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how can a human being be simplifed down to a "lifetime of energy use" and a very carbon-intensive action? I know this language has normalized and that we use it

how can a human being be simplifed down to a "lifetime of energy use" and a very carbon-intensive action? I know this language has normalized and that we use it with "good" intentions, but sometimes we sound much more soulless and anti-human than even the language of soviet ideology

whateveracct 6y ago
ecofascism
- orwin 6y ago
  As long as he does not force you to go along their life choices without a democratic decision, this is not fascism.
  - alehander42 6y ago
    once a political view is widely accepted, it starts getting really easy to force it on people
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    That's true. I'm not saying it's institutional. But we have fascist political forces in America despite the democracy. Same thing. It's a political thing not a structural thing.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
Easily. As a human, based on your country [1], you will emit a certain amount of fossil CO2 over your lifetime. You will have an impact on natural resources. This math is no different than estimating your dollar value for something like a payout in the event you are accidentally killed. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=map https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=map
- mc32 6y ago
  Alternatively are you saying that people moving to less carbon intensive economies would also be a “good thing”. Get as many people from the developed world to move to places where they’d have less environmental impact? Though I’m sure there would be massive resistance from the affected people as well as from the destinations as they would upset the order on those places.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    The two most crucial focuses would be to decarbonize carbon intensive economies, and throwing massive amounts of money at education and healthcare for women in developing countries. Developed countries already have total fertility rates at or below replacement rate; it's all population momentum now, so you want to reduce the impact of everyone living a first world life for the remainder of their life span. Less combustion vehicles, less unnecessary air travel, fossil generation plants, meat heavy diets, etc. We're already headed in this direction, we just need to invest more heavily (Green New Deal, ESG funds, etc). Regarding education and healthcare in developing countries, educated, empowered women with access to robust healthcare have fewer children [1] [2], and this data holds true across the entire world, even in countries that attempt to use generous subsidies to encourage higher fertility rates. Moving folks from the developing world to the developed world, or vice versa, wouldn't have a meaningful impact IMHO. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-women https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-wom... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attainment-vs-fertility https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain...
    - danans 6y ago
      True, but also we need to also do a rethink of how the savings from decarbonization are socialized on the form of higher quality of life available at a lower cost to more people. If most of the savings of decarbonization go to capital, we will end up just bringing our current issues with growing wealth inequality into the decarbonized economy. Developed economies should lead the way on this by demonstrating how a high quality of life can be preserved with decarbonization at population scale. That means not just for the wealthy to build net zero eco-mansions and drive Teslas, but for most regular people's energy bills (for both home and transportation) to drop to near amortized capital investment cost of renewables plus the marginal cost of producing renewable energy, which should be far lower than fossil fuels.

whateveracct 6y ago

ecofascism

orwin 6y ago
As long as he does not force you to go along their life choices without a democratic decision, this is not fascism.
- alehander42 6y ago
  once a political view is widely accepted, it starts getting really easy to force it on people
- whateveracct 6y ago
  That's true. I'm not saying it's institutional. But we have fascist political forces in America despite the democracy. Same thing. It's a political thing not a structural thing.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Easily. As a human, based on your country [1], you will emit a certain amount of fossil CO2 over your lifetime. You will have an impact on natural resources. This math is no different than estimating your dollar value for something like a payout in the event you are accidentally killed. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=map https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=map

mc32 6y ago
Alternatively are you saying that people moving to less carbon intensive economies would also be a “good thing”. Get as many people from the developed world to move to places where they’d have less environmental impact? Though I’m sure there would be massive resistance from the affected people as well as from the destinations as they would upset the order on those places.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  The two most crucial focuses would be to decarbonize carbon intensive economies, and throwing massive amounts of money at education and healthcare for women in developing countries. Developed countries already have total fertility rates at or below replacement rate; it's all population momentum now, so you want to reduce the impact of everyone living a first world life for the remainder of their life span. Less combustion vehicles, less unnecessary air travel, fossil generation plants, meat heavy diets, etc. We're already headed in this direction, we just need to invest more heavily (Green New Deal, ESG funds, etc). Regarding education and healthcare in developing countries, educated, empowered women with access to robust healthcare have fewer children [1] [2], and this data holds true across the entire world, even in countries that attempt to use generous subsidies to encourage higher fertility rates. Moving folks from the developing world to the developed world, or vice versa, wouldn't have a meaningful impact IMHO. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-women https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-wom... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attainment-vs-fertility https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain...
  - danans 6y ago
    True, but also we need to also do a rethink of how the savings from decarbonization are socialized on the form of higher quality of life available at a lower cost to more people. If most of the savings of decarbonization go to capital, we will end up just bringing our current issues with growing wealth inequality into the decarbonized economy. Developed economies should lead the way on this by demonstrating how a high quality of life can be preserved with decarbonization at population scale. That means not just for the wealthy to build net zero eco-mansions and drive Teslas, but for most regular people's energy bills (for both home and transportation) to drop to near amortized capital investment cost of renewables plus the marginal cost of producing renewable energy, which should be far lower than fossil fuels.