3 ms·

Look, it's cool that we consider all these fancy solutions, but we had and still have a more obvious solution of pricing-externalities into things - a proper ca

by nnq 7y ago

Look, it's cool that we consider all these fancy solutions, but we had and still have a more obvious solution of pricing-externalities into things - a proper carbon-tax and recycling-taxes for plastics high enough to make them undesirable, increase gas (and coal) prices enough to make electric everything look cheap and maybe even nuclear power look cheaper in the new comparison! Stop pending the argument that "it's politically impossible / toxic / whatever / unenforceable etc.", that's a dumb argument. Just take politics out of the equation! Or more precisely, take "democratic choice" out of this particular policy decision! If countries amend their constitutions to disallow any party or individual not in support of this to even be part of any election, then this particular aspect would simply not appear in political campaigns. Have "dark room" deals in most countries of the world put this into place and move on. And once the major international players are on board, for any country not playing the same game, just kindly point the missiles at them! In the end, most national governments would approve of such taxation because they'll have the opportunity to formulate it in their own terms and slightly increase national budgets (maybe investing a bit more in the military and gaining an advantage over their neighbors that don't do it... ugly but any incentive in the right direction helps). And multinational corporations would also not mind it much if it's done across the board, without favoring anyone... and actually corporations could be "hired to enforce the tax" in more advanced schemas, offering opportunities to profit while punishing misbehaving countries.

tehjoker 7y ago
"Just take politics out of the equation! Or more precisely, take "democratic choice" out of this particular policy decision!" This is such a scary sentence! The problem of climate change has been cause precisely by a lack of democracy. The military, the large oil refiners, the design of our infrastructure has been deeply affected by corporate priorities at the expense of a manipulated populace. We have climate denial in the US in large part because of corporate propaganda (and the fact that if people's oil sector jobs disappear there's no organized democratic approach to help them, they're at the mercy of the private sector). Furthermore, real democracy would include all the people affected by climate change that didn't cause it! The people of the Marshal islands should certainly have a say in how we approach this problem. Saying we don't need democracy is an extremely America centric approach. In the circles I'm in, we talk a lot about eco-facsism, which is the way the ecological crisis will be used to promote fascist policies with a green tinge. These include blaming immigrants, cracking down on poor people, and denying democracy in favor of the technocratic actors who caused the problem in the first place. We need the opposite! We need complete renewal of democracy and democratic practice in order to solve these problems. This idea scares the powerful because solving this crisis necessarily requires democratic control of major parts of the economy, which is a threat to the existing beneficiaries of the economic system.
- nnq 7y ago
  You don't have "democratic choice" for "how to better improve effectiveness of racial segregation", or how to better "discipline unruly women"... we know that some things like discrimination and violence are BAD, so we've written into law that they are not allowed. In all the civilized world we've taken certain really BAD options off-the-political-democratic-choice menu, because we don't want them to even be considered! Maybe we can do the same with things that are are really bad for the environment, like not having eco-externalities priced into things! This can be done without killing democracy as a whole. You cut a finger to save the whole organism! Maybe we should start seeing the environment as an extension of our bodies and treat violence against it similarly to how we treat physical violence - take it off the f menu! Not doing this would only make things worse and, yeah, sooner or later some "(pseudo)eco-fascist" group would spring up and find groups to blame (for the f-up resulting from people not acting because they couldn't find a democratically-acceptable solution) and manage to sell hate well enough to get in power. And at that point everyone will be double-screwed: you'll have wrecked environment + "eco"-fascists!
- nnq 7y ago
  An on: > The problem of climate change has been cause precisely by a lack of democracy Well, yeah, but ya know, sometimes you treat cancer with radiation... Just like you sometime need to apply more force and violence to end a war sooner and minimize overall destruction. Expecting for the Marshall island's vote to be considered in the US or the EU is not practical problem solving.

by nnq 7y ago

tehjoker 7y ago

"Just take politics out of the equation! Or more precisely, take "democratic choice" out of this particular policy decision!" This is such a scary sentence! The problem of climate change has been cause precisely by a lack of democracy. The military, the large oil refiners, the design of our infrastructure has been deeply affected by corporate priorities at the expense of a manipulated populace. We have climate denial in the US in large part because of corporate propaganda (and the fact that if people's oil sector jobs disappear there's no organized democratic approach to help them, they're at the mercy of the private sector). Furthermore, real democracy would include all the people affected by climate change that didn't cause it! The people of the Marshal islands should certainly have a say in how we approach this problem. Saying we don't need democracy is an extremely America centric approach. In the circles I'm in, we talk a lot about eco-facsism, which is the way the ecological crisis will be used to promote fascist policies with a green tinge. These include blaming immigrants, cracking down on poor people, and denying democracy in favor of the technocratic actors who caused the problem in the first place. We need the opposite! We need complete renewal of democracy and democratic practice in order to solve these problems. This idea scares the powerful because solving this crisis necessarily requires democratic control of major parts of the economy, which is a threat to the existing beneficiaries of the economic system.

nnq 7y ago
You don't have "democratic choice" for "how to better improve effectiveness of racial segregation", or how to better "discipline unruly women"... we know that some things like discrimination and violence are BAD, so we've written into law that they are not allowed. In all the civilized world we've taken certain really BAD options off-the-political-democratic-choice menu, because we don't want them to even be considered! Maybe we can do the same with things that are are really bad for the environment, like not having eco-externalities priced into things! This can be done without killing democracy as a whole. You cut a finger to save the whole organism! Maybe we should start seeing the environment as an extension of our bodies and treat violence against it similarly to how we treat physical violence - take it off the f menu! Not doing this would only make things worse and, yeah, sooner or later some "(pseudo)eco-fascist" group would spring up and find groups to blame (for the f-up resulting from people not acting because they couldn't find a democratically-acceptable solution) and manage to sell hate well enough to get in power. And at that point everyone will be double-screwed: you'll have wrecked environment + "eco"-fascists!
nnq 7y ago
An on: > The problem of climate change has been cause precisely by a lack of democracy Well, yeah, but ya know, sometimes you treat cancer with radiation... Just like you sometime need to apply more force and violence to end a war sooner and minimize overall destruction. Expecting for the Marshall island's vote to be considered in the US or the EU is not practical problem solving.