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> but we don't have enough time for "eventually". I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.
by briandear 8y ago
> but we don't have enough time for "eventually".
I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.” And every single time the end of the world failed to arrive as scheduled. The sense of extreme urgency is nothing more than politics: an attempt to scare people into demanding a shift in the ownership of the means of production to fit political goals rather than environmental ones. A thought experiment: if capitalism could solve the climate tomorrow and BP and Exxon were at the forefront of it, would AOC and friends support it? Of course not. The only “solution” that crowd cares about is one that involves pure socialism which calls into question their actual commitment to the environment. It appears that improving the environment is being used as a means rather than an end: our fear of environmental calamity seemingly obfuscates our memory of the lack of freedom under Soviet styles of government.
If protecting the environment would stop serving as a dog whistle for anti-capitalism, then we’d could make a lot more progress on actually improving the environment.
- ljcn 8y agoI don't think your premise is correct. There have indeed been a lot of environmental scares (ozone layer, acid rain, ..., which were fortunately fixed with international effort), but mainstream climate science has if anything been far too conservative. For example, we're at the upper end of climate model ensembles from just ten years ago.[0] [0] http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
- achenatx 8y agothey believe in socialism as a means to an end not an end in and of itself. If you can achieve what they would like to achieve (elimination of suffering) by some other means, I suspect they would be open to it. I personally think they have the wrong goals and that inequality and suffering are what drive people to become better and achieve.
- gameswithgo 8y agoI would support your exxon in your thought experiment, and I'm a "friend" of AOC.