> Greta Thunberg—the 16-year-old Swedish activist who helped inspire the worldwide surge in youth climate mobilizations—argued that the success or failure of the global climate movement will be determined by one measure: "the emission curve."
> "People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished," Thunberg wrote. "But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I'm sorry, but it's still rising.
So sobering to here this from a 16-year old. There is so much of a self-celebratory tone in some climate circles - "Great conference. Great event. We sent a strong message. We are working on such and such fantastic technology. The end of cool. This pledge. That promise". Sorry, your tech startup is worth nothing while PPM is still rising.
In the context of the recent popular HN post [0], stop working your ass off. Take a day off. And then another one. Go meet your friends you haven't seen in a long while. Go for a walk. Better for climate and your mental health.
The real problem is that the people who can do something about it are getting paid by the oil companies not to. You know and I know it, its that simple, they are being bribed.
It's easy to blame politicians and oil companies. That's not really the ultimate cause though - it's and uncaring and growing population.
Most people still don't care about the environment - that's why politicians don't care. And even fewer people care about overpopulation. I think they don't even consider it to be a problem.
CO2 is a hard sell because you can not see it and because the reduction of it sound not fun, especially as Greens/Environmentalists are generally spreading a pessimistic message. People actually endorse positive messages more.
That said, I think we have to sell CO2 reduction by proxy. To me, investing in CO2 reducing technologies induces not fear, but sheer excitement. Look how much calmer, less smelly and more liveable a city with only electric cars/bikes would be! How much more could we travel by plane if it was powered by renewables! How cool would it be to use products that last longer instead of throwing them away all the time! How nice would it be to heat the house without burning expensive oil!
What is good for the environment is good for a great materialistic life. We just have to change our perception.
It gets plenty of attention from the top, the problem is that most measures to curtail emissions have negative economic impacts. You don't want to be the Senator/Congressman that made foreclosures rise because factories went belly up.
Also, at least in the West, the general consensus is that even if the US were to cut emissions drastically it would hardly make a dent due to China and India. So you'd cripple the US economy, but China and India would continue at pace and become even more cost competitive. The only real solution is a global binding resolution with audits, similar to nuclear treaties...not a Paris Accord which was not binding and largely just fodder.
It's not an easy problem, it's certainly not as easy as the younger generation seems to think when it comes to fixing. Not only is the environment at stake, but so are people's paychecks and livelihoods. The Green New Deal did the movement no favors by being completely outlandish and unrealistic in a global economy.
In my opinion, this is the same as saying that we should keep using slaves for manual labor, because it would hurt the economy if we set them free.
It should not be allowed to ruin the world for other people as a living. If China and India keep doing that, we stop buying their stuff. However, if we keep ruining the world for a living ourselves, it is very hard to point fingers at others.
Also, there are still lots of money to be made in renewable energy and emissionless energy consumption. Tax what you want less of, give financial support to what you want more of.
You lost me at comparing an externality to literal slavery. I'm sure if you lost your job and were without a job for a year or 3, you'd not sing the same tune.
"If China and India keep doing that, we stop buying their stuff."
This would cripple the global economy and throw millions into poverty.
Are younger generations doing anything substantive different, besides giving this more attention? The studies show that in order to limit temperature increases to 1.5C, the west has to go carbon negative immediately. (China by itself can use up the world’s remaining carbon budget within a couple of decades).
So what are “young people” doing about the problem? They don’t seem to be rejecting the material lifestyle that causes CO2 footprints in the west to be 10x higher than say Bangladesh. In big cities like DC, transit ridership is decreasing as young people choose Uber instead. They’re not flocking to STEM majors, which frankly are the only thing that has any hope of addressing climate change. At most, they seem to realize they are going to be the generation that loses the game of musical chairs, and they’re angry about it but not willing to change their lifestyles over it.
In the west, changes are more likely to occur when problems get attention. This is the beauty of democracy: Attention can be powerful, because it can change how people votes.
And when it comes to people making personal changes, the free will is strong, but with the big life style changes we need, I do not believe we can rely on free will only. The changes have to be incentivized somehow from government side. The west is RICH. We can afford to invest in saving ourselves from a global catastrophe.
How? You punish bad behavior through taxes and fines, and reward good behavior through tax breaks and financial support.
Will it hurt the economy? Quite possibly. Can we afford it? I think we cannot afford the opposite.
People in power don't give a fuck. They assume that their wealth will insulate them from the worst of it (are they wrong?). The rest of us are just interchangeable rabble to them.
And then there's the 50,000 delegates from 192 countries who attended the Paris Climate Conference, evidently quite unconcerned by their carbon footprint (video conferencing - oh no!). Ordinary Joe & Jane Doe trying to meet their massively increased energy bill might be forgiven for wondering if those delegates really believed what they so passionately proclaimed.
The answer to this question isn't surprising -- people resist science that doesn't fit their views for a reason, it means uncomfortable changes. Let me list a few reasons some people may doubt/resist:
1. If this were true, I would be wrong, and since all my experience suggests I'm right, the evidence is probably wrong.
2. So many times people have been sure of things, especially scientists, yet they were shown to be wrong, so they are probably wrong again.
3. These studies are being picked or even conducted because there is an environmental agenda, I don't believe it because I'm sure we could conduct a "study" that would reach the opposite conclusion, but all the scientists are biased that way (just like global cooling in the 70s, or how Vioxx was deemed "safe" by FDA scientists).
4. If this is true, its proponents will cram a political agenda down my throat, since I don't agree politically, but have no counter-proposal, I must disagree with the evidence to avoid the politically losing confrontation.
5. There are no viable plans to fix the problem, accepting the evidence would put me in a psychological bind since there really isn't a way to solve it -- not recycling, driving less, nuclear, there is NO known solution right now, so we must say this is false.
6. People who say "just believe science" don't seem to believe science on other fronts (e.g. gender differences), or have beliefs I see as obviously wrong, so I can't believe they'd be right about this single item but wrong about so much else.
7. The people who are most pushing this agenda are obviously politcally, not scientifically motivated, so I question the evidence due to "motivation".
8. Overselling and shouting make me disbelieve your claims. Usually a calm and reasonable approach sells, but you're telling me "change now or die", and Al Gore said that 20 years ago and it didn't happen.
Like so many - probably nearly all - issues picked up by the current tide of 'progressive' political factions the issue has been turned into a black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us, quasi-religious mantra. The slightest deviation from the current narrative is enough to be labelled a 'climate (change) denier'. Questioning the accuracy and efficacy of the IPCC climate model (which normally is an essential part of meteorological model development and maintenance as it leads to better predictions) is seen as blasphemy and can leads to professional banishment. This then leads those who want to voice criticism towards channels which host voices on the other side of the spectrum since those are the only channels which are willing - nay, 'eager' is a better term - to let those voices be heard.
In short, the issue has been polarised in such a way that the more extreme voices on either side are more and more setting the tone for the debate. Extremism is hardly ever the best approach to reach the silent majority.
It absolutely isn't. The opposite is true. Climate change denial is falling very rapidly. Just check any of the multiple recent polls and surveys. You will see a big difference especially in the last decade.
I can only speak for myself, but while I don't disagree it's an issue to fix - the combination of (a) lack of actionable, checklist-able tasks to help and (b) the ever-present shrill alarmist tone is a hell of a one-two-punch in nudging people to shrug and nihilistically say 'why should I care?'.
It's tricky because those who would care about that topic are the type to be involved in the movement early on, so it creates a sharp divide of "i automatically care about this, it's self evident it's important" vs "make me care about it". Cynically, on platforms like twitter, most people are too emotionally exhausted to care about anything given it's an outrage culture in itself. (There's not a small part of me that wonders if that was half-planned, honestly. But that's the tin-foil hat side of me talking.)
The current approach is perceived as an attack based upon moral superiority by those who honestly believe climate change is not manmade and/or stand to lose money from addressing it.
Attacking the moral compass of those who believe they are acting morally right (or pretend to be) isn't working. We need to find common ground with these people. It may need to start with financial implications of not addressing climate change.
> "People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished," Thunberg wrote. "But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I'm sorry, but it's still rising.
So sobering to here this from a 16-year old. There is so much of a self-celebratory tone in some climate circles - "Great conference. Great event. We sent a strong message. We are working on such and such fantastic technology. The end of cool. This pledge. That promise". Sorry, your tech startup is worth nothing while PPM is still rising.
In the context of the recent popular HN post [0], stop working your ass off. Take a day off. And then another one. Go meet your friends you haven't seen in a long while. Go for a walk. Better for climate and your mental health.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116699