Cont: Global warming discussion V

[Aridas]

OK. I don't. What now?

You're using the internet, so your lifestyle is killing the planet, maybe?

Not gonna lie, I find much of the attempts to blame either supply-side or demand-side on the general topic here to be dumb. Both are important parts of the equation, though it would also be hard to say that they make up the whole equation. There are certainly are notable differences in how that works, of course.

Also, making the perfect the indiscriminate enemy of everything is just dumb, in general.

 

[novaphile]

You're using the internet, so your lifestyle is killing the planet, maybe?

Oh, you may be onto something there.

I've seen that gambit before, along these lines:

"You're talking on the internet, so therefore you are not allowed to have an opinion."

 

[Stout]

OK. I don't. What now?

Then start demanding reparations from developed countries. That was what CoP 29 and The Loss and Damage Fund was all about. And stop burning fossil fuels anyways, you know, bad.

 

[Stout]

Not gonna lie, I find much of the attempts to blame either supply-side or demand-side on the general topic here to be dumb. Both are important parts of the equation, though it would also be hard to say that they make up the whole equation. There are certainly are notable differences in how that works, of course.

Also, making the perfect the indiscriminate enemy of everything is just dumb, in general.

Team demand-side is woefully under represented. We're like the oppressed minority, or something.

We could have avoided this 1.5C everyone is ranting about had we kept the restrictions in place during the pandemic (2020) and matched them with equal reductions every year until now. If you want to see significant reductions, there's the first place to look.

 

[Aridas]

Team demand-side is woefully under represented. We're like the oppressed minority, or something.

We could have avoided this 1.5C everyone is ranting about had we kept the restrictions in place during the pandemic (2020) and matched them with equal reductions every year until now. If you want to see significant reductions, there's the first place to look.

Given the nature of those restrictions? That sounds like a pipe dream. As for Team Demand-side, the big problem with focusing on that side, specifically, is that it is quite unrealistic to expect any results at all until the bad behavior coming from the supply-side is curtailed. It's not that it's wrong to recognize the role of the demand side in what is going on, it's just that the supply side actively using their concentrated power to prevent as much real action to address the issues at hand as they can is a serious obstacle in the way of sufficient demand-side action.

 

[Myriad]

If you're living in a developed nation, then your lifestyle is killing the planet.

That lifestyle isn't killing the planet. It's killing certain people and communities who are particularly vulnerable and/or unlucky, and (in the longer term) it's killing the systems that are making that lifestyle possible.

One problem is, it's likely to do a lot of the first kind of killing before the second kind tallies up enough damage to make a difference.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Then start demanding reparations from developed countries. That was what CoP 29 and The Loss and Damage Fund was all about.

How will reparations slow or reverse global warming?

And stop burning fossil fuels anyways, you know, bad.

Once again: you know absolutely nothing about my lifestyle. If you stopped telling me what I should do, and instead asked what I am doing, we might have a more productive discussion.
It's funny, because not so long ago, you were calling for people to make changes in their own lifestyles, to help address this problem. Now you seem to have abandoned that, in favour of castigating people for merely having the audacity to be alive. Or, as in this post here, "demanding" things. What kind of effect do you think my "demands" will make on the developed world? What form should these "demands" take? A strongly-worded letter? Standing outside with a placard? How is this any different from the gesture politics of eco-activists of which you have been so derisive?

 

[Cosmic Yak]

That lifestyle isn't killing the planet. It's killing certain people and communities who are particularly vulnerable and/or unlucky, and (in the longer term) it's killing the systems that are making that lifestyle possible.

One problem is, it's likely to do a lot of the first kind of killing before the second kind tallies up enough damage to make a difference.

Exactly. "Killing the planet" is ridiculous hyperbole. I have been waiting for someone to call this out.

 

[Stout]

Given the nature of those restrictions? That sounds like a pipe dream. As for Team Demand-side, the big problem with focusing on that side, specifically, is that it is quite unrealistic to expect any results at all until the bad behavior coming from the supply-side is curtailed. It's not that it's wrong to recognize the role of the demand side in what is going on, it's just that the supply side actively using their concentrated power to prevent as much real action to address the issues at hand as they can is a serious obstacle in the way of sufficient demand-side action.

Agreed, 1.5C is a pipe dream but it's what was agreed upon at CoP by the people who make the big bucks. Why? I have no idea. Possibly to spur on demand-side reduction, possibly to get governments at all levels to take action, possibly for photo ops. Or a combination of all 3. Demand-side is what spurs on supply-side which is undeniable given the sheer volume of information out there on the negative effects of those demand-side actions. I mean, you can try to limit supply side by passing laws banning fossil fuel advertising (The Hague) but really, is that going to stop anybody from jumping of a cruise ship if that's how they've decided they want to spend their time off?

 

[Stout]

That lifestyle isn't killing the planet. It's killing certain people and communities who are particularly vulnerable and/or unlucky, and (in the longer term) it's killing the systems that are making that lifestyle possible.

One problem is, it's likely to do a lot of the first kind of killing before the second kind tallies up enough damage to make a difference.

Yes, the killing the planet phrasing is meant to apply to the second kind.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-is-the-sixth-mass-extinction-and-what-can-we-do-about-it

 

[Stout]

How will reparations slow or reverse global warming?

I dunno. Ask the geniuses who thought this up and managed to get it on the CoP playbill. Ref. climate justice.

 

[Hercules56]

OK. I don't. What now?

You do live in a developed nation.

 

[Aridas]

Agreed, 1.5C is a pipe dream

More specifically, keeping those restrictions in place for completely different reasons than they existed in the first place would be a pipe dream. A rather destructive one that guarantees severe backlash and general harm. It's not even remotely a suggestion that can be called reasonable and when that is the level of your focus on the demand-side arguments, it's nigh impossible to treat your position as worthwhile.

but it's what was agreed upon at CoP by the people who make the big bucks. Why? I have no idea. Possibly to spur on demand-side reduction, possibly to get governments at all levels to take action, possibly for photo ops. Or a combination of all 3. Demand-side is what spurs on supply-side which is undeniable given the sheer volume of information out there on the negative effects of those demand-side actions. I mean, you can try to limit supply side by passing laws banning fossil fuel advertising (The Hague) but really, is that going to stop anybody from jumping of a cruise ship if that's how they've decided they want to spend their time off?

As noted before, the demand-side is important. Pretending that addressing supply-side issues is just limiting advertising is rather questionable, at best, though. Before going further, though, the nature of the two sides should be noted. The demand side is decentralized to the extreme. Each person matters, certainly, but the individual is of little relevance compared the larger population and various forces that act on and affect the population. Meanwhile, the power on the supply side is far more centralized. They exert their far, far more concentrated power to effect changes to their benefit and neutralize the power that the demand side actually wields in practice in various ways. Government? We nearly had notable government action to rein in the worst of things many decades ago that the supply side derailed here in the US and their obstruction has continued in various ways throughout. That's a situation that's hardly limited to the US, of course. The people? The supply side has knowingly pushed deceit, doubt, and division really hard for a long time to manipulate the population and neutralize the actual power that the demand side could bring to bear to cause change. Given the power dynamics at work, focusing most of one's attention on individuals on the demand side is honestly rather baffling for anyone who truly desires action.

With all that said, one of the particularly notable angles of all that deceit, doubt, and division that the supply side's pushed is indeed to shove off all responsibility to the demand side. In short, "They made me do it!" says the gaslighter who all but forced the situation to happen and then plays the victim. I'm not much a fan of gaslighting, of course, and your rhetoric seems to have much in common with the supply side's gaslighting.

 

[Myriad]

Exactly. "Killing the planet" is ridiculous hyperbole. I have been waiting for someone to call this out.

Happy to oblige.

Aridas (like dann a few pages back) does have a point about self-interested bad actors on the "supply" side interfering with concerted action. The problem is, from ground level, stopping them from doing that is just as intractable a problem as reducing demand in the face of that interference. Achieving either aim is doubtful unless someone with that agenda acquires dictatorial power.

The bad-actor industries and bad-actor politicians and the complacent public, the supply side and the demand side, aren't opponents of one another, they're an axis of common interest. This includes the majority of the developed world and most climate activists. Do hordes of oligarchs showing up in private jets and yachts for global climate conferences seem incongruous? They're actually not.

Who are their opponents? For all practical purposes, no one. The poor who consume and pollute less by necessity have no leverage on the supply or demand sides. A tiny contingent of fringe climate passivists practices austerity primarily to escape a status quo they see as increasingly demanding, unhealthy, and/or fragile, not to try to rescue it (or the planet).

 

[Aridas]

Happy to oblige.

Aridas (like dann a few pages back) does have a point about self-interested bad actors on the "supply" side interfering with concerted action. The problem is, from ground level, stopping them from doing that is just as intractable a problem as reducing demand in the face of that interference. Achieving either aim is doubtful unless someone with that agenda acquires dictatorial power.

The bad-actor industries and bad-actor politicians and the complacent public, the supply side and the demand side, aren't opponents of one another, they're an axis of common interest. This includes the majority of the developed world and most climate activists. Do hordes of oligarchs showing up in private jets and yachts for global climate conferences seem incongruous? They're actually not.

Who are their opponents? For all practical purposes, no one. The poor who consume and pollute less by necessity have no leverage on the supply or demand sides. A tiny contingent of fringe climate passivists practices austerity primarily to escape a status quo they see as increasingly demanding, unhealthy, and/or fragile, not to try to rescue it (or the planet).

Just to keep it clear, incidentally, as I said back in post 1881 -

Not gonna lie, I find much of the attempts to blame either supply-side or demand-side on the general topic here to be dumb. Both are important parts of the equation, though it would also be hard to say that they make up the whole equation.

The problem at hand very much does involve both "sides" in the formulation of supply-side versus demand-side. With that said, personally, I find it far more realistic to first focus on action to address the overtly bad actions of those on the supply side. Deceit, corruption, and the total disregard of the human cost in their pursuit of gains are all examples of things that are entirely fair game to go after without needing to resort to dictatorship. Those are things that they should have been held accountable for all along, though. It's certainly not a full solution, of course, but dealing with some of the biggest dishonest obstacles at hand would do much to clear the way for efforts to deal with everything else in upright ways that also don't require dictatorships to accomplish.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

You do live in a developed nation.

Not according to the IMF. I suggest you contact them and set them straight. I'm sure they will bow to your expertise.

 

[Stout]

More specifically, keeping those restrictions in place for completely different reasons than they existed in the first place would be a pipe dream. A rather destructive one that guarantees severe backlash and general harm. It's not even remotely a suggestion that can be called reasonable and when that is the level of your focus on the demand-side arguments, it's nigh impossible to treat your position as worthwhile.

Of course, but that was what people were practically begging for back in 2019, when 1.5C was being described as end times. The public got a taste, just a taste of what it would realistically take to hit that target and rightly freaked. I suppose there was some dream brewing in the background that suddenly, somehow, all this wind and solar would appear as "other people" downed their current tools and transitioned into the renewable energy industry and overnight everything became electrified. All it would take is the government(s) to snap their fingers and make it happen.

I just used advertising as an example of supply-side influence. There's many more for sure. The big problem with the demand side is they pretty much don't care. Sure everybody's aware and educated however they're going to drive 10 hours to get to that resort in the nature beauty spot and chow down on imported seafood while they're there. Post a few nature-is-wonderful to Facebook and suddenly they're much more in tune with the natural world. Pity it won't look the same to their grandchildren.

Were there no demand then supply side would be forced to listen to that speech about buggy whips in whatever movie that was.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Stout, you are still conflating what Americans think and do with what the rest of the world thinks and does. This is a mistake.

 

[Aridas]

Of course, but that was what people were practically begging for back in 2019, when 1.5C was being described as end times. The public got a taste, just a taste of what it would realistically take to hit that target and rightly freaked.

*raises his eyebrows* Except for the part where what happened really isn't that. Among the ways that could get the world there, that was one of the worst ways. Not least because it was unsustainable without doing massive harm.

Still, it's perhaps worth pointing out that it sure sounds like you're sure pushing the "no action should be taken by anyone" line again here. Likely with the caveat that if someone's concerned, it's all on them to change their personal behavior if they want anything to happen.

I suppose there was some dream brewing in the background that suddenly, somehow, all this wind and solar would appear as "other people" downed their current tools and transitioned into the renewable energy industry and overnight everything became electrified. All it would take is the government(s) to snap their fingers and make it happen.

There certainly are fantasies floating about with unrealistic timelines and courses of action. That doesn't mean that that's all there is.

I just used advertising as an example of supply-side influence. There's many more for sure. The big problem with the demand side is they pretty much don't care. Sure everybody's aware and educated however they're going to drive 10 hours to get to that resort in the nature beauty spot and chow down on imported seafood while they're there. Post a few nature-is-wonderful to Facebook and suddenly they're much more in tune with the natural world. Pity it won't look the same to their grandchildren.

Examples of such certainly do exist. That hardly means that that's a significant chunk of the total, however much those trying to undermine action love to try to make a big deal out of that when they can. Much of the demand side indeed don't care, of course, but those making a big deal of what you just tried to tend to be in the "dragging everyone down" crowd. "Here's an example of a hypocrite! See? They're all hypocrites!"

Were there no demand then supply side would be forced to listen to that speech about buggy whips in whatever movie that was.

This is still sounding like gaslighting to me. "Oh those poor maligned supply siders. They're just giving people what they're forced to give them." Nevermind that that isn't actually among the main real complaints about them.

 

[Stout]

Is the Climate Clock still a big deal? It used to be a big deal. It's at just over four years to hit zero emissions or it's doomsday, or something.

Of course hitting these targets is going to do massive harm. That's been my whole point all along, but people were begging for it. Some still are but either they found other things to complain about or they grew brains. I'm making a put up, or shut up argument here. Want the impossible (1.5) ? Do the improbable, stop burning fossil fuels.

Or we could hope they write down some more big numbers at CoP 30 and we can, you know, talk about them.

Face it, climate warriors, it's over. You lost. Global emissions are still rising so if you want a government solution then shift to demanding, and voting for, adaptation and resilience.