5 ms·

Thank you. I recently had a conversation with someone about Canadian Federal climate policies and I found it very interesting that they seemed to think consume

Thank you. I recently had a conversation with someone about Canadian Federal climate policies and I found it very interesting that they seemed to think consumers should bear no sacrifice to solve the climate issue. The two most popular parties have plans aiming to reduce emissions. The Liberal party has implemented a progressive and revenue neutral carbon tax, and the Conservatives have a regulatory approach that sees consumers receiving a monthly refund into a special savings account when they buy things like fuel so that they need not bear as much of the increased costs of petroleum products due to the regulatory approach. The latter policy really emphasizes to me that that there are a large number of people who do not want to change their behaviour in any way, and would much rather have a corporate scapegoat to point at. It’s as if they think that the oil industry just mines and drills for fun or something.

dleslie 5y ago
> The latter policy really emphasizes to me that that there are a large number of people who do not want to change their behaviour in any way, and would much rather have a corporate scapegoat to point at. I find this to be a fairly common perspective, when talking to Canadians online; and there's some data to support that it is[0][1]. The truth is that individuals are _hugely_ influential on carbon emissions, and changes to individual consumption, commuting, and so forth are necessary if we're to tackle climate change meaningfully. The Covid lockdowns made the impact of individuals irrefutably clear.[2][3][4] 0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-poll-climate-change-1.5178514 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-poll-climate-chang... 1: https://globalnews.ca/news/8139537/canada-climate-change-economy-poll/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8139537/canada-climate-change-eco... 2: https://pcc.uw.edu/blog/research/how-did-covid-19-affect-our-carbon-emissions/ https://pcc.uw.edu/blog/research/how-did-covid-19-affect-our... 3: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x 4: https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record-drop-carbon-emissions-2020#gs.8054tu https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record...
- relax88 5y ago
  I find it interesting that both your reply and mine are being downvoted without explanation as if it’s a controversial idea that consumers are culpable. And yet there are no replies making a logical argument about why this perspective is wrong?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dleslie 5y ago
    It's an unpopular proposition to state that there exists a collective responsibility to make individual adaptations to combat climate change. I also argued that the lockdown was good for combating climate change, and there are many people who are desperate to leave their bedroom communities, hop in their car, and commute to the downtown office.
    - filoeleven 5y ago
      > there exists a collective responsibility to make individual adaptations to combat climate change. Individual adaptations do not matter unless they are undertaken collectively. My personal lifestyle changes don’t impact the state of CO2 emissions in any significant way. Leading by example AND talking about it has more impact, but still negligible unless/until enough people do it. Changing incentives, by making production account for the climate change externality, will shift more people into changing their lifestyle based on price alone. It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - dleslie 5y ago
        > My personal lifestyle changes don’t impact the state of CO2 emissions in any significant way. Collective action requires personal changes. You, and everyone else, must alter your personal lifestyle. You are only a little bit responsible for the harm, but in aggregate, the collective you are enormously responsible. Each individual must change. > It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users. I don't like the drug dealer analogy because it implies that targeting drug dealers has been reasonably effective in combating drug use. It hasn't. To combat substance abuse the users must be targeted; to combat climate change, the consumers must be targeted.
- Tronno 5y ago
  I don't understand why you would cite Covid lockdowns (a centrally-coordinated government policy) as evidence of individual impact. Is this not an argument against your own point?
  - lupire 5y ago
    It's (partially) centrally coordinated, but it's individual behaviors that change, not "corporations making factories and ships magically better while consumers don't feel a change", which is the average (sl)activist's proposed solution.
lupire 5y ago
Like Democrat and Republican politicians, corporation and consumers blame each other not because they are enemies, but to avoid criticism of the game they pay together. Recycling (and ignoring Reduce and Reuse) is the perfect example of deploying a fake solution to avoid having to fix the real problems.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  Well unlike you sir, I am using paper straws so I am saving the world! Only if people stopped using plastic straws we would reduce the plastic in the ocean by 0.2%
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I think this may be Is vs. Ought. Realistically and politically, people will not bear any significant sacrifice to solve CO2 emissions. They just won't. They won't do it. You can say that they ought to as much as you please. You can say that they need to. But they still won't. You aren't going to scold them into being different. You aren't going to lecture them into being different. And you aren't going to use politics to force them to be different, because they vote, and all the politicians know they vote. For us to get anywhere on CO2, the non-CO2 path has to be better and/or less expensive. That's it. In the real world, with the humans that we have, anything else isn't going to get any traction.

dleslie 5y ago

> The latter policy really emphasizes to me that that there are a large number of people who do not want to change their behaviour in any way, and would much rather have a corporate scapegoat to point at. I find this to be a fairly common perspective, when talking to Canadians online; and there's some data to support that it is[0][1]. The truth is that individuals are _hugely_ influential on carbon emissions, and changes to individual consumption, commuting, and so forth are necessary if we're to tackle climate change meaningfully. The Covid lockdowns made the impact of individuals irrefutably clear.[2][3][4] 0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-poll-climate-change-1.5178514 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-poll-climate-chang... 1: https://globalnews.ca/news/8139537/canada-climate-change-economy-poll/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8139537/canada-climate-change-eco... 2: https://pcc.uw.edu/blog/research/how-did-covid-19-affect-our-carbon-emissions/ https://pcc.uw.edu/blog/research/how-did-covid-19-affect-our... 3: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x 4: https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record-drop-carbon-emissions-2020#gs.8054tu https://earth.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-causes-record...

relax88 5y ago
I find it interesting that both your reply and mine are being downvoted without explanation as if it’s a controversial idea that consumers are culpable. And yet there are no replies making a logical argument about why this perspective is wrong?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dleslie 5y ago
  It's an unpopular proposition to state that there exists a collective responsibility to make individual adaptations to combat climate change. I also argued that the lockdown was good for combating climate change, and there are many people who are desperate to leave their bedroom communities, hop in their car, and commute to the downtown office.
  - filoeleven 5y ago
    > there exists a collective responsibility to make individual adaptations to combat climate change. Individual adaptations do not matter unless they are undertaken collectively. My personal lifestyle changes don’t impact the state of CO2 emissions in any significant way. Leading by example AND talking about it has more impact, but still negligible unless/until enough people do it. Changing incentives, by making production account for the climate change externality, will shift more people into changing their lifestyle based on price alone. It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dleslie 5y ago
      > My personal lifestyle changes don’t impact the state of CO2 emissions in any significant way. Collective action requires personal changes. You, and everyone else, must alter your personal lifestyle. You are only a little bit responsible for the harm, but in aggregate, the collective you are enormously responsible. Each individual must change. > It’s the same reasoning behind targeting drug dealers and cartels more heavily than end-users. I don't like the drug dealer analogy because it implies that targeting drug dealers has been reasonably effective in combating drug use. It hasn't. To combat substance abuse the users must be targeted; to combat climate change, the consumers must be targeted.
Tronno 5y ago
I don't understand why you would cite Covid lockdowns (a centrally-coordinated government policy) as evidence of individual impact. Is this not an argument against your own point?
- lupire 5y ago
  It's (partially) centrally coordinated, but it's individual behaviors that change, not "corporations making factories and ships magically better while consumers don't feel a change", which is the average (sl)activist's proposed solution.

lupire 5y ago

Like Democrat and Republican politicians, corporation and consumers blame each other not because they are enemies, but to avoid criticism of the game they pay together. Recycling (and ignoring Reduce and Reuse) is the perfect example of deploying a fake solution to avoid having to fix the real problems.

me_me_me 5y ago
Well unlike you sir, I am using paper straws so I am saving the world! Only if people stopped using plastic straws we would reduce the plastic in the ocean by 0.2%

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

I think this may be Is vs. Ought. Realistically and politically, people will not bear any significant sacrifice to solve CO2 emissions. They just won't. They won't do it. You can say that they ought to as much as you please. You can say that they need to. But they still won't. You aren't going to scold them into being different. You aren't going to lecture them into being different. And you aren't going to use politics to force them to be different, because they vote, and all the politicians know they vote. For us to get anywhere on CO2, the non-CO2 path has to be better and/or less expensive. That's it. In the real world, with the humans that we have, anything else isn't going to get any traction.