Unwillingness not inability.
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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A meaningless distinction. Assuming for the sake of argument that there are actions we can take that would solve our predicament, we are unable to persuade the people, governments, and various powers that be to take these actions. That is inability.
To suggest that is not inability reminds me of the joke where the mathematician sees his room on fire, and sees the fire extinguisher, and declares the solution obvious and goes back to sleep. Politics is real.
The distinction is a meaningful one.
I didn't stop the Holocaust - I couldn't. I wish I could have, but that's not on me. On the other hand, if I was able stop it and chose not to, that'd be evil.
Now scale up from what seems like an extreme example of millions of people to billions of people and a huge chunk of all the life on earth.
Inability to defeat republiQans then. We can address climate change in 1000 ways. We are able.
It’s not a meaningless distinction, it’s a key distinction. If the headline said “2023 is when republiQans publicly agreed to destroy the planet” it’d have a very different effect. It’s hardly meaningless.
Why were we able to come together for the ozone layer in the 80s but not the climate change in the 00s?
Legit question.. Like what happened?
Capitalism turned rabid via fearmongering/FOMO, and the old fux in Congress know they won’t see consequences.
Amount of money in the status quo with oil + petrodollar shenanigans
Yeah, in a way, I still find it shocking how we've come out of a year of climate-related crisis and the COP, which could have been a crisis taskforce meetup was just a handwaving event.
There were several nations represented there, that got hit hard this year by climate change. Why are these not demanding measures to limit damages?
Honestly even, why are there still people working against this? What the hell are you going to do with your immorally amassed wealth in a world that's falling apart?
Back in the '90s I worked at an Internet startup that was playing the usual game of desperately seeking venture capital money to keep going. At one point we were wooing RJR Nabisco, a conglomerate that included the former RJ Reynolds Tobacco company that had branched out into venture capital because it was the fucking '90s and what else were they going to do with their gigantic piles of cash? One day some RJR-N executives came to visit and although we were a non-smoking company in a non-smoking building (our lease even disallowed smoking) we put ashtrays in the conference room and these motherfuckers spent the entire day chain-smoking. We had no ventilation to speak of and by the end of the day the smoke everywhere was so thick that you couldn't see the end of the 50' hallway. The office stank for weeks afterwards. My bosses almost fired me because I made a point of coughing really loudly every time I walked past the conference room door. And it was all for nought because they never gave us a penny.
The thing is, these executives had so thoroughly bought in to the corporate need to suppress factual information about the negative health consequences of smoking that they were perfectly willing to suffer those negative consequences themselves (and it's highly likely that they're all dead now thirty years on, which warms my heart a bit). It's no surprise at all that the people making gobs of money from fossil fuels have convinced themselves that global warming isn't really happening.
Didn't you see Don't Look Up? They're all hoping for a golden ticket to the naked people planet.
On a more serious note, it's because all the rich and powerful people killing the planet will be dead before it gets really bad.
That's why they have no reason to care, but it's not a reason why they're actively working against humanity. They're hopefully not planning to bequeath their wealth, because of, you know, the whole destroying-the-planet thing.
So, once they're rich enough to live the rest of their lives in prosperity, just like, stop? Their life won't garner more meaning by having the bank account high score. In fact, they're destroying meaning, because of, you know, the whole destroying-the-planet thing.
I'm sorry, this rant isn't directed at you. I just get angry thinking about that asshat with his self-righteous smile.
Inability?
It's the will to do something! There a lot of green washing out there like Carbon capture and hydrogen cars. I don't Private planes being be taxed out of existence.
The big problem is that the environmental movement has been hijacked by corrupt business interests. They have effectively gaslighted the entire movement to oppose their own goals. Instead of pushing real solutions like mass transit or hydrogen, they are now wasting huge amounts of resources on idea like battery powered cars. Even carbon capture will be needed eventually.
What is necessary is for the environmental movement to have a major shakeup. It needs to kick out the scam artists and adopt more functional solutions.
There are no simple or single answers. As many simultaneous solutions as possible would be nice. Electric cars are a good stop gap.
Only a stopgap though. Not the true solution.
Sure. Fine. Good talk. Six months until death by fire.
Not really, they aren't stop gapping anything, a mild slowdown at most even if every single car ever was replaced. The majority of pollution is caused by like a handful of companies, electric cars will do exactly nothing to fix that while still massively contribute to the microplastic issue we got going.
humanity? don't lay this at our feet, you know who's to blame
If they keep begging for humanity to stop climate change, they shouldn’t be surprised when when humanity takes action to stop climate change.
Because when the sea levels rise, when homes are lost, a lives are shattered and hearts broken. Humanity will stop caring about personal punishments in the face of a global crisis.
I'm not responsible!!! It's all your fault!!!
Does anyone ever say no to advertising? Is it even possible to not buy from amazon? Have you ever walked past McDonalds hungry? Noooo I must buuuuuuuy!
Yup, God's will and the gays.
I'm really curious - if it's not humanity, who forced us to do this? Who's forcing people to travel and over-consume? The capitalist hellscape sure facilitates and accelerates it, but it doesn't force people to over-consume, travel tens of thousands of miles a year, etc.. Most of the people who don't do these things only refrain because the system isn't allowing them the wealth to afford it.
The number of people who actually live sustainable lifestyles through choice is utterly miniscule. Most of us have the option of accepting the radical extreme poverty that would be required to sustain 8 billion people on earth, but just about none of us take it.
It would not take radical extreme poverty to combat climate change or sustain 8 billion people, it would merely require dismantling our capitalist society and reallocating the trillions of dollars that have been stolen and hoarded by the death cult billionaires and ugh that this word ever even reached relevance but trillionaires. The average person would be better off if wealth were redistributed. Very few except the most fortunate would feel anything except relief.
the reptiles at the top who support the system, don't pass any meaningful reform, and encourage consumption
Meh, that's more an "the past 5 decades" thing, and not so much an inability as much as a "don't give a shit".
We knew since well over a century ago. For the past 5 decades it was clear to all governments that this was to be THE issue that would face humanity.
What did we get?
It's a hoax! But muh economy!
So humanity is fucked, nobody stopped those in charge, we get what we deserve.
It is too late.
It's too late for zero impact. It's not too late to stabilize temperatures at a civilization-supporting level.
Never too late to limit the impact as much as we can.
True. Quite depressing.
https://www.collapsemusings.com/should-we-tell-people-its-too-late-to-save-civilization/
Nonsense. Just picture a "Mad Max: Beyond Thunder Dome" type of world.
Until the majority of normal people suffer, politicians won't have a real reason to do much more than providing themselves a quasi-alibi. "Look we tried, but it just didn't work out" *sips on wine in climate controlled cellar*
or also the year in which the contradictions of late capitalism became so evident that they are no longer possible to be masked