4 ms·
Our world will burn up to a crisp before anything like this comes to pass. Human Nature is borne in selfishness, and anytime I read the words ‘Save the Planet’
by timst4 4y ago
Our world will burn up to a crisp before anything like this comes to pass. Human Nature is borne in selfishness, and anytime I read the words ‘Save the Planet’ I begin to twitch.
Humans will continue to travel at the fastest speed to the most desired locations that they can afford as often as possible. Altruism is great as a neighborhood-level practice but as public policy, it is leading us to an extinction event.
Carbon needs to be priced at true cost upstream for any changes to happen. If it costs $100,000 to fly to Nice, guess what? You’re going to stay home and find a new appreciation for Vancouver. Or, if your desire is great enough, innovate a means of travel that you can afford.
More importantly, articles like this are deleterious to the actual work of degrowth and drawdown. These are existential problems at scale. We need to get real about human nature and stop imagining we can recycle or electric car our way out of the looming extinction event.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoI kind of agree with most of this (and made a similar comment) but.. > We need to get real about human nature and stop imagining we can recycle or electric car our way out of the looming extinction event. Both recycling and electric cars are cheaper and better for the planet. If you put a price on carbon, both would be done more, which is good. Individuals doing it aren't going to help, because nothing an individual does will help on a global scale, but systemic recycling and EVs are definately part of the solution.
- josephcsible 4y ago> Carbon needs to be priced at true cost upstream for any changes to happen. If it costs $100,000 to fly to Nice, guess what? You’re going to stay home and find a new appreciation for Vancouver. The price increase from accounting for the true carbon cost is more like 10% than 10,000%.
- sokoloff 4y agoI expect that, if implemented, carbon taxes would continue to rise as we discovered that 10% wasn’t cutting it to modify people’s behavior. (I’m generally in favor of the concept, but I fear giving a framework that amounts to a sledgehammer.)
- DoctorOetker 4y agothe sledgehammer would freeze out different deleterious behaviors at different temperatures though.