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It’s not defeatism, it’s realism. Cooperation on climate change is a prisoner’s dilemma type situation. You seem to assume there is a supranational entity that

It’s not defeatism, it’s realism. Cooperation on climate change is a prisoner’s dilemma type situation. You seem to assume there is a supranational entity that can force nation-states to comply with rules, but there isn’t. A set of rules that no organization can enforce is worthless. I would like if we can all come together and cooperate on climate change, but it isn’t likely. Here is a comprehensive list of global problems that humans have cooperated on a global scale to solve:

version_five 5y ago
> Here is a comprehensive list of global problems that humans have cooperated on a global scale to solve: I think that food scarcity could be on your list. If we were globally connected 100+ years ago, we might have collectively worried that there was no way to feed our growing population, advocated rules about reproduction, about what we could eat, about how many calories we burned... turns out we really did collaborate globally so that most of us are fed well enough for population to keep growing, and for global quality of life to increasr. And the solution was technological, not dogmatic. Telling nations and individuals globally that they have to make sacrifices for climate change, and that only the selected few will be able to tell them what they can do, is completely untenable as you say. Working together to come up with more efficient ways to live is not.
filoeleven 5y ago
There is a novel about this very thing called Ministry For the Future. In the book, the UN agency formed to enforce the Paris agreement has no teeth. It takes some high-profile climate disasters to get some countries to pay attention, and some eco-terrorism to get corporations/one-percenters to pay attention. Only after that does the agency get any real power to set standards and hold anyone to them. It’s a broadly optimistic novel despite all that. I’m less sanguine about the outcome in the real world, but I fully expect some of the same tragedies (massive heat waves that kill maybe millions) and terrorism (drone swarms bringing down airliners/private jets) to occur.

version_five 5y ago

> Here is a comprehensive list of global problems that humans have cooperated on a global scale to solve: I think that food scarcity could be on your list. If we were globally connected 100+ years ago, we might have collectively worried that there was no way to feed our growing population, advocated rules about reproduction, about what we could eat, about how many calories we burned... turns out we really did collaborate globally so that most of us are fed well enough for population to keep growing, and for global quality of life to increasr. And the solution was technological, not dogmatic. Telling nations and individuals globally that they have to make sacrifices for climate change, and that only the selected few will be able to tell them what they can do, is completely untenable as you say. Working together to come up with more efficient ways to live is not.

filoeleven 5y ago

There is a novel about this very thing called Ministry For the Future. In the book, the UN agency formed to enforce the Paris agreement has no teeth. It takes some high-profile climate disasters to get some countries to pay attention, and some eco-terrorism to get corporations/one-percenters to pay attention. Only after that does the agency get any real power to set standards and hold anyone to them. It’s a broadly optimistic novel despite all that. I’m less sanguine about the outcome in the real world, but I fully expect some of the same tragedies (massive heat waves that kill maybe millions) and terrorism (drone swarms bringing down airliners/private jets) to occur.