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The entire framing of the climate issue as "poor and middle class people need to use less energy, says a bunch of comparatively rich people living in high cost

by api 5y ago

The entire framing of the climate issue as "poor and middle class people need to use less energy, says a bunch of comparatively rich people living in high cost of living first world cities" guarantees political failure. The only way we will get real traction against this problem is if we stop framing it around shame and austerity and instead frame it as a problem solvable via technological innovation that also frees us from the constraints of fossil fuel dependence. That framing is also more correct IMHO, as there are numerous reasons to get off fossil fuels other than climate. The most significant of these is political independence and the fact that fossil fuels are a strictly limited declining resource whose depletion threatens our civilization on the supply side. This is a technical problem not a moral problem. There is no god that is going to punish us for emitting carbon. It's just physics: more carbon, more retained solar heat, weather changes that will disrupt the food supply and threaten a bunch of major population centers. It's also a problem about human self-interest not saving some mythical shibboleth of "unspoiled nature." Nature just is and we are only spoiling it for ourselves. As George Carlin put it: "Stop saying save the Earth! The Earth will be fine. We're fucked." Edit: on a final note: yes it is true that we could probably absorb and adapt to even severe climate change. But the cost of non-carbon-based energy is falling rapidly as technology advances and renewable energy is scaled up, while the deferred cost of climate change is rising. These lines almost certainly intersected some time ago. Getting off fossil carbon is cheaper than continuing to make climate change worse. This effect is compounded by the fact that fossil fuels are being depleted and therefore that the more we invest in them the more fossil fuel infrastructure investment will eventually be stranded as worthless. That depletion will probably bite at about the same time as climate change, draining the economy right when that cost hits. When you consider the depletion and stranded investment angles getting off fossil fuels is probably many orders of magnitude cheaper than the alternative path.

plaguepilled 5y ago
With full respect intended, I have to disagree. We already have several options available to massively curtail our emissions (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal). While yes new technology would make this transition even faster, a major, MAJOR roadblock is lobbying by fossil fuel industries and related corporate interests. In terms of the technological discussion though, I am excited by the recent work done in molten salt cathode batteries for scale use (https://interestingengineering.com/molten-salt-12-week-battery https://interestingengineering.com/molten-salt-12-week-batte...).
- api 5y ago
  I don't think we disagree at all. What I'm saying is that the shame-and-austerity framing plays right into the hands of fossil fuel industry propaganda. One of the most insidious bits of fossil fuel propaganda I've seen recently is this whole "moral case for fossil fuels" schtick. They're pointing out that fossil fuels have lifted billions out of poverty, which is technically true, and then using that combined with the "moral panic" framing of the green movement to argue that greens want to push those billions back into poverty. Personally I think we have historically framed environmental issues as moral because we (meaning the USA) are a culture with puritan roots and the whole protestant moral panic framing is baked into our cultural DNA. It's how we often approach problems, especially collective or tragedy of the commons problems. We approach them by deploying shame to try to change behavior. It very often backfires like it is here, or like it does when we try to shame teenagers out of having sex.

by api 5y ago

plaguepilled 5y ago

With full respect intended, I have to disagree. We already have several options available to massively curtail our emissions (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal). While yes new technology would make this transition even faster, a major, MAJOR roadblock is lobbying by fossil fuel industries and related corporate interests. In terms of the technological discussion though, I am excited by the recent work done in molten salt cathode batteries for scale use (https://interestingengineering.com/molten-salt-12-week-battery https://interestingengineering.com/molten-salt-12-week-batte...).

api 5y ago
I don't think we disagree at all. What I'm saying is that the shame-and-austerity framing plays right into the hands of fossil fuel industry propaganda. One of the most insidious bits of fossil fuel propaganda I've seen recently is this whole "moral case for fossil fuels" schtick. They're pointing out that fossil fuels have lifted billions out of poverty, which is technically true, and then using that combined with the "moral panic" framing of the green movement to argue that greens want to push those billions back into poverty. Personally I think we have historically framed environmental issues as moral because we (meaning the USA) are a culture with puritan roots and the whole protestant moral panic framing is baked into our cultural DNA. It's how we often approach problems, especially collective or tragedy of the commons problems. We approach them by deploying shame to try to change behavior. It very often backfires like it is here, or like it does when we try to shame teenagers out of having sex.