't it?!

I wish you had done some research and come up with the campaign promises of those politicians and compared them with their actual policies after they got elected.

This doesn't seem to prove your point, does it?!
With climate change a top priority for Biden-Harris administration, here’s what that means for fracking (Boston University, Dec 9, 2020)
No, Biden didn't just ban fracking (CNN, Jan 27, 2021)
Update: Biden Promised a Ban – He’s Doing the Opposite (Food and Water Watch, Sep 15, 2021)
Biden Fracking Ban At A Standstill Amid Global Energy Crisis (Earth.org, May 8, 2022)
Joe Biden Broke His 2020 Pledge on Fracking. Good. (Washington Monthly, Mar 7, 2023)
Young People to Joe Biden: You Betrayed Us on Climate Change (BusinessInsider, Mar 16, 2023)

In the 2020 election, Joe Biden ran as a self-proclaimed climate-president. As summarized by CBS, he promised to "develop a clean energy economy ... to build more resilient communities, to reestablish America's global leadership on this issue, and to work toward environmental justice." (...) But a closer look will show that there are vast inconsistencies in the president's promises and policies.
Above all president Biden has revealed his lack of commitment to environmental justice through his acceptance and expansion of the production of fossil fuels.
Joe Biden Approved Drilling Projects, Now Young Voters Are Watching for 2024 (TeenVogue, Aug 10, 2023)

The "(...)" is an omission of a few points of praise: promises and alleged goals. But the continuation after the quotation is a long list of all the ****** fossil-fuel policies that he has actually implemented!

It's not 'what the people who voted him in wanted him to do'. It is probably more in line with what the people who paid for his campaign wanted.

 

[Myriad]

That would be a WAG, not evidence, wouldn't it?!

I wish you had done some research and come up with the campaign promises of those politicians and compared them with their actual policies after they got elected.

This doesn't seem to prove your point, does it?!
With climate change a top priority for Biden-Harris administration, here’s what that means for fracking (Boston University, Dec 9, 2020)
No, Biden didn't just ban fracking (CNN, Jan 27, 2021)
Update: Biden Promised a Ban – He’s Doing the Opposite (Food and Water Watch, Sep 15, 2021)
Biden Fracking Ban At A Standstill Amid Global Energy Crisis (Earth.org, May 8, 2022)
Joe Biden Broke His 2020 Pledge on Fracking. Good. (Washington Monthly, Mar 7, 2023)
Young People to Joe Biden: You Betrayed Us on Climate Change (BusinessInsider, Mar 16, 2023)


The "(...)" is an omission of a few points of praise: promises and alleged goals. But the continuation after the quotation is a long list of all the ****** fossil-fuel policies that he has actually implemented!

It's not 'what the people who voted him in wanted him to do'. It is probably more in line with what the people who paid for his campaign wanted.

He didn't develop a clean energy economy, and he didn't ban fracking.

Banning fracking without having first developed a clean energy economy would have raised the price of natural gas. That would have raised the price of electricity and for many of his citizens (including myself) the cost of home heating. I would have had to pay more, lower my thermostat further, or change to a different home heating system which would have increased my debt or drained my savings. Any of those would have been involuntary sacrifices, which you've repeatedly argued you're opposed to, so I'm sure you approve of the continuation of fracking under the circumstances.

But why oh why hasn't he developed a clean energy economy? He's had almost three years now, for heaven's sake. It's a mystery surpassed only by why education keeps getting worse in the U.S. despite every President during my lifetime promising better education. (Better-educated people are more resistant to propaganda, so maybe the answer is the same for both: Big Oil!)

 

[dann]

Massive Fossil Fuel Expansion Undermines U.S. Climate Commitments

Biden not only didn't ban fracking, he allowed more fracking:

Federal data show the Biden administration approved 6,430 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years, outpacing the Trump administration’s 6,172 drilling-permit approvals in its first two years.
The Biden administration’s policy of fossil fuel expansion contradicts the clear climate science that fossil fuel growth must be stopped and governments must phase out fossil fuels to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.
“Two years of runaway drilling approvals are a spectacular failure of climate leadership by President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,” said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires phasing out fossil fuel extraction, but instead we’re still racing in the opposite direction.”
The Biden-approved drilling permits will result in more than 800 million tons of estimated equivalent greenhouse gas pollution, or the annual climate pollution from about 217 coal-fired power plants.
Biden Administration Oil, Gas Drilling Approvals Outpace Trump’s (Center for Biological Diversity, Jan 24, 2023)

So why oh why and for heaven's sake does Biden do that? According to Myriad, it is to keep his electricity bill low, which probably makes a kind of sense for people who believe in heaven, I guess, but since it doesn't really explain anything at all, Myriad points to another 'mystery' - after all, God works in mysterious ways - which also isn't really a mystery: "why education keeps getting worse in the U.S. despite every President during my lifetime promising better education."

This is one of the weirdest defenses of U.S. representative democracy I have heard in a while.
So I assume that Myriad will continue to promote austerity measures in a vain attempt to counteract what Frackin' Joe and every other frackin' president during his lifetime have done for their donors instead of shifting from CO₂-emitting fossil fuels to renewable energy.

 

[dann]

The Definition of Lip Service

Conservation groups sued the Department of the Interior in April to compel a response to the petition after the agency had ignored it for more than a year. As intended, the lawsuit forced that response. The Department’s only rationale for denying the petition was that it has “insufficient resources” to initiate the requested rulemaking.

Scientific conclusions reached since the petition was filed in 2022 show that wealthy countries must end oil and gas extraction by 2031 to maintain a likely chance of avoiding the harms of warming 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Leaving the fossil fuel industry in control of the oil and gas spigot is an appalling abdication of climate leadership on public lands,” said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. “To claim that the Biden administration doesn’t have the resources to take real climate action on federal fossil fuels is vacuous and beyond hypocritical. This is the definition of lip service. The administration acknowledges the urgency to address climate change and meanwhile avoids every opportunity to take meaningful action on the fossil fuels under its control.”
Biden Administration Rejects Calls to Phase Out Oil, Gas on Public Lands by 2035 (Center for Biological Diversity, June 29, 2023)

But what about China and India?!!!

 

[dann]

A trio of psychologists at the Norwegian Research Center and the University of Bergen's Norway Center for Climate and Energy Transformation has found via survey that the chief motivating factor that gets people to participate in climate activism is anger. In their study, reported in the journal Global Environmental Change, Thea Gregersen, Gisle Andersen and Endre Tvinnereim, surveyed more than 2,000 Norwegian adults about their feelings regarding climate activism related to slowing climate change.
Prior research has shown that climate change could be slowed, stopped, or even reversed by the cessation of greenhouse gas emissions and implementation of technology that removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, little progress is being made on either front.
Anger found to be the primary driver of climate activism (Phys.Org, Aug 25, 2023)

If that doesn't make you angry, what will?!

 

[dann]

Well, maybe this:

Insurers are trying to send a message. The government is trying to suppress it.
Having worked for decades in conservation nonprofits, Beth Pratt, who lives high in the Sierra Foothills in Midpines, California, understands how climate change is putting her home at ever greater risk. Her community is experiencing what she calls “climate whiplash”: forest fires, record heat, massive snow dumps, mudslides, rockslides, and even a tornado.
What Your Insurer Is Trying to Tell You About Climate Change (The Atlantic, Aug 28, 2023)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Well, maybe this:

Paywalled. Can you quote the part explaining how the government is trying to suppress this message from insurers?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

If that doesn't make you angry, what will?!

Climate anger was the strongest predictor of self-reported activism, related positively to policy support, but was not related to individual mitigation efforts. Given that anger is typically associated with seeing other people as responsible, individual behaviors might not be considered effective in mitigating climate change. The effect of anger on policy support is likely to differ based on the type of policy suggested. In our study, we focus on one of the least popular policies; taxes on petrol and diesel (see e.g., Smith & Leiserowitz, 2014). Previous studies have found that climate anger might first and foremost relate to support for policies targeting industry, not to support for policies targeting individuals (Lu & Schuldt, 2015). The findings reported by Lu and Schuldt (2015) are in line with focusing on an external perpetrator (industry). However, our results revealed that people often point a finger at "people" in general rather than "industry", which could explain why we find a positive relationship between climate change and a tax that would (also) affect individuals.

This is exactly how I feel.

I totally get why industry or politicians might not be as keen to combat global warming as I am. They are responsible to their shareholders and electorate respectively. I wouldn't expect either to lead the way without pressure from the people. So if nothing is being done it's because people in general aren't pushing for it. And that's what I am seeing.

It's easy to be a climate 'activist' by blaming others while not doing your own bit on the basis that individual behaviors are not effective. It's easy to get angry at 'politicians' and 'industry' without considering the contribution you are making to global warming. But that's just shifting the blame from where it really lies - the people.

If people bought electric cars instead of gas cars, and used electricity instead of gas for heating, and reused stuff instead of throwing it away and buying new, and made known their support for government policies that prioritized the environment over personal wealth, industrial and political leaders would change tack so fast they would get whiplash. But this won't happen because people in general won't do that, and everyone knows it.

In fact whenever an industry or political leader does stick their neck out in favor of combating climate change, the backlash from the general public is swift and harsh. Because it invariably requires that we do our bit too.

 

[dann]

Paywalled. Can you quote the part explaining how the government is trying to suppress this message from insurers?

Nope. Paywalled for me, too. It's why I wrote "maybe".

 

[dann]

I totally get why industry or politicians might not be as keen to combat global warming as I am. They are responsible to their shareholders and electorate respectively. I wouldn't expect either to lead the way without pressure from the people. So if nothing is being done it's because people in general aren't pushing for it. And that's what I am seeing.

Those poor unfortunate industrialists and politicians with all their responsibility!
Unless the NZ constitution is very different from the constitutions in all the other representative democracies, your politicians aren't really responsible for anything other than obeying the constitution. Once elected, they have no other obligations to the electorate than that, and there is probably nothing in the your constitution that makes it illegal to ruin the climate.
But I bet there is something about not bowing to "pressure from the people."
Now, that would be unconstitutional!

It's easy to be a climate 'activist' by blaming others while not doing your own bit on the basis that individual behaviors are not effective. It's easy to get angry at 'politicians' and 'industry' without considering the contribution you are making to global warming. But that's just shifting the blame from where it really lies - the people.

Why would you want it to be difficult to tell the truth about this?! Is your claim that those "individual behaviors" are actually "effective"?!

If people bought electric cars instead of gas cars, and used electricity instead of gas for heating, and reused stuff instead of throwing it away and buying new, and made known their support for government policies that prioritized the environment over personal wealth, industrial and political leaders would change tack so fast they would get whiplash. But this won't happen because people in general won't do that, and everyone knows it.

If the industry manufactured affordable electric cars, if energy suppliers shifted to solar and wind instead of gas, if they stopped telling lies about global warming, and if they and the other industries made durable goods and politicians provided people with the infrastructure to make this possible, people wouldn't mind buying those electric vehicles, riding bikes in the cities and reusing stuff that still worked.
But industrialists and politicians won't do that because that's not how capitalism works, that's not how you get rich - as a CEO in industry or as a politician.
You may not have noticed, but ordinary people are not the ones who pay contrarian climate scientists and make astroturfing campaigns about global warming being a hoax.

In fact whenever an industry or political leader does stick their neck out in favor of combating climate change, the backlash from the general public is swift and harsh. Because it invariably requires that we do our bit too.

Maybe you don't have any functioning wind or solar industry in NZ. Here, it doesn't seem to be a question of 'sticking one's neck out', and I don't see much backlash. At least, it's not something I've noticed.

But I can agree with you to some extent. We should do our bit. We should get rid of the system that rewards industry and politicians for ruining the climate and for blaming ordinary people for being the cause of the problem.
I try to persuade people to do that.

 

[dann]

Oil and natural gas are still projected to meet more than half of the world's energy needs in 2050, or 54%, Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Monday, with the world failing to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.
The largest U.S. oil producer projects the world will reach 25 billion metric tons of energy related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2050, according to its energy outlook published on Monday.
That is more than twice the 11 billion metric tons the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PCC) say would be needed on average in its Lower 2^oC scenarios.
"An energy transition is underway, but it's not yet happening at the scale or on the timetable required to achieve society's net-zero ambitions," the producer said.
Exxon produces less than 3% of the world's daily crude demand and in May its shareholders overwhelmingly rejected calls for stronger measures to mitigate climate change.
Exxon says world set to fail 2^oC global warming by 2050 (Reuters, Aug 28, 2023)

I assume the Exxon shareholders are celebrating the news.

 

[dann]

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

The issue is being strongly debated, with accusations of doom-mongering being countered with charges of complacency. The answer matters: how bad is it, and how can we limit the damage? To find out, the Guardian asked 45 leading climate scientists from around the world. We also asked the equally vital question of whether extreme weather events were hitting people faster and harder than expected.
'Off-the-charts records': has humanity finally broken the climate? (TheGuardian, Aug 28, 2023)

Tiny, indeed!

 

[wobs]

I assume the Exxon shareholders are celebrating the news.

At least they're sometimes honest about not going over to renewables. As long as renewables are not profitable enough (less than 8%), they won't invest in them in any meaningful sense.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Those poor unfortunate industrialists and politicians with all their responsibility!

Company directors in New Zealand are currently bound by the Companies Act 1993. A bill called the Companies (Directors’ Duties) Amendment Bill is working its way through parliament now. If passed it will add 'Reducing adverse environmental impacts' to the list of responsibilities. Until then...

Section 131 of the Act requires directors of a company to act in its best interests. The traditional view is that this duty is discharged by acting in the best interests of the shareholders. Section 131 is therefore sometimes interpreted as imposing a duty to maximise profits, providing shareholders with maximum return on their investment. This view is known as the shareholder primacy theory. It has been the pertinent corporate governance theory in both New Zealand and much of the wider western world since the 1930s.

This traditional view assumes that it is always in the best interests of the company to maximise profits.

Unless the NZ constitution is very different from the constitutions in all the other representative democracies, your politicians aren't really responsible for anything other than obeying the constitution. Once elected, they have no other obligations to the electorate than that, and there is probably nothing in the your constitution that makes it illegal to ruin the climate.
But I bet there is something about not bowing to "pressure from the people."

Constitution of New Zealand: An Introduction

Over recent decades the processes of government have become more open. Notably, in 1982 the Official Information Act reversed the basic principle of the Official Secrets Act 1951: the principle now is that official information is to be made available to those seeking it... Underlying the principle are a number of purposes, including enabling the more effective participation of the people of New Zealand in the making and administration of laws and policies, and promoting the accountability of Ministers of the Crown and officials...

Individuals, autonomy and majority rule

In a range of ways, individuals and communities participate directly in political and governmental processes important to them. There is for instance much emphasis in law and in practice on those exercising public power giving fair hearings to and consulting those affected by the exercise of that power. Also relevant is the enactment of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993.

Is your claim that those "individual behaviors" are actually "effective"?!

Yes.

If the industry manufactured affordable electric cars, if energy suppliers shifted to solar and wind instead of gas, if they stopped telling lies about global warming, and if they and the other industries made durable goods and politicians provided people with the infrastructure to make this possible, people wouldn't mind buying those electric vehicles, riding bikes in the cities and reusing stuff that still worked.

You are wrong. The industry does manufacture affordable electric cars. Energy suppliers are shifting to wind and solar. They are not telling lies about global warming.

Government waste work programme

Reducing waste will help with our transition from a linear economy with its take, make, dispose approach to a low-emissions circular economy...

Reducing waste helps with the transition to a low-emissions circular economy

A low-emissions circular economy involves:

- keeping resources in use for as long as possible
- extracting the maximum value from them while in use
- then recovering and regenerating them.

My city has a waste transfer station that takes all kinds of rubbish and separates it according to type - electronics, 'whiteware', batteries, greenwaste, plastic bottles etc. for recycling. They also sell stuff that may still be useful (furniture, building parts, bicycles etc.). 'General' rubbish that can't be recycled attracts a dumping fee. Roadside collection also goes through this system.

My city has built a network of over 100km of cycle paths that enable people to cycle to and from work even in the next city. This includes dedicated pathways across and under bridges so cyclists don't have to mix with road traffic. Most rural roads have a restricted speed limit of 80kph. I bike to work when I can. Very few others do though. Perhaps if they reduced speed limits to 30kph and raised the price of petrol to $20 per liter...

You may not have noticed, but ordinary people are not the ones who pay contrarian climate scientists and make astroturfing campaigns about global warming being a hoax.

But 'ordinary people' love spreading contrarian information and complaining about how much the government 'wastes' on attempts to mitigate global warming. This is real grassroots stuff that propagates without any astroturfing.

I work with agricultural scientists who earn $70,000+ per year and are well aware of the global warming crisis, yet only 3 out of 80 employees at the facility drive an electric car - and I'm one of them. 2 or 3 bike to work, the rest drive mostly expensive SUVs. These people can't say they are misinformed or too poor to do the right thing. Most of them are actual scientists working in a field that is already being adversely affected by global warming. If even they aren't taking it seriously I hate to think what the attitude of the rest of the population is.

Maybe you don't have any functioning wind or solar industry in NZ. Here, it doesn't seem to be a question of 'sticking one's neck out', and I don't see much backlash. At least, it's not something I've noticed.

6% of our electricity is produced from wind and 1% from solar.

Opposition to Contact's proposed 50-turbine wind farm grows in Southland

Jul 23 2023

Contact’s proposed wind farm at Slopedown in Southland has been fast tracked for resource consent approval, but opposition to the development is slowly growing.

Farmer Dean Rabbidge had started an online petition opposing the development, which he believed would destroy the stunning landscape of the West Catlins and Eastern Southland.

Rabbidge said Southlanders did not understand the magnitude of the project, and he worried that if it went ahead it would set a precedent.

He questioned whether there was a need for the power in the province.
“If they need it for the green hydrogen project at Tiwai, build the things down there. The power is all going to go into the national grid and go to the North Island anyway. They wouldn’t get away with this **** in Queenstown or on the Bombay Hills, so why in an area that is untouched?’’

Rabbidge said there were better alternatives to generate power than wind farms...

Last month Redan Valley farmer Nathan Stewart told Stuff the proposal was “gut-wrenching” and he planned to form a committee to fight it....

Contact head of wind and solar Matthew Cleland said the company was aiming to lodge the consent application for the proposed Southland Wind Farm later this year. “Contact sees this as an important renewable electricity project for Southland. The region is expected to have significant demand growth over the next few decades, and we need to ensure there is enough renewable electricity available to meet these demands.’’

Contact is my electricity supplier. I hope they they get consent despite the locals opposing the project, who no doubt will be voting for National hoping they win the election in October and reject the consent application.

But I can agree with you to some extent. We should do our bit. We should get rid of the system that rewards industry and politicians for ruining the climate and for blaming ordinary people for being the cause of the problem.
I try to persuade people to do that.

Perhaps it's different where you are, but here it's not the government and energy industry that's ruining the climate.

 

[Myriad]

This is exactly how I feel.

I totally get why industry or politicians might not be as keen to combat global warming as I am. They are responsible to their shareholders and electorate respectively. I wouldn't expect either to lead the way without pressure from the people. So if nothing is being done it's because people in general aren't pushing for it. And that's what I am seeing.

It's easy to be a climate 'activist' by blaming others while not doing your own bit on the basis that individual behaviors are not effective. It's easy to get angry at 'politicians' and 'industry' without considering the contribution you are making to global warming. But that's just shifting the blame from where it really lies - the people.

If people bought electric cars instead of gas cars, and used electricity instead of gas for heating, and reused stuff instead of throwing it away and buying new, and made known their support for government policies that prioritized the environment over personal wealth, industrial and political leaders would change tack so fast they would get whiplash. But this won't happen because people in general won't do that, and everyone knows it.

In fact whenever an industry or political leader does stick their neck out in favor of combating climate change, the backlash from the general public is swift and harsh. Because it invariably requires that we do our bit too.

Agreed.

Regarding the highlighted, there are different kinds of effectiveness. The whole idea of leadership is to leverage ones individual effectiveness, however mathematically insignificant, to motivate others. Alexander of Macedonia probably didn't personally cause enough enemy casualties to make a difference in the outcome of any battle he fought in. But if he'd used that fact as an excuse not to fight in the front lines at all, he wouldn't have won any battles at all, because by the ethos of his time, his army wouldn't have followed him. So his actions in battle were critically "effective" in that sense.

Al Gore chose to do what he thought would be effective—"getting the message out" on a large public scale—instead of making any "ineffective" individual virtue-signaling personal changes of his own. The anti-environmental propagandists ever since have pointed to his mansion and lifestyle as evidence of climate hypocrisy. That propaganda was effective because it was accurate. The importance of leadership was either not considered at all, or was mistakenly seen as completely separable from personal behavior, or simply came up short against the attraction of continued personal wealth and consumption. Convenience outweighed the inconvenient truth, and everyone saw it.

It's going to take disaster so widespread and so widely consequential that even the "leaders" suffer consequences to get everyone to do their bit.

 

[Myriad]

Biden not only didn't ban fracking, he allowed more fracking:


So why oh why and for heaven's sake does Biden do that? According to Myriad, it is to keep his electricity bill low, which probably makes a kind of sense for people who believe in heaven, I guess, but since it doesn't really explain anything at all, Myriad points to another 'mystery' - after all, God works in mysterious ways - which also isn't really a mystery: "why education keeps getting worse in the U.S. despite every President during my lifetime promising better education."

This is one of the weirdest defenses of U.S. representative democracy I have heard in a while.
So I assume that Myriad will continue to promote austerity measures in a vain attempt to counteract what Frackin' Joe and every other frackin' president during his lifetime have done for their donors instead of shifting from CO₂-emitting fossil fuels to renewable energy.

I'm seeing a lot of bluster here but no answer as to whether or not you think an immediate fracking ban like the one Biden promised (but hasn't delivered) should actually be enacted.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Agreed.

Regarding the highlighted, there are different kinds of effectiveness. The whole idea of leadership is to leverage ones individual effectiveness, however mathematically insignificant, to motivate others.

Agreed. A leader is nothing without followers.

Al Gore chose to do what he thought would be effective—"getting the message out" on a large public scale—instead of making any "ineffective" individual virtue-signaling personal changes of his own. The anti-environmental propagandists ever since have pointed to his mansion and lifestyle as evidence of climate hypocrisy. That propaganda was effective because it was accurate.

The charges of hypocrisy against Al Gore were not accurate, but they were effective. And that was Gore's fault. He should should have realized that when you accuse the entire population of being to blame (which we are), there's bound to be pushback.

I was disappointed by the movie because it was strong on emotion and blame, but weak on solutions. It was a long time ago when I watched it so perhaps there was more than I remember - but if so it clearly didn't stick. I think the reason it didn't motivate people was its pessimistic outlook. Yes, global warming is making the climate worse. Yes, we are causing it. But what can we do about it? Motivation involves both carrot and stick. The movie had plenty of the later but not enough of the former. The overall reaction was "we're screwed", not "let's fix this!".

Nobody likes negativity, and nobody likes being accused of wrongdoing when they don't feel guilty. The knee-jerk reaction to being told your lifestyle is inappropriate is to defend it. Blame is deflected onto others ('industry', 'politicians') while our own behavior is excused. That is a perfectly natural reaction that should have been predicted and avoided by focusing on how to make it better.

The importance of leadership was either not considered at all, or was mistakenly seen as completely separable from personal behavior, or simply came up short against the attraction of continued personal wealth and consumption. Convenience outweighed the inconvenient truth, and everyone saw it.

Sitting back and doing nothing yourself while expecting leadership to magically appear is the problem. Don't expect industry to lead, their only motivation is profit. But they will listen to your choices as a consumer. Don't expect politicians to lead while you vote for personal wealth instead.

It's going to take disaster so widespread and so widely consequential that even the "leaders" suffer consequences to get everyone to do their bit.

We are already there. Our leaders want to get everybody to do their bit, but motivating us is not easy. Our leaders know they won't be leading for long if they don't have followers. That is where we come in.

You may think your individual actions can't make a difference, but when many of us act together they do. Just like voting, the lifestyle choices each of us make add up. Ignore the detractors and get out there and do it. Throw caution to the wind and get an electric car, bike to work, eat healthier, switch to a renewable energy supplier, avoid purchasing that shiny new object and buy second-hand or fix up what you have instead. Recycle everything you can. Don't be concerned about people sneering - your life is an adventure and they are sad. Even if global warming wasn't a thing you would still be happier. When others see that they will follow. Now you are a leader!

 

[Myriad]

We are already there. Our leaders want to get everybody to do their bit, but motivating us is not easy. Our leaders know they won't be leading for long if they don't have followers. That is where we come in.

You may think your individual actions can't make a difference, but when many of us act together they do. Just like voting, the lifestyle choices each of us make add up. Ignore the detractors and get out there and do it. Throw caution to the wind and get an electric car, bike to work, eat healthier, switch to a renewable energy supplier, avoid purchasing that shiny new object and buy second-hand or fix up what you have instead. Recycle everything you can. Don't be concerned about people sneering - your life is an adventure and they are sad. Even if global warming wasn't a thing you would still be happier. When others see that they will follow. Now you are a leader!

I agree with most of this. I would say if you have a long commute, shorten your commute first (move closer to work, or work closer to home, even if that means compromises either in the living situation or the job position) rather than just switching to an electric car. Which is also necessary to make the bicycling option possible.

I don't expect to be seen as a leader by doing such things. Most of them—moving to a smaller living space, repairing stuff, eating healthier, etc.—are the kinds of things people expect near-retirement-agers to be doing anyhow (even though, judging from neighbors and friends and family members around the same age, few are actually doing any more). The only things being marketed intensively to people my age are (absurdly overpriced, hence the marketing) pharmaceuticals. Disregarding all the frantically aspirational commercial propaganda to consume consume consume is like dodging artillery fire that's no longer aimed in my direction anyhow.

The leaders aren't going to be old farts trying to mend their ways, they're going to be young people who perceive their predicament, get ahead of the necessary choices from the start, and can set examples of happier living while there's time for their coevals to notice. I know two or three personally, and know of a number of others online (elsewhere). They're far outnumbered by the ones who are giving in or giving up, but maybe that's always the way of things. Where I can and do help is not leading but mentoring.