> Not socially, not when it comes to the individual relations.
My democracy has produced a very long list of laws that I must follow or they will put me in jail.
> I didn't mean convicing or voting are pointless, but it's not the end-all, be-all.
I absolutely agree with you on this. As I see it Democracy as it is is largely a fraud, when compared to how it is advertised to be.
> So it's up to their betters to enforce their lack of consequence and intellectual integrity on them. They can't leave it at "failed to convince".
Oh but they can leave it at "failed to convince", is that not more or less precisely where we are at, with little sign of a likelihood we'll be moving beyond it any time soon? This is the point I am trying to make, that no climate change enthusiast one seems willing to even consider. The irony of the situation is delicious.
> Who will "convince Trump", for example?
It's not Trump that needs convincing, it is the public. Understanding in detail why people voted for Trump in the first place would have yielded very valuable knowledge that could have been used towards persuading people to support fighting climate change, but instead we seem to have chosen to use our imaginations to decide why people voted for him. People who behave this way, which is mostly everyone I've encountered, are unintelligent in this respect, and the same style of thinking seems to be what is being deployed in the public relations campaign against climate change. I wish you luck, but it doesn't seem to be producing much change, so I will continue to advocate for improvements in strategy.
> You are simply are assuming good faith
Incorrect, I am assuming nothing, except where I have explicitly noted. You on the other hand, *seem to be assuming bad faith. You may be right, but I would recommend studying the matter to find out for sure.
> so what's your answer to where that isn't the case?
As always, I recommend studying the situation: find out the detailed reasons why people do not support climate change, study what the failures seem to be in why the current messaging is unsuccessful, make iterative changes to the strategy, and measure results as you go. If people thought of the situation more like playing a video game, perhaps that would diminish the sense of identity involved and result in the ability to think more clearly (for example, thinking of people as having mental health defects).
> A few hundred million will die in the top end of what we expect, but that's acceptable. And this is clearly the position of most people, so I'm comfortably in the majority here.
Citation, please? I'd love to see the polls saying that several hundred million deaths are ok with most people.
> Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it, and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one.
It's frustrating to me to read comments like this. I will try my best to elaborate.
> Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people.
This is a simplification of course - I'm in no way implying you're not aware of that, or that this is a flaw in your argument. I think we can agree on this well enough.
> It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it
"It affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...."
This seems factual.
"It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...."
This seems non-factual, due to that seemingly innocuous additional word: just. A multi-trillion dollar initiative and the corresponding policy changes would ripple through the incredibly complex system we call the economy, affecting everyone, and not in a completely proportional and "fair" manner. From my years of close observation of the behavior of the various actors in democratic political systems, I predict this could affect sentiment and therefore voting patterns, to a consequential degree. Keep in mind though, this is only a prediction, I am unable to see into the future.
"...so we can't do it..."
This on its own seems factual, but not for the reason you stated. At the very least, it is speculative.
"...and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one."
I strongly disagree that this article is "stupid", but rather, I think it is right on the money, and is drawing attention to an incredibly important and incredibly overlooked underlying (potential) cause of our inability to move the ball forward on the climate change initiative.
FTA:
> Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people.
....who then often proceed to vote, illogically, in a "fuck you" manner. [0]
I often read sentiments about climate "deniers"[1] being "the children in the room", and people like[2] yourself being "the adults". I can agree that there is some truth to this, but I would argue less than meets the eye.
My intuition tells me a more accurate description would be something like: the "deniers" are the children, "people like you" are the teenagers, "people like the author" are "the young adults", and the people that recognize that what we're doing just isn't working, decide to calm down and start looking deeply at details, taking into consideration the infinite complexity of the numerous inter-related systems involved (one of which is the human mind), paying close attention to the nature of conversations and making note of where things may be going off track, come up with some new ideas, and try to get those ideas out into the meme war.....these are the actual adults in the room.
To me, tackling climate change with science and facts is similar to bringing a knife to a gunfight. People don't think in facts, because that isn't how we evolved. Purely factual thinking mutations are culled from the herd by evolution, because it doesn't produce results. Historically for sure, but the same argument could be made today, at least within most domains.
We can deal with reality as it "should" be, or we can deal with it how it is. That choice is up to each and every one of us, each and every time we interact with these and similar issues.
(I speculate that) We all think we're worried "just" about the climate change, because our senses tell us that. But is that all that's going on here? The intense emotions we each feel when reading such discussions, are those emotions purely derived from pure logical thinking about the future state of the climate, or might they be in part a result of reactions to subconscious heuristic interpretations of the words others are writing, resulting in a subconscious classification of the person into an in-group or out-group categorization, which in turn results in signals being sent up to the conscious mind to react in a certain manner, which sets off a chain of events which are hilariously counter-productive to our conscious, logical, intended goals. (An example of this curiously complex behavior would be the brain sending signals to the hand to move one's mousepointer over top of one of two available diamonds beside this comment, and then a signal to depress the left mouse button, as an expression of...something, but exactly what is not discernible to an outside observer. It may not even be accurately discernible to the person operating the mouse, such is the beautiful complexity of the human mind).
My proposal is that we cool our jets and realize what is actually going on here, and use the substantial intellectual power that exists within the HN hivemind to start to come up with some better ideas. Battling climate change is a multi-dimensional problem, but we seem to be aware of only a subset of these dimensions. Scientists, politicians, "journalists", and media celebrities are helpful (at times at least), but I believe there are many crucially important disciplines that have been excluded from the conversation - in part because we're thinking about the problem wrong, in part because we often think of those disciplines as "stupid" or trivial.
This thinking may be right, or it may be wrong. But at the end of the day, we are going to find out one way or the other. Let's hope we've guessed right, because that's what we're doing here so far: guessing. Educated guesses perhaps, but still guesses.
As the saying goes: as we sow, so shall we reap. This statement is true regardless of humanity's current collective agreement on the matter - the universe will unfold as it will. We can let this process occur randomly, or we can intervene and attempt to shape it more to our liking, but being successful in that endeavor requires a proper analysis, and proper action.
[1] "deniers" are often not actually that, but let's not get hung up on trivialities like facts.
[2] I say "like" here as a generalization, but am reserving judgement on whether you are actually such a person - this footnote is to make it explicitly clear that my statement is speculative.
> half of which group votes Republican (i.e., against reforms designed to prevent or slow climate change).
That’s a very cynical statement. Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.
Voting republicans doesn’t mean I am against climate change reforms. The issue at hand is how practically we deal with it and reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy. Policies touted by a lot of left leaning politicians aren’t practical and many of them know it but they say it anyway. Look at California and its recent outages to any demand spike of utilities as an example.
> I just feel like giving up on even trying anymore.
Please don’t. Consider that your audience is not a vocal minority (you can pretty much ignore them), but silent majority. Majority of Americans actually believe in man-made climate change (google gallup polls), they just don’t have it at the top of their priority list.
>Okay then action on climate change is widely supported by the public. Around 2/3rds of Americans believe more should be done about it.
>So you really can't turn around and come up with similar numbers and say those are popular but that climate change action is not.
I'm not denying that people actually "support" it (in the boolean sense). I'm just saying that they don't really support it that much. From the polls I've provided last comment, it's clear that terrorism (and therefore the war) was near the top of voter priorities, whereas global warming is at the bottom of the list. Is it that surprising that congress doesn't want to address hard-to-tackle issues that people don't feel too strongly about?
> Most of the public cares about climate change and wants the government to do something
Most of the public cares about climate change and wants the government to do something so long as it doesn't cost them anything (Or more precisely, more than 10 $/mo)[0]. Or you can just see the consternation about gas prices right now to predict how well any climate change related regulation that actually materially affected carbon production would go.
> […] "This is so important that the only thing one can possibly do is Vote Democrat and wait for them to fix it." While living a high carbon international type life […]
You're not wrong, but voting for politicians that think/thought that climate change is a Chinese conspiracy is hardly an option IMHO.
> If you actually believed in what you were talking about regarding climate change, I can think of an awful lot of better ways to put tens of millions to use than a mansion with the heating and cooling energy requirements of a small island nation.
Again, not wrong, but just because people are hypocrites doesn't mean that they're wrong:
> If this were the case, most Republican politicians would be running on a carbon emissions reduction platform, but that's manifestly not the case. The vast majority are either silent on the issue or openly mock the idea of its existence.
It is the case. Look at the numbers, the data doesn't lie. I'm not talking about corrupt politicians, I'm talking about the people. Look up the numbers. Far worse policies, laws, wars, etc have been rammed through on negative popularity. Far slimmer margins are hailed as a "mandate" and "bipartisan" when it suits them.
It's not the people who need convincing at this point, it's the politicians. What the people need convincing of is something else, which is that it's now up to the politicians. They are the ones responsible, not some lunatic fringe or imaginary boogyman they've invented. Politicians. All politicians, and especially their politicians.
Don't let them keep fooling you into believing it's the unemployed coal miner in West Virginia who is to blame for them not taking action on climate change. It's the politicians. Both sides -- what are the Democrats doing about it right now that they control the executive and congress and have a decent position in the senate? The gravest and most important problem ever to have faced humanity. Must be that all-powerful hillbilly somehow stopping them from doing anything about it, eh?
Not only are the vast majority of Americans in favor of more climate action, actually the majority of Republican voters are in favor of significant policies. 55% in favor of taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions!!
So please stop spreading misinformation about this and don't let your corrupt politicians continue to fool you, continue to divide people, and continue to get away with their inaction on climate change. It's not some lunatic fringe of hated "others" who are preventing action, it's your damn lying, divisive, hatemongering, corrupt politicians.
> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse.
Agreed.
> Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed.
Disagreed. I think it would be a really bad idea to ignore the power legislation has. People don't exactly agree on taxes. They just don't disagree enough to want to suffer the consequences (direct and societal)
Legislate things that people don't disagree with too much.
>"because the idea of a carbon tax is toxically unpopular".
Nice blame the voters....The solution for every problem (especially in the West) is a new tax. Why not just make some changes to existing laws to save the planet. Where you don't even need the voters. Firm up the building codes to create better and more efficient houses/condos/commercial properties. Encourage more work from home to cut down on the amount of traffic, outlaw coal power, no new drilling for oil unless you can capture the flare off, etc. I could think of 100 things that would make a bigger difference than a Bullshit Carbon Tax that our kakistocracy wants so they can get rich off of it. Do folks actually understand how little changes/tweaks to the stupid way most Americans live could make massive real world differences. Just discouraging lawns in places where they shouldn't be growing would reduce Carbon (mowing/care) and save 100's of billions of gallons of water (Texas, Arizona and any other hot dry state).
The arrogance of the following statement. Shifting the blame on us and constantly creating this Left vs Right bullshit.
>All of this leads to a difficult truth: The problem here lies not with the politicians, or even with the billionaires or oil companies. It lies with voters themselves, who recognize that climate change is a real problem but are not necessarily willing to sacrifice much of anything to tackle it.
> But laws and elections have been singularly ineffective at stopping global warming.
...in the US. I am sorry that I keep pointing that out, but global warming is being fought by most elected leaders right now. With some moderate success. The per capita emission in the world has plateaued, despite a positive economic growth. OECD countries have seen a decrease, China seems to come close to plateau as well.
US' leaders are the ones who unilaterally pulled from Kyoto and Paris treaties.
And I mean, even in the US, CO2 emissions are diminishing, in huge parts because of environmental policies.
> If I think about the USA, where politicians listen to their constituents even less, and the general opinion is just not concerned enough to VOTE for their president, much less get involved politically, I fall in despair. I cry. Then I just try to forget because I want to carry on.
I live in the US. Indiana. Our last governor was Mike Pence.
Our state is full of Republicans who wholly reject any idea of global warming or climate change. Fracking is cool and a good way to make money. Public institutions are a place to extort more money from students. Our state and national forests are places the Dept. of Natural Resources have deemed OK to sell old growth trees for $3 (2.6 euro - yes, pocket change)/tree. A law was passed 2 years ago banning communities from banning or putting fees on plastic bags.
Where I live cares nothing for ecology or environmentalism. The crony politicians only further their own private business interests. I do try to find city/county local politicians that care, but their hands are tied.
I also live with my wife and practice the 4 R's (Repair, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). But that meager effort only goes so far.
> these folks are misinformed voters and it's hurting our climate policy
For the electorate it isn't really a matter of information or education. People have things they care about more or are vote based on emotion.
In a way it's like trying to use logic to convince somebody to support The Atlanta Braves rather than the Yankees. They didn't get there through a process of logic and isn't logic that's going to change them.
> There is zero chance we are going to all agree on climate change
I think if enough climate events happen to enough people around the country, a majority could develop that wants to take action. Unfortunately, I think getting people to make the necessary changes to have a meaningful impact is politically impossible.
They say they care. I'm sure they even believe they care. But at the ballot box, they act very differently.
Why does almost no Green Party win an outright majority in any European national election?
Why does half the US continue to vote for a political party that outright denies man-made climate change?
> our political and capital power to do anything about it has been systematically and purposefully limited.
By the current set of politicians. Who are ultimately voted in by voters. If climate change was really a top-priority issue for everyone, we'd have a different set of people in office.
If you think about it, voting isn't that much of a personal sacrifice. No one is asking people to ride bikes in freezing conditions, or go vegan. And yet, people can't even do that.
We could take action on CFCs by enacting laws. Because we had slightly more sensible politicians back then. If we want sensible politicians again, we have to vote for them.
Voters overwhelmingly want regulation on climate change. 41 senators representing roughly 22% of voters don't.
> Sounds like maybe you don't believe in democracy
if you're going to make snide remarks you better be accurate in your claims.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/americans-l...
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