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This reads like a plea for the general public to keep slaving away because “we can get this done.”
How about instead of articles targeting individuals they try writing articles targeting the biggest climate offenders: corporations.
Because corporations aren’t going to change because of an internet opinion piece. They’ll only change if they’re forced.
The problem is the only ones with the power to force them are the government… and the only one who can force the government is the people.
The problem isn’t that we’re telling individuals to do their part instead of corporations… the problem is that we’re telling individuals to attack the problem as individuals instead of working together. The problem is that we’re telling people to aim in the wrong direction.
And worst of all, we’re telling people “It’s someone else’s fault, they should be the one’s dealing with it” and then sitting on our hands.
And the best thing to push the government to do is pass a Carbon Tax – tax polluters and give that back to the people.
Yes, give them permission to continue polluting if they just pay the fee. That’s such a good plan. And let’s ignore that this policy, like any tax tied directly to consumption, tends to be highly regressive – hurting the poorest people onto whom the costs are inevitably pushed the most. Not to mention it’s just goddamn radioactive, politically. But sure, throw all the eggs in that basket. Ignore that it’s the longest shot. The neoliberals have this one figured out and their policies always work out well.
Just look at how the public at large feels about the carbon tax in Canada. They sure do love it.
The reality is, carbon taxes would just increase profits for polluters, who will pass the costs (including margins) straight onto the consumers.
The bad behaviors need to be banned, not paid for.
Fortunately, the actual best thing is policies that are actually being pursued (e.g., the Inflation Reduction Act) don’t try and do things in this backwards, Reaganomics-thinking way. Instead, these policies build wide base and financing for renewable projects. They leverage market competition to hurt fossils directly and support/extend renewable sectors. They make use of industrial policy (maybe we can get some energy production out of Keynes spinning in his coffin). And have wide-reaching effects by dangling carrots – effects like the growing sector of electric industrial heat batteries, excess capacity being gobbled up for once-nonsense projects like green hydrogen or DAC where once it would’ve simply been curtailed, and the like.
And the best thing about these policies is they build constituencies, make allies of even slow capital, and directly benefit the poorest people by creating visible improvements in their lives (like helping them install rooftop solar and thus lower their energy bill). If they just stick around a little while, they become impossible to repeal, rather than a festering wound everyone can wag fingers at.
The next phase will be (more) blocking of permits for things like LNG projects and major utility reform. Renewables already outcompete fossils on the open market economically, but we need better transmission capacity to make use of all that cheap energy to continue shutting down fossil plants.
The carbon dividend makes the policy overall progressive, like a mini-UBI. It seems we agree that helping the poorest people is a good thing, and they will benefit the most.
The carbon tax should not be an exclusive policy. Canada estimates its tax will account for 1/3rd of its emissions reductions by 2030. That’s a nice big chunk for one policy, but plainly insufficient on its own. Absolutely fund renewable infrastructure (including subsidies), public transport, walkable/bikeable housing, etc. Set hard limits / bans where appropriate (banning all emissions is not remotely feasible). A carbon tax is highly complementary to these.
Politics is messy. In Canada the Conservative Party (remind me – are they for or against fighting climate change?) opposes the carbon tax, and associates it with Labor, so they have a ton of propaganda against it. Half of Canadians don’t even realize they are getting a huge rebate back, let alone that it’s more than they are paying in taxes (Abacus Data). That’s why it’s important to get people to understand how a carbon tax actually works.
You mean a “cost of doing business” tax?
The best thing to do is to take money out of the equation, not make it about money.
If you think businesses can just absorb a tax without changes, then great: set the price of carbon emissions at the cost to remove it from the atmosphere and problem solved.
More realistically, theory and practice both predict that businesses will look for cheaper (i.e. less polluting) approaches and consumers will choose cheaper (i.e. less polluting) products. And both will do so in ways that have the highest impact for the lowest effort.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean by taking money out of the equation, because it’s not clear to me what steps that involves or what the expected outcome looks like.
especially if we all do our small part…
Yeah, I’m done with this article. If you want to make me feel less doomed, start blaming the corporations responsible and demanding actual action from the top down.
If you’re opening with some “individual responsibility” bullshit, you’re contributing to the apathy problem, because fuck you I can’t fix this.
Your part is not thinking how to reduce your carbon footprint but organizing with other people and partecipating in collective actions or movements or whatever.
Your small part may be even just donating 10€ to the people needing legal help cause protesting. Or just showing up to a rally. Joining a union…
I think that just liberals think we should all try to reduce our carbon footprint so there is really no need to feel guilty about that on this server ;)
Can you explain to me why folks shouldn’t bother trying to emit less carbon? I don’t understand why they should feel good about donating 10€ but not do other things within their control. Like sure if you exist in a city and rent somewhere you have no control over, and already train/bike/walk and aren’t wasteful and don’t eat much meat, there’s not much else you can reasonably do on a personal level, but many don’t bother to do most of that. I’m in the US, maybe this is my bubble, but the waste is obscene - so many folks should also do better on a personal level assuming they care enough to do anything else.
why folks shouldn’t bother trying to emit less carbon?
I’m not saying they shouldn’t, just talking about priorities :)
I’m also playing the “being less dependent on capitalism” game but I recognize that it’s an uphill battle and most of the people don’t have time nor energy like me.
On an individual level I’d say the most important thing is taking back our time and cognitive energy to unlock other possibilities.
If you have time and energy yes, lower your footprint, help people around you do the same, get healthier, get powerful, be more resilient and so on. If you are a normal person with limited time and energy focus on wellbeing and even just putting one inch of support on the stuff I said earlier because the number of people at rallies and strikes really matters.
Have people been doing hard things for millennia, or
A) people overstate how difficult a task was and through the lens of history we think it was actually difficult, or
B) they literally enslaved or conscripted people into doing the hard work , or
C) each individual contributor actually felt like they had a stake in tackling the difficult problem, instead of our current tragedy of the commons where it’s far easier and cheaper for individuals to act as though there’s no issue
B, is it B? I’m pretty sure it’s B.
Yeah I was pretty upset by this like it seems the other commenters. The issue is that climate change isn’t “solved” or “not solved”. We are, day by day, locking in deaths, locking in ecological damage. The longer we take, the worse it gets. That’s not doomerism that’s just reality.
As for doing something, well yeah we have to do something because the longer we take the worse it gets.
The real problem here is that most mainstream politicians are trying to “balance” issues like “the economy” (AKA stuff humans made up) and “Capitalism” (more made up stuff) and “climate” (a real thing). Literally the easiest thing to change here (collectively) is our minds, but it’s the one thing the politicians won’t do.
*This message brought to you by Exxon Mobil
(probably)
Given the publisher, no. The doomerism is however being promoted by Exxon’s CEO.:
Most objective analyses would suggest that “we’ve waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets in terms of what we need, as a society, to start reducing emissions,” Woods told Fortune CEO Alan Murray and editor-at-large Michal Lev-Ram on a recent episode of the Leadership Next podcast.
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