
Climate change: The rich are to blame - tonyedgecombe
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51906530
======
kharak
I like that this approach doesn't measure money, but energy usage. Energy
always feels to me like the real currency and form of wealth. Normally, we
want to increase the amount of energy we can spend, alas we need to find
better ways of doing so.

~~~
endgame
CEO Morgan would agree with you.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: predicting the future since 1999.

~~~
Quarrelsome
> Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this
> generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future
> seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew
> and eat our fill.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Ethics of Greed"

~~~
endgame
Energy is the currency of the future.

\- CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"

I was going to link to its page on Paean to SMAC but it turns out that quote
is from "Global Energy Theory", a tech that didn't make it into the final game
(but had data set up for it). So there's no write-up about it.

Instead, I'll link to the Paean's "First Time Here?" page:
[https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/first-time-
here/](https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/first-time-here/)

~~~
Quarrelsome
The lore in that game was so fantastic. I wish there hadn't been an IP war
over it. These days Hollywood is so desperate for ideas that it could have
been a TV series or a film by now otherwise.

My favourite tech quote was MMI (mind-machine interface):

> The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this
> monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile
> unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the
> sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army
> of demons.

Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Report on Human Rights"

\----

The text doesn't do the delivery credit though, the acting as well was often
phenomenal.

------
blunte
This ignores the area where the rich do the most climate damage - with
corporate activities.

Individuals and poor people don't cut down hectares of rainforest, kill
hectares of soil with mass monoculture farming, spill billions of barrels of
oil into the ocean, etc. All these things are done in pursuit of more profit
(or at least more revenue). The beneficiaries of these activities are the rich
- the execs, shareholders, banking partners, VCs, etc.

I would guess that the scale of damage done -- the disparity of climate harm
between rich people and poor people -- is far greater than the individual rich
vs poor personal energy consumption.

~~~
Mirioron
The beneficiaries of these activities are the people buying the products. If
people wouldn't have a desire for more cheap food and other products then
people wouldn't make it. Turns out though, that it's the poorest people for
whom cheap food is most useful. An executive still eats the same amount of
calories as anyone else.

~~~
blunte
That's the theory, but in practice it doesn't work that way. Just take oil and
gas, for example. The poorest people are certainly not consuming large amounts
of petroleum products. For example, consider the US Military -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_States_military)

The primary beneficiaries of this military consumption are the corporations
that supply the goods and services that the military pays for (with public
money), but the gains made by those corporations go into a relatively few
pockets.

Another example is big agriculture corporations. In the US, for decades there
have been subsidies paid to corn "farmers" (now big corps), to the extent that
the businesses had to find ways to use corn beyond just food. Thus came corn
syrup, ethanol
([https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_against_ethanol_bad_...](https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_against_ethanol_bad_for_environment))
and more.

Beneficiaries of this, again, are a few people. Meanwhile, land is burned out
(soil quality reduced to worthless), plus all the infrastructure and energy
use related to operating large scale farms.

If I had all day to spend, I could probably find a dozen other examples.

This has nothing to do with cheap food for poor people; and after all, the
research shows that the cheap food is the unhealthiest.

~~~
Mirioron
> _The primary beneficiaries of this military consumption are the corporations
> that supply the goods and services that the military pays for (with public
> money), but the gains made by those corporations go into a relatively few
> pockets._

Why do you consider the primary beneficiaries of an activity that consumes
resources the ones who supply the resources? Surely, the beneficiaries from
the activity itself are the primary beneficiaries. Or to put this into
context: the primary beneficiaries of the military are the people and trade
that the military protects. The primary beneficiary from the military's use of
helmets aren't helmet manufacturers, but rather the soldiers using the
helmets.

> _Another example is big agriculture corporations. In the US, for decades
> there have been subsidies paid to corn "farmers" (now big corps), to the
> extent that the businesses had to find ways to use corn beyond just food._

And cheap food benefits nobody? I would imagine that if the food they produce
is so cheap that they have to find other avenues of using it that this would
benefit people who have trouble affording food.

> _This has nothing to do with cheap food for poor people;_

It has everything to do with cheap food and goods. Without these economies of
scale a chicken sandwich would cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. If
you had to gather all of the ingredients yourself then it would be incredibly
expensive.

> _and after all, the research shows that the cheap food is the unhealthiest._

I wouldn't call potatoes and rice the unhealthiest foods. Nowadays we consider
some foods unhealthy because they are so plentiful - _because that are cheap_.
People tend to overindulge in them which makes them "unhealthy". Most of the
time it's a question of how much is consumed.

------
dimitar
Possible policies:

* Carbon taxes

* Cap of total emissions

* Energy assistance program for the poor, or a rebate for everyone; whatever is more likely to succeed politically.

This way the lifestyle adjustment comes mainly from the top, somewhat from the
middle and the poor don't waste fuels and electricity or use other means of
heating like illegal firewood.

------
reallydontask
This is hardly surprising. A lot of __poor __people are not going to fly, are
more likely to use public transport and because they have less, or no,
disposable income, consume less.

Sweeping generalisations of course

------
esarbe
Not very surprising. The question is; how do we mitigate further damage,
address the damage that has been done and make sure that those responsible pay
the bill?

~~~
Loic
Accounting of the externalities when applying taxes would certainly help.

~~~
qayxc
Sadly this won't work. Unfortunately, the capitalist system is very
opportunistic and "[my country] first!" initiatives would quickly out-compete
countries and trade blocks that heavily tax consumption or production in that
way.

Just look at Norway, my personal go-to example for that kind of taxation. The
country has an absurdly high "luxury"-tax on cars (up to 100% all costs
combined). The only reason they can do that, though, is the complete lack of a
domestic automotive industry. The high taxation simply doesn't affect their
national economy in the slightest. Countries like Sweden, the Czech
Republic,or especially France and Germany couldn't do that - they have a
substantial automotive industry.

What unfair competition can do could be observed in Europe in the 1970s and
the 2000s. In the 1970s, pretty much the entire textile industry moved to
South East Asia due to absurdly low costs compared to Europe (one could name
it outright slavery). In the 2000s, the Chinese government did the same to
Germany's solar industry by undercutting prices using substantial government
subsidies.

Proper taxation of goods depending on environmental impact would be able to
fundamentally change the economy from focus on consumerism to a more
sustainable and cyclic economy. But it only takes a few market actors that
don't participate to render the scheme unsustainable overall... And the recent
trend towards autocratic "alpha males" in global politics (from the White
House, to the Kremlin, to the Bosporus, and South America) paired with
increasing nationalism worldwide doesn't make me hopeful for the near future.

~~~
esarbe
These are some very good points. Thanks for putting them together.

------
Neil44
Us "Rich People" have agency to push entropy aside, using energy as a
resource, in a way that people in undeveloped areas do not.

~~~
Quarrelsome
ye and that agency comes at a global cost. I'm looking at the ankle deep water
in Bangladesh. Who is paying for that? Not the 'rich'.

How is that anywhere near the human principal of 'fair'?

~~~
Udik
Do you really think that Bangladesh's problem is the "ankle deep water"?
Honestly, I think the left has completely lost it. Let me elaborate very
briefly: forty years ago, the left would have been concerned with people in
the poorest countries living in mud huts, with no food safety, no hospitals in
reach, no schooling, no protection from illness and natural disasters.

Nowadays- and it's enough to read a left-wing newspaper to realise- the left
is only concerned with the marginal increase in misery (supposedly) caused to
the poorest by climate change. While in fact the mythical baseline we should
bring the world back to is only just slightly better than the current
situation, that is, still horrid by any standard.

If your problem are the floods in Bangladesh, you'll help them very little by
cutting the jet trips of the rich west; what they need are tons of energy and
machines to build water management systems, schools to educate a class of
engineers and civil servants, factories to build job security, agriculture to
build food safety and resilience. All stuff that in fact emits shittons of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

/rant

~~~
Quarrelsome
Ankle deep water is just a flippant way of referencing rising sea levels. Some
families that used to have low-lying farmland now just have a river, raise
ducks instead of chickens.

Its a visible outcome of the use of fossil fuels. Obviously its not
Bangladesh's only nor primary concern.

Also, FWIW, I find it exceptionally offensive that you've tried to turn this
into some left/right hocus pocus. Global warming, climate change, developing
world poverty; these are all issues where the directional political learning
does _nothing_ to provide the solutions.

~~~
Udik
> I find it exceptionally offensive...

Not sure what you mean with this. What I was trying to say is that the
political side that is traditionally more vocal about the need to improve the
condition of the poorest (I think we can agree on this- that's what defines
the left anyway) has- in my opinion- lost its way by focusing too much on the
climate issue as if it were the source and the solution of all problems.

More, I think that the left has actually bent the climate issue (which is at
its core a scientific issue, something that transcends any value judgement) to
the point of making it coincide exactly with its fundamental ideological
framework- which explains why climate change is felt as such a central problem
by leftwing/ liberals and leaves rightwing/ conservatives so sceptical.

(To give you an example of what I mean with this: you'd expect campaigners for
action against climate change to organise big rallies in favour of the
construction of hundreds of nuclear plants- or at least for more money into
research for cheap and safe nuclear energy. This doesn't happen because the
issue of climate change has been shaped into a glove that fits perfectly the
ideological framework of the left: less industry, less capitalism, less
consumption, more redistribution).

~~~
Quarrelsome
What I mean is that we were having an interesting discussion about energy
meaning agency and how that agency might also have trade-offs and then you
were like:

> DAE left and right?

and its just completely unnecessary. I'm sure you enjoy using that frame to
approach issues but appreciate it can have a negative impact on discussion,
especially somewhere like here where we all appreciate agency and doing stuff
and solving problems.

The reason environmentalists who campaign for environmental issues don't
campaign for nuclear power is that many of them are also not fans of nuclear
energy as they are concerned about nuclear waste. I don't feel like that
particular outcome is that surprising given the history of that movement. If
you're looking for consistency there maybe they should be more into battery
tech to handle green power downtimes?

------
justforfunhere
[offtopic rant]

Coronavirus is hitting back hard on behalf of nature.

Pollution levels in worst hit areas have come down. Industries have shut down
and economic activity has subsided.

Coronavirus is in a way a ironic f __k you to Humans. Its the kind of enemy
that we as a civilization are worse prepared for.

Even after all the technological breakthroughs, we are still nowhere.

With our current technology we can easily tell whether there is a cat or a dog
in a picture, but can't tell quickly enough whether a asymptomatic person
standing right in front of you has Corona infection. Way to go! Let's make
some more bright graduates to work on making people click more ads, yeah.

~~~
ngold
The greatest tragedy is we have 50 years of lost geniuses doing Quant work for
Wallstreet instead of making scientific breakthroughs.

~~~
jlawson
Being fair, efficient allocation of capital is important. it creates wealth,
which improves human life.

There are definitely lots of bulshit jobs out there, but I wouldn't call
quants among the highest tier in terms of waste of human talent. I'd probably
look at adtech for that.

~~~
Super_Jambo
This would make sense if our markets were optimising for something useful
other than how to extract wealth from workers & consumers whilst providing as
little as possible in return.

Practically everything on this site is about moats & branding. Of waves of VC
money swamping an ingrained industry with the hope of carving out a monopoly.
Of google smashing existing competitive markets giving away a better product
for 'free' in order to have better surveillance of phools so google can sell
their spending.

None of this is "efficient allocation of capital". Unless your goal is wealth
concentration and the destruction of democratic liberal society.

We need a cultural change to lauding regulation that enforces competition in
our markets and politics. Otherwise we're on a rapid track to feudalism.

~~~
candiodari
Fortunately, that's not all of it, it's a circle:

markets optimize production and take from workers

workers enjoy what markets provide and optimize the production and
specifically production value of human work, taking from those who are
producing

production optimizes what markets will sell and take from them.

And in practice it's 100000x more complex than this, mostly because such
complexity is necessary.

------
mrpickels
consume less, be moderate, have a healthy lifestyle, avoid civilization and
have an abundance of happiness! and MOST important - don't read stupid
comments on HN haha

~~~
qayxc
The irony in your comment stings so hard, I'm feeling like a fakir reading
it...

------
easytiger
Ridiculous reductive nonsense

~~~
hackeraccount
Agreed. This article is takes something complex and reduces it to total
idiocy.

~~~
easytiger
It's a reimagining of original sin. And it can get lost. Evil way of thinking

------
esarbe
What's the reason this got flagged?

~~~
atomi
It hits close to home.

~~~
esarbe
That could be a reason...

------
makomk
Climate change: we need to make everyone less well-off in real, tangible terms
that will directly affect every part of their lives. Justified by framing it
in class-war terms, but with proposals that will make many things that were
once available to the masses luxuries for the really rich. It's like it's a
simultaneous demonstration both of why many on the right believe fighting
climate change is just a left-wing weapon to push their ideology _and_ why the
supposed natural audience of the anti-rich populist left, poor and working-
class members of society, are "voting against their own interests" and not
supporting them.

~~~
pjc50
The alternative is random unevenly distributed making of people less well off;
such as the Australian wildfires or the gradual flooding of Miami.

------
cameronbrown
Climate change aside:

This trend of measuring what resources rich people use compared to everyone
else just snacks of jealousy. Who cares if energy distribution isn't
"equitable"?? Just live your life and stop comparing.

Edit: Prepared to eat Karma here, but it's what I believe.

~~~
folli
Aren't we somehow in this boat together?

~~~
praptak
Some of us are reluctant to give up the good seats in order to save the boat.

~~~
blunte
More accurately, some passengers are rich enough to afford to buy an extra
seat just to carry their extra luggage, depriving a poorer person the
opportunity to share the ride.

~~~
esarbe
An extra seat? The whole deck.

~~~
esarbe
I mean, seriously, have you had a look at wealth distribution? It's about 0.7
percent that owns about 46% of all the wealth.
([https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/nov/2017-11-13T1...](https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/nov/2017-11-13T16:11:56/embed.html))

To stay with the boat analogy; the top half of the boat is nearly empty,
reserved for the exclusive use of some few rich people (and maybe their
servants), while the lower decks with the machinery is teeming with masses of
poor people, crowded by the hundreds into vast rooms right beside the boilers,
devoid of any infrastructure or sanitation, barely able to move or breath.

The boat is sinking and the poor in the lower decks are drowning. All the
while the few rich in the upper decks are trying to cut a way pieces of the
boat and make them swim by themselves.

~~~
blunte
Indeed. And when something like Corona hits, and the mass of poor people get
sick all at the same time, then the boat stops moving.

We are observing the early stages of a correction in the way of life, and I
daresay the near/medium term future will be quite different than things have
been for the previous 40 yeras.

