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In my opinion, the large corporations behind fossil fuels have too much of an economic clout. The governments around the world are dependent on them for a consi

by vjsc 8y ago

In my opinion, the large corporations behind fossil fuels have too much of an economic clout. The governments around the world are dependent on them for a considerable amount of their respective national economy. So yes you are right about government not doing much about this. Ultimately, unless there is a relatively quick mass extinction event, no government is going to be bothered into action. Climate change and the devastation it's going to cause, is going to play out slowly over the years. The most affected would be the poorest of the world. They are going to die first. The rich will have enough resources to be able to not only survive, but also thrive on these events as new business opportunities are going to be created. Ultimately, Earth maybe a very different place 100 years from now, but the rich of today are surely going to have their descendants living quite comfortably. The only thing an individual can do is to strive to get as rich as possible, because that is the only security that's going to save you and your family in the bleak future that lies ahead of us.

raquo 8y ago
Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on. Governments and countries are not very stable under these conditions. Probably shouldn't expect your wealth to crisis proof your life in this scenario. Won't hurt but we'll all be much better off organizing to avoid this future.
- doon123 8y ago
  >> Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on. I think the crisis will be contained to the poorest parts of the world. Especially the tropics. This area is going to be the first to bear the brunt of climate change related problems. I dont foresee Global wars happening. The politicians are too smart for that. They will try to contain the damage to the extant that the richer countries ( US, Europe, Australia ) are not affected much. Ofcourse there will be shortages as global supply routes are going to be disrupted. The most thought provoking scenario here is going to be what will happen with China. Maybe not being a democracy will prove to be a blessing in disguise for it. Having a pragmatic group of men leading the country is the best option in the face of upcoming doom. China may shed a lot of weight ( population), but it may just survive, because of its largely monoculture and more or less obedient population. I see much of Africa, SouthEast Asia to completely gone by the next 100 years. They will be left alone by the rest of the world to fight the battle of survival, and the odds wont be great. MiddleEast is already ravaged, but they may continue to survive because they have oil. Most rich countries ( the leaders I mean ), may not be very displeased with the fate of the poorer nations. Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet.
  - raquo 8y ago
    Somehow I doubt that people in these countries will sit on their hands while dying off. Mass migration will definitely happen, and might even be supported by their governments and armies. India, Pakistan and China have nuclear weapons to wave around. US will likely be better off than Europe thanks to the oceans and a big army / navy. But it will not be a good time for anyone if it comes to this.
  - onyeka 8y ago
    > Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet. But the wealthier nations are the ones producing majority of the carbon emissions. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-r... Seems like you're counting on poorer countries to die off so you in the the richer nations can survive when it's the richer folks causing the problem. Like the resource loss from these continents wasting away won't affect them.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      A part of the climate change calculation is that the poorer countries are actively improving their standards of living, and that means rapidly increasing their energy demands.
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    People in regions bearing the brunt of the change aren't just going to stay there. There will be mass migrations of possibly hundreds of millions, and no wall is going to stop them.
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      It's somewhat plausible that some of the potential targets of migration will choose to prevent this with military force, including nuclear weapons.
  - EeThahs2 8y ago
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Large corporations have too much economic clout because our economic and political thinking is pre-rational and not fit for purpose. You can't do rational planning on a planetary scale when your political frameworks are explicitly tailored to maximise short-term resource accumulation without limit for a micro-minority. We're not going to win this one without a revolution - not just the usual violent class swap that lops off one aristocracy to make room for another, but a moral and cultural revolution in how we plan for the future as a species. I'm not optimistic, because IMO it's too big a challenge, and we literally don't have the brains or the culture for it. But I'm open to being surprised.
jsingleton 8y ago
Depressingly pragmatic. While building resilience is certainly worthwhile, we can still fix this and should try. I think individual actions can add up, particularly when we use the magnifying power of tech. I wrote a lot on this recently and I can't fit it all in a comment so I'll just link to it. https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-1/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... It boils down to a three step process: - Understand - Organise - Amplify There's a post for each and more to come.
- Chris_Jay 8y ago
  When you say 'fix' do you mean 'prevent a two-degree shift' or 'transition to an zero-net-emissions economy'? Or do you mean we can avoid some survivable threshold higher than two degrees? I agree that useful action is possible and important, but I'm starting to feel that our last chance to avoid catastrophic climate change was sometime last decade or the one before.
  - jsingleton 8y ago
    I mean both, first 'prevent a two-degree shift' then 'transition to an zero-net-emissions economy' and finally even negative emissions. This was almost solved in the 1980s and wasn't but that's a sunk-cost fallacy. The chips are down and we are where we are, so let's roll forward and get this solved.
growlist 8y ago
Or migrate northwards, or upwards in elevation (latter might not work as well due to decreased precipitation). UK's latitude and natural moat are looking like pretty useful attributes, at the expense of losing considerable amounts of low lying coastline.
blablabla123 8y ago
> In my opinion, the large corporations behind fossil fuels have too much of an economic clout. It's easy to blame the big corporations. It's also about the governments facilitating alternatives and about eventually, literally every person buying into that.
simonh 8y ago
In democracies we can't all just throw up our hands and blame it on the political class and big business. If the ordinary people of the developed world really wanted something done about it, as a higher priority than anything else, there is no gun held to their heads preventing them from voting for that. We are all benefiting hugely from the cheap energy reaped from fossil fuels, whether we like it or not, and in the main the fact is we like it. Imagining that 'large corporations' are reaping all the benefits and could bear all the cost of weaning the global economy off fossil fuels is jaw droppingly naive. The massive costs of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels would bear down heavily on all of us, and especially the poor and the third world. Can we imagine China elevating hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the last 30 years without fossil fuels? I'm no climate change denier, far from it. You're quite right that the costs will be severe, even catastrophic, but there is no easy answer to this.
- gjm11 8y ago
  Indeed, there's no gun to our heads preventing us voting for taking serious action on climate change. There doesn't need to be. Imagine I'm a voter in, say, the US or the UK. There is no major party I can vote for that will, if elected, take serious action on climate change. In both nations there is a Green Party which probably would, but it has a firmly established track record of getting approximately zero votes; the only way in which voting Green has ever had any visible impact on US or UK policy is that a bunch of people voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 US presidential election is part of why we had President Bush instead of President Gore, which is probably not an encouraging precedent to most potential Green voters. And, of course, voting Green also means voting for all their other policies. Which doesn't matter if you regard climate change as the only important issue, but since you probably don't, you might find them unacceptable on other grounds; and since lots of other voters definitely don't, lots of them are going to be voting not-Green even if they care a lot about climate change ... which means that, once again, the Greens are not actually going to win, and the only real effect of voting for them is to give you less influence on which actually-electable candidate wins instead. So no, in practice we don't have the option of voting for taking serious action on climate change. We have the option of voting for a big package of things, one of which happens to be serious action on climate change, in the knowledge that (even if a sizeable majority of voters wants serious action on climate change) voting for that package won't actually result in a government that will try to implement it. It may be that those of us who care about climate change should be voting Green even though it predictably won't help in the near future, in order to "send a message" that might change the political landscape in future elections. Or that we should be putting pressure on the actually-electable parties to change their policies, or starting new parties, or something. But none of that means that we have a realistic way of getting action on climate change just by voting for it.
daralthus 8y ago
Sorry for painting a negative picture, but when poor countries are destabilised they create conflict for otherwise stable western countries too. Simply because it creates an opportunity for bad actors to gain strategic power. For example, without becoming too political, it seems a plausible strategy for Russia to try and control migration from the east to gain influence over the EU. Depending on the hyperbole, similar conflicts could become war scenarios where your wealth would not be enough to protect you. Considering this, getting rich is certainly a good advice, but might not be enough. We need to work on de escalating the situation even without any altruistic reasons, if you want to maximise your personal survival chances.

by vjsc 8y ago

raquo 8y ago

Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on. Governments and countries are not very stable under these conditions. Probably shouldn't expect your wealth to crisis proof your life in this scenario. Won't hurt but we'll all be much better off organizing to avoid this future.

doon123 8y ago
>> Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on. I think the crisis will be contained to the poorest parts of the world. Especially the tropics. This area is going to be the first to bear the brunt of climate change related problems. I dont foresee Global wars happening. The politicians are too smart for that. They will try to contain the damage to the extant that the richer countries ( US, Europe, Australia ) are not affected much. Ofcourse there will be shortages as global supply routes are going to be disrupted. The most thought provoking scenario here is going to be what will happen with China. Maybe not being a democracy will prove to be a blessing in disguise for it. Having a pragmatic group of men leading the country is the best option in the face of upcoming doom. China may shed a lot of weight ( population), but it may just survive, because of its largely monoculture and more or less obedient population. I see much of Africa, SouthEast Asia to completely gone by the next 100 years. They will be left alone by the rest of the world to fight the battle of survival, and the odds wont be great. MiddleEast is already ravaged, but they may continue to survive because they have oil. Most rich countries ( the leaders I mean ), may not be very displeased with the fate of the poorer nations. Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet.
- raquo 8y ago
  Somehow I doubt that people in these countries will sit on their hands while dying off. Mass migration will definitely happen, and might even be supported by their governments and armies. India, Pakistan and China have nuclear weapons to wave around. US will likely be better off than Europe thanks to the oceans and a big army / navy. But it will not be a good time for anyone if it comes to this.
- onyeka 8y ago
  > Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet. But the wealthier nations are the ones producing majority of the carbon emissions. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-r... Seems like you're counting on poorer countries to die off so you in the the richer nations can survive when it's the richer folks causing the problem. Like the resource loss from these continents wasting away won't affect them.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    A part of the climate change calculation is that the poorer countries are actively improving their standards of living, and that means rapidly increasing their energy demands.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  People in regions bearing the brunt of the change aren't just going to stay there. There will be mass migrations of possibly hundreds of millions, and no wall is going to stop them.
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    It's somewhat plausible that some of the potential targets of migration will choose to prevent this with military force, including nuclear weapons.
- EeThahs2 8y ago

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

Large corporations have too much economic clout because our economic and political thinking is pre-rational and not fit for purpose. You can't do rational planning on a planetary scale when your political frameworks are explicitly tailored to maximise short-term resource accumulation without limit for a micro-minority. We're not going to win this one without a revolution - not just the usual violent class swap that lops off one aristocracy to make room for another, but a moral and cultural revolution in how we plan for the future as a species. I'm not optimistic, because IMO it's too big a challenge, and we literally don't have the brains or the culture for it. But I'm open to being surprised.

jsingleton 8y ago

Depressingly pragmatic. While building resilience is certainly worthwhile, we can still fix this and should try. I think individual actions can add up, particularly when we use the magnifying power of tech. I wrote a lot on this recently and I can't fit it all in a comment so I'll just link to it. https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-1/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... It boils down to a three step process: - Understand - Organise - Amplify There's a post for each and more to come.

Chris_Jay 8y ago
When you say 'fix' do you mean 'prevent a two-degree shift' or 'transition to an zero-net-emissions economy'? Or do you mean we can avoid some survivable threshold higher than two degrees? I agree that useful action is possible and important, but I'm starting to feel that our last chance to avoid catastrophic climate change was sometime last decade or the one before.
- jsingleton 8y ago
  I mean both, first 'prevent a two-degree shift' then 'transition to an zero-net-emissions economy' and finally even negative emissions. This was almost solved in the 1980s and wasn't but that's a sunk-cost fallacy. The chips are down and we are where we are, so let's roll forward and get this solved.

growlist 8y ago

Or migrate northwards, or upwards in elevation (latter might not work as well due to decreased precipitation). UK's latitude and natural moat are looking like pretty useful attributes, at the expense of losing considerable amounts of low lying coastline.

blablabla123 8y ago

> In my opinion, the large corporations behind fossil fuels have too much of an economic clout. It's easy to blame the big corporations. It's also about the governments facilitating alternatives and about eventually, literally every person buying into that.

simonh 8y ago

In democracies we can't all just throw up our hands and blame it on the political class and big business. If the ordinary people of the developed world really wanted something done about it, as a higher priority than anything else, there is no gun held to their heads preventing them from voting for that. We are all benefiting hugely from the cheap energy reaped from fossil fuels, whether we like it or not, and in the main the fact is we like it. Imagining that 'large corporations' are reaping all the benefits and could bear all the cost of weaning the global economy off fossil fuels is jaw droppingly naive. The massive costs of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels would bear down heavily on all of us, and especially the poor and the third world. Can we imagine China elevating hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the last 30 years without fossil fuels? I'm no climate change denier, far from it. You're quite right that the costs will be severe, even catastrophic, but there is no easy answer to this.

gjm11 8y ago
Indeed, there's no gun to our heads preventing us voting for taking serious action on climate change. There doesn't need to be. Imagine I'm a voter in, say, the US or the UK. There is no major party I can vote for that will, if elected, take serious action on climate change. In both nations there is a Green Party which probably would, but it has a firmly established track record of getting approximately zero votes; the only way in which voting Green has ever had any visible impact on US or UK policy is that a bunch of people voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 US presidential election is part of why we had President Bush instead of President Gore, which is probably not an encouraging precedent to most potential Green voters. And, of course, voting Green also means voting for all their other policies. Which doesn't matter if you regard climate change as the only important issue, but since you probably don't, you might find them unacceptable on other grounds; and since lots of other voters definitely don't, lots of them are going to be voting not-Green even if they care a lot about climate change ... which means that, once again, the Greens are not actually going to win, and the only real effect of voting for them is to give you less influence on which actually-electable candidate wins instead. So no, in practice we don't have the option of voting for taking serious action on climate change. We have the option of voting for a big package of things, one of which happens to be serious action on climate change, in the knowledge that (even if a sizeable majority of voters wants serious action on climate change) voting for that package won't actually result in a government that will try to implement it. It may be that those of us who care about climate change should be voting Green even though it predictably won't help in the near future, in order to "send a message" that might change the political landscape in future elections. Or that we should be putting pressure on the actually-electable parties to change their policies, or starting new parties, or something. But none of that means that we have a realistic way of getting action on climate change just by voting for it.

daralthus 8y ago

Sorry for painting a negative picture, but when poor countries are destabilised they create conflict for otherwise stable western countries too. Simply because it creates an opportunity for bad actors to gain strategic power. For example, without becoming too political, it seems a plausible strategy for Russia to try and control migration from the east to gain influence over the EU. Depending on the hyperbole, similar conflicts could become war scenarios where your wealth would not be enough to protect you. Considering this, getting rich is certainly a good advice, but might not be enough. We need to work on de escalating the situation even without any altruistic reasons, if you want to maximise your personal survival chances.