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I’m not sure why you think this? We have finite resources, a heavily populated planet and a few nations consuming the vast majority of the resources. Do you hon

I’m not sure why you think this? We have finite resources, a heavily populated planet and a few nations consuming the vast majority of the resources. Do you honestly think that’s maintainable in perpetuity? I’d suggest your viewpoint is highly likely to be one of privilege, not from one of poverty.

PeterisP 5y ago
Perhaps a charitable interpretation of the parent post would be "Voluntarily consuming less is not a serious solution and never has been." A poverty viewpoint is indeed relevant - there are so many objectively poor people who will consume more to fill their currently unmet needs as soon as they can afford to (so the only way to prevent this consumption increase is to ensure that they stay in poverty); and it should be expected that people will reduce consumption en masse only when they can't afford the current consumption (no matter if caused by prices skyrocketing, or an impactful carbon/fuel tax, or simply declining income), and they will be very unhappy about it as they will treat this reduction as a shift from privilege to poverty. And a realistic threat of being prevented to escape from poverty or being forced to shift from privilege to poverty IMHO would be considered by people as an existential threat comparable to global warming (I mean, for many people the main threat of global warming is the expected decrease in their living standards caused by it) and a much stronger motivation to act because, unlike climate change, that threat would be (a) closer in time, (b) more certain, and (c) with a clear way to fight against it - voting out a politician or rioting in the streets won't fix climate change (you'd need global coordination for that), but it definitely could suffice to kill any local carbon tax or government imposed reduction of consumption. TL;DR the way humans behave, it should be expected that they will fight against a decrease in consumption much harder than they would fight against climate change.
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
Demanding a global decrease in consumption is just about the most privileged viewpoint possible.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  If they were serious about saving the environment and not just doing whatever weird thing it is to demand that people buy fewer phones, they'd be pushing for more clean energy. As countries become richer they pollute less and have the resources to protect themselves from climate change. What is needed is a wealthier world, not a poorer one.
- parkersweb 5y ago
  Oh - just to be clear - I'm absolutely not of that viewpoint at all.
m4rtink 5y ago
For one its not just about stopping the unfavorable trend, but also reversing it, not to mention remediation all the pollution in the environment. All this is going to be insane energy and also resource intensive and totally impossible just by saving some resource here and there. A massive expansion of clean energy sources is whats needed, anything else just wont work.

PeterisP 5y ago

Perhaps a charitable interpretation of the parent post would be "Voluntarily consuming less is not a serious solution and never has been." A poverty viewpoint is indeed relevant - there are so many objectively poor people who will consume more to fill their currently unmet needs as soon as they can afford to (so the only way to prevent this consumption increase is to ensure that they stay in poverty); and it should be expected that people will reduce consumption en masse only when they can't afford the current consumption (no matter if caused by prices skyrocketing, or an impactful carbon/fuel tax, or simply declining income), and they will be very unhappy about it as they will treat this reduction as a shift from privilege to poverty. And a realistic threat of being prevented to escape from poverty or being forced to shift from privilege to poverty IMHO would be considered by people as an existential threat comparable to global warming (I mean, for many people the main threat of global warming is the expected decrease in their living standards caused by it) and a much stronger motivation to act because, unlike climate change, that threat would be (a) closer in time, (b) more certain, and (c) with a clear way to fight against it - voting out a politician or rioting in the streets won't fix climate change (you'd need global coordination for that), but it definitely could suffice to kill any local carbon tax or government imposed reduction of consumption. TL;DR the way humans behave, it should be expected that they will fight against a decrease in consumption much harder than they would fight against climate change.

TigeriusKirk 5y ago

Demanding a global decrease in consumption is just about the most privileged viewpoint possible.

merpnderp 5y ago
If they were serious about saving the environment and not just doing whatever weird thing it is to demand that people buy fewer phones, they'd be pushing for more clean energy. As countries become richer they pollute less and have the resources to protect themselves from climate change. What is needed is a wealthier world, not a poorer one.
parkersweb 5y ago
Oh - just to be clear - I'm absolutely not of that viewpoint at all.

m4rtink 5y ago

For one its not just about stopping the unfavorable trend, but also reversing it, not to mention remediation all the pollution in the environment. All this is going to be insane energy and also resource intensive and totally impossible just by saving some resource here and there. A massive expansion of clean energy sources is whats needed, anything else just wont work.