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> Change is not difficult really, but the majority do not want to make deep sacrifices and would rather be a happy fat cat. The 90s dotcom boom took some vague

by fao_ 8y ago

> Change is not difficult really, but the majority do not want to make deep sacrifices and would rather be a happy fat cat. The 90s dotcom boom took some vaguely 'smart' people, then gave them enough money that they are the richest people in the world. These people now sit on their asses and donate pitiful amounts of their money away (Bezos donating 30,000 to a couple of children is the equivalent of an investment banker tossing a spare 5p coin at a homeless person. Sure, it's better than nothing, but it's less than the bare minimum that we should expect. For comparison, if less than two thirds of the 1.1bn raised for the Notre Dame were donated to Flint, Michighan, then the people there could be drinking clean water by now...) to keep people appeased while the people working for them (in the case of, say, Amazon) literally starve and faint from exhaustion, and get less than minimum wage for it. I do not think you mean 'the majority'. I think you mean, the three bus-loads of ~90 CEOs and middle executives that, if they happened to crash/explode, would literally solve climate change overnight. The report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established – can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities. The scale of historical emissions associated with these fossil fuel producers is large enough to have contributed significantly to climate change, according to the report. and A Carbon Tracker study in 2015 found that fossil fuel companies risked wasting more than $2tn over the coming decade by pursuing coal, oil and gas projects that could be worthless in the face of international action on climate change and advances in renewables – in turn posing substantial threats to investor returns.

artimaeis 8y ago
> "I think you mean, the three bus-loads of ~90 CEOs and middle executives that, if they happened to crash/explode, would literally solve climate change overnight." No matter how many executives you propose to eliminate, the consumer demand for the goods those companies provide is unlikely to go away. People consume energy and it's unlikely that we'll be able to reduce our usage meaningfully in the near future. If we want to meaningfully reduce energy usage it's going to take organized collective efforts around the planet.
- pluma 8y ago
  Don't kid yourself. It's not "consumer demand" that's doing the harm, it's companies. Companies aren't interested in fixing this because fixing it is not profitable. But you can't blame that on the consumers. The obvious solution is to make it less profitable not to address these problems but that means passing crippling regulations that will result in companies going under, markets shrinking, jobs being lost and products vanishing. In other words: political suicide. And it doesn't even take consumers protesting about these things, it's enough if a few billionaires or megacorps use their political power to push back on these attempts of "regulatory overreach" or whatever riles up the conservative vote today. Literally noone in a position necessary to do something against the climate crisis has any incentive to do anything meaningful to stop it.
  - netsharc 8y ago
    But what is profit? Companies selling at the price where customers think "Oh that's a great price! I'll buy it!". How to get a cheap price? Manufacture where labor is cheap. And/or where there are low carbon taxes. Or where the EPA has been told by the leader of the country to ignore pollution by your factory. And using the best-priced raw materials (more easily to get from suppliers that don't have to spend a lot of money complying with regulations...). If only price labels are more something along the lines of "Price: 300 USD, 3kg of CO2, 400l of polluted water, 40ha of ruined farmland"...
  - artimaeis 8y ago
    If we're going to climb the abstraction ladder of blame, then it's not the companies -- it's the consumption of energy and the release of various greenhouse gasses that's doing the harm, not the companies. But that's not a super-useful fact. We could globally outlaw capitalism, and I'd fully expect that the resource demand would just be replaced by governments (as is basically the case with China Coal & Saudi Oil) providing these materials since people are going to riot if you take them away. Like how do you foresee the average person reacting if they can only get 5 gallons of fuel per week, that their food selection is reduced to what's available in a 50-mile radius of where they live? That they can't have air conditioning for more than a few hours a day? These are near-apocalyptic scenarios that we're talking about if reduce our energy usage to sustainable levels.
simonh 8y ago
>(in the case of, say, Amazon) literally starve and faint from exhaustion, and get less than minimum wage for it. Amazon pays no less than double the minimum working wage in the US.
- fao_ 8y ago
  That's an incredible nitpick that you have there. I'm very happy that your purchase of the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses is working out for you. Regardless of how much the 'minimum working wage' is in the US, they are still getting paid less than they should for the amount of stress and trauma that they have to endure https://stallman.org/amazon.html#exploiting https://stallman.org/amazon.html#exploiting
  - katanaman 8y ago
    This already has been told hundredths of times, but if you don't like working for Amazon then... don't. It's harsh but it does stand Edit: grammar
    - mAEStro-paNDa 8y ago
      Not everyone has the freedom/opportunity to pick and choose jobs they like, and even if they did, that doesn't mean Amazon should treat their workers terribly.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    I'm no fan of Amazon but I don't see how correcting an outright false claim is "an incredible nitpick" and I don't think that the personal attack is really called for.

by fao_ 8y ago

artimaeis 8y ago

> "I think you mean, the three bus-loads of ~90 CEOs and middle executives that, if they happened to crash/explode, would literally solve climate change overnight." No matter how many executives you propose to eliminate, the consumer demand for the goods those companies provide is unlikely to go away. People consume energy and it's unlikely that we'll be able to reduce our usage meaningfully in the near future. If we want to meaningfully reduce energy usage it's going to take organized collective efforts around the planet.

pluma 8y ago
Don't kid yourself. It's not "consumer demand" that's doing the harm, it's companies. Companies aren't interested in fixing this because fixing it is not profitable. But you can't blame that on the consumers. The obvious solution is to make it less profitable not to address these problems but that means passing crippling regulations that will result in companies going under, markets shrinking, jobs being lost and products vanishing. In other words: political suicide. And it doesn't even take consumers protesting about these things, it's enough if a few billionaires or megacorps use their political power to push back on these attempts of "regulatory overreach" or whatever riles up the conservative vote today. Literally noone in a position necessary to do something against the climate crisis has any incentive to do anything meaningful to stop it.
- netsharc 8y ago
  But what is profit? Companies selling at the price where customers think "Oh that's a great price! I'll buy it!". How to get a cheap price? Manufacture where labor is cheap. And/or where there are low carbon taxes. Or where the EPA has been told by the leader of the country to ignore pollution by your factory. And using the best-priced raw materials (more easily to get from suppliers that don't have to spend a lot of money complying with regulations...). If only price labels are more something along the lines of "Price: 300 USD, 3kg of CO2, 400l of polluted water, 40ha of ruined farmland"...
- artimaeis 8y ago
  If we're going to climb the abstraction ladder of blame, then it's not the companies -- it's the consumption of energy and the release of various greenhouse gasses that's doing the harm, not the companies. But that's not a super-useful fact. We could globally outlaw capitalism, and I'd fully expect that the resource demand would just be replaced by governments (as is basically the case with China Coal & Saudi Oil) providing these materials since people are going to riot if you take them away. Like how do you foresee the average person reacting if they can only get 5 gallons of fuel per week, that their food selection is reduced to what's available in a 50-mile radius of where they live? That they can't have air conditioning for more than a few hours a day? These are near-apocalyptic scenarios that we're talking about if reduce our energy usage to sustainable levels.

simonh 8y ago

>(in the case of, say, Amazon) literally starve and faint from exhaustion, and get less than minimum wage for it. Amazon pays no less than double the minimum working wage in the US.

fao_ 8y ago
That's an incredible nitpick that you have there. I'm very happy that your purchase of the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses is working out for you. Regardless of how much the 'minimum working wage' is in the US, they are still getting paid less than they should for the amount of stress and trauma that they have to endure https://stallman.org/amazon.html#exploiting https://stallman.org/amazon.html#exploiting
- katanaman 8y ago
  This already has been told hundredths of times, but if you don't like working for Amazon then... don't. It's harsh but it does stand Edit: grammar
  - mAEStro-paNDa 8y ago
    Not everyone has the freedom/opportunity to pick and choose jobs they like, and even if they did, that doesn't mean Amazon should treat their workers terribly.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I'm no fan of Amazon but I don't see how correcting an outright false claim is "an incredible nitpick" and I don't think that the personal attack is really called for.