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No. We need to divorce the public policy conversation about climate change and carbon emissions from all of this inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric. Promote

No. We need to divorce the public policy conversation about climate change and carbon emissions from all of this inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric. Promote policies that target the worst sources of environmental pollution without coding your speech in a manner that causes everybody who voted for trump or itemized their taxes or whatever to stop listening in the middle of what you're trying to say.

wikitopian 4y ago
What if I tried to have a conversation about violent crime that opened that we need to talk about how registered democrats commit dramatically more violent crime than registered republicans? We would end up arguing about everything but the ostensible topic.
- wikitopian 4y ago
  The growing failure to speak about science, technology, and policy without politically coding the speech has caused irreparable damage to public science, technology, and policy discussion. Perhaps the most egregious example was the liberal coding of vaccination during the pandemic, with the self-fulfilling prophecy that vaccine skepticism is for the other tribe of people who are bad. You had people with preexisting conditions terrified of making a private medical decision because of the extreme political coding that both sides egged on to hysterical extremes.
  - PKop 4y ago
    It is a delusion to presume that politics can be avoided, escaped, or isolated. That institutions of power or prestige within society ever can or ever were devoid of politics, that they can exist and operate in a vacuum. This ideological faith clouds judgement, more realism is necessary to navigate these issues.
    - wikitopian 4y ago
      I'll see your realism and raise you one. The belief that science, technology, and environmental policy can transcend partisan politics is necessary for western society to function. If you step over that in your eagerness to apply postmodern analysis, you'll introduce even greater challenges than the ones we're already barely capable of addressing.
      - PKop 4y ago
        The challenge is not introduced, it is always there to varying degrees. Again, your statement seems to presume you can have political enemies that will ignore the distinction (that they have existential differences) and put it aside. I'm not saying there is no way to address political reality, but that it cannot be ignored or presumed to not exist. At some points the intractable political conflict must be solved first before you can get back to science and technology amongst friends.
  - tzs 4y ago
    > Perhaps the most egregious example was the liberal coding of vaccination during the pandemic What is "liberal coding of vaccination"?
- PKop 4y ago
  I bet you'd agree crime is drastically higher amongst those not even registered or that don't even vote, almost as if party affiliation is not the most salient variable.
  - wikitopian 4y ago
    My point still stands that beginning a conversation about science, technology, or policy with your finger squarely aimed at people you don't like will only serve to start an argument with the people you don't like.
    - PKop 4y ago
      Often times groups that don't like each other have existential differences that can never be bridged. Negotiating in good faith with true enemies that aren't interested in compromise never works, except perhaps if there is power, threats or some sort of shared interest associated with the negotiation. I'm only pointing out that explaining your point to people that don't care and hate you and your beliefs will never achieve anything; they won't be persuaded if they don't want to be.
      - SllX 4y ago
        Well we’re talking about our fellow citizens. Are our differences really so extreme as to be existential?
        wyre 4y ago
        When one side is in favor/fantasize of killing trans people, it is existential.
        wikitopian 4y ago
        Some anonymous trolls gaslighting you online do not grant you a license to hate, dehumanize, and harm everybody who disagrees with your politics.
rewgs 4y ago
Thank you. As far as I'm concerned, humanity's most fundamental responsibility is to lower its emissions, as much and as permanently as possible. I am sick and tired of seeing the focus of this task muddied by instead focusing on who's responsible, mixing social justice with climate science, etc. I could not agree more with the spirit of this stuff, but however well-intentioned it may well be, it only serves to distract and fracture and slow us down. Yes, 10 corporations are responsible for 75% of emissions (or whatever the meme statistic is); yes, celebrities flying short distances on private planes is egregious; yes, your own personal carbon footprint pales in comparison. And yes, it feels nice to abdicate personal responsibility and say "those corporations/rich people should be responsible." Great, now what? To all of that I say: all of the above. We need everything from sweeping legislation to individual action, and everything in between, with as little bickering or blame-shifting as possible.
- PKop 4y ago
  There is no "humanity" in the matter of geopolitics and self-interest, and there is no escape from political conflict. There are competing groups and individuals, and there are competing power centers, governments, nations etc. Geopolitical reality and human history point to inevitable outcome that to be strong and dominant you use the resources available to you, and if others don't, you will be stronger than them. Look at Europe right now, having pursued ESG policies their economy and industry is becoming much weaker than US and China. What if US and China don't care about carbon footprint? They win, Europe loses. Same with wealthy vs middle class etc. Too much incentive not to subscribe to energy policy of "less" and "weakness".
  - haswell 4y ago
    Doesn't all of this notion of "winning" just dissolve when earth ceases to be habitable? What you’re describing essentially sounds like mutually assured destruction.
    - PKop 4y ago
      Just consider that anyone who cares deeply about this problem must organize with like minded people and wield power against the holdouts. Even if what you stated above sounds like "insanity", the only question is...will it exist? Will there be those that pursue power and self interest in opposition to long term policy of "less" and "weakness", even if we all were to agree that long term it's mutually assured destruction (I'm not saying I agree with that though..). Then what?
SllX 4y ago
100% this. If all we do is talk down to or try to control people we don’t agree with, the people we talk about will just keep doing the same to us. Some of that will happen anyway, but you and I and everyone else reading this don’t have to be a part of it.
gred 4y ago
Preach. If this is really an existential threat, then it's counter-productive to use as just another political cudgel to score Twitter points on the "other" tribe. Doing so actually signals that it's business-as-usual, and that these "concerns" are worthy of the same treatment afforded any other political disagreement. To take it one step further, to the extent that proposed fixes look like "big government" intervention, with little-to-no regard for conservative concerns or sensitivities, they will look like political power grabs and be treated accordingly.
- DFHippie 4y ago
  > If this is really an existential threat, then it's counter-productive to use as just another political cudgel to score Twitter points on the "other" tribe. This isn't what is happening. When you see injustice, it's a natural human impulse to get mad and start ascribing blame to particular individuals. It isn't people dishonestly using "just another political cudgel". It's people getting mad, as people have always done, and personalizing things. That being said, yes, we don't have time for normal human psychology, though normal human psychology is what got us into and keeps us in this mess. Just as it's normal for people to get mad at other people, it's normal for the people accused to get defensive and deny or invert responsibility. "You don't really care! You're just trying to score points! Al Gore is fat and flies on planes!" Both sides are reacting normally, predictably, in counter-productive ways, like the various Palestinian liberation fronts in "The Life of Brian" killing each other in the sewers while the Romans look on in bemusement.
  - RockingGoodNite 4y ago
    I generally feel it's mostly loud types trying to score Twitter points or Reddit karma; very few would genuinely get truly mad over something that was years in the making, by the whole population of the planet, and will take the whole population years to fix.
yowlingcat 4y ago
Agreed. We should be able to view this propaganda for what it is -- inflammatory, vacuous rhetoric, devoid of substance; something which doesn't help us solve the real logistic issues we face in achieving clean, scalable energy. My wager is on nuclear energy + hydrogen for portable energy. There are lots of issues with this model, but it's loads better than where we are today; and most importantly, it provides a way for us to solve the actual problem rather than slinging blame.
- RockingGoodNite 4y ago
  Agreed, except I'd like to see iron batteries small enough and efficient enough to replace lithium ion in vehicles but until then, I would like to see Hydrogen/Stirling Engine hybrid vehicles and iron batteries for power plants to reduce their on cycle time.
PKop 4y ago
It will never not be inflammatory, because there is always incentive not to follow the self-sacrifice position. What happens when groups, nations etc simply decline to weaken themselves by using less energy? Those who pursue energy use and power will dominate those who do not. Now, if there's a collective of those who wont accept that position because of existential views on the matter, then what? How does it not inevitably escalate into inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric and action? Follow the logic to it's conclusions..
- wikitopian 4y ago
  There is, actually. The rich can be led to believe that reducing consumption is an elite status symbol, and an opportunity for posturing among their rich friends. Though rich people will always consume more energy than poor people, there have been promising shifts, such as the rich competing to own the latest efficient electric car instead of competing to own the most fuel inefficient sports car.
  - PKop 4y ago
    "led to believe.." By whom? And, all of them? How about on the level of nation-states where the true power lies. As national policy, entire nations/empires will be "convinced" as status symbol? No one will see the power on the table that everyone else has left?
RockingGoodNite 4y ago
I'm a software engineer, I voted for Trump. Glad to see someone saying if it's real, then let's really all get on board with figuring out how to fix things.
lazyeye 4y ago
If you're wealthy and hired a public relations consultant to manage the optics regarding your excessively large carbon footprint, this is the kind of argument they'd be making.
- RockingGoodNite 4y ago
  That was a sort of passive aggressive way of dismissing the parent comment as the enemy.
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    Accurate though. I think Trump has been a wonderful diversion for particular sectors of society. All they have to do is accuse their critics of being Trump supporters and immediately they become the good guys. No matter their self-interested behaviour or transparent attempts at deflection.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Let me turn it around and think about it from another perspective. Imagine that I’m the leader of a company that is one of those sources of pollution. It sounds like my best option is to try and make the issue as political as possible in order to prevent groups from realizing their shared interest in regulating me. Classic divide and conquer.
UtopiaPunk 4y ago
I don't want to be inflammatory and am genuinely curious: if I'm understanding you correctly, you are frustrated that this conversation alienates people like republicans, is that right? What is a way to have a productive conversation and move towards meaningful action on this issue with "everybody who voted for trump or itemized their taxes or whatever"? What are the values to appeal to or what is the language that doesn't alienate?
- wikitopian 4y ago
  Climate Change should be approached as an engineering problem that threatens everybody and not packaged as a "social justice" problem against the affluent. One could as easily frame climate change as a problem caused by the global south industrializing and achieving higher living standards, leaving larger carbon footprints. I'm not a republican. I'm a proponent of science, technology, and climate journalism that focuses on education instead of polarization.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    If all the cat owners refused to believe in climate change, you'd see a lot of "climate change will kill more dogs in hot cars" type stories because the dog vote would become more valuable. It's simple political calculus. Many of the people involved may prefer terrapins or tarantulas as pets, but if the cat-lovers have ruled themselves out, then anyone else who cares about animals will be courting the large dog vote in order to get things done on other issues. The cat-lovers then saying "See it was all about dogs all along" just further isolates them and hands more power to the non cat-lovers. As long as the cat lovers don't start a war based on this paranoia it's almost as good an outcome for society as them accepting the truth for climate change believers, and an extra bonus for dog lovers who get their democratic desires met because they are able to collaborate with people who disagree with them on some things but want to work together on climate/energy.

wikitopian 4y ago

What if I tried to have a conversation about violent crime that opened that we need to talk about how registered democrats commit dramatically more violent crime than registered republicans? We would end up arguing about everything but the ostensible topic.

wikitopian 4y ago
The growing failure to speak about science, technology, and policy without politically coding the speech has caused irreparable damage to public science, technology, and policy discussion. Perhaps the most egregious example was the liberal coding of vaccination during the pandemic, with the self-fulfilling prophecy that vaccine skepticism is for the other tribe of people who are bad. You had people with preexisting conditions terrified of making a private medical decision because of the extreme political coding that both sides egged on to hysterical extremes.
- PKop 4y ago
  It is a delusion to presume that politics can be avoided, escaped, or isolated. That institutions of power or prestige within society ever can or ever were devoid of politics, that they can exist and operate in a vacuum. This ideological faith clouds judgement, more realism is necessary to navigate these issues.
  - wikitopian 4y ago
    I'll see your realism and raise you one. The belief that science, technology, and environmental policy can transcend partisan politics is necessary for western society to function. If you step over that in your eagerness to apply postmodern analysis, you'll introduce even greater challenges than the ones we're already barely capable of addressing.
    - PKop 4y ago
      The challenge is not introduced, it is always there to varying degrees. Again, your statement seems to presume you can have political enemies that will ignore the distinction (that they have existential differences) and put it aside. I'm not saying there is no way to address political reality, but that it cannot be ignored or presumed to not exist. At some points the intractable political conflict must be solved first before you can get back to science and technology amongst friends.
- tzs 4y ago
  > Perhaps the most egregious example was the liberal coding of vaccination during the pandemic What is "liberal coding of vaccination"?
PKop 4y ago
I bet you'd agree crime is drastically higher amongst those not even registered or that don't even vote, almost as if party affiliation is not the most salient variable.
- wikitopian 4y ago
  My point still stands that beginning a conversation about science, technology, or policy with your finger squarely aimed at people you don't like will only serve to start an argument with the people you don't like.
  - PKop 4y ago
    Often times groups that don't like each other have existential differences that can never be bridged. Negotiating in good faith with true enemies that aren't interested in compromise never works, except perhaps if there is power, threats or some sort of shared interest associated with the negotiation. I'm only pointing out that explaining your point to people that don't care and hate you and your beliefs will never achieve anything; they won't be persuaded if they don't want to be.
    - SllX 4y ago
      Well we’re talking about our fellow citizens. Are our differences really so extreme as to be existential?
      - wyre 4y ago
        When one side is in favor/fantasize of killing trans people, it is existential.
        wikitopian 4y ago
        Some anonymous trolls gaslighting you online do not grant you a license to hate, dehumanize, and harm everybody who disagrees with your politics.

rewgs 4y ago

Thank you. As far as I'm concerned, humanity's most fundamental responsibility is to lower its emissions, as much and as permanently as possible. I am sick and tired of seeing the focus of this task muddied by instead focusing on who's responsible, mixing social justice with climate science, etc. I could not agree more with the spirit of this stuff, but however well-intentioned it may well be, it only serves to distract and fracture and slow us down. Yes, 10 corporations are responsible for 75% of emissions (or whatever the meme statistic is); yes, celebrities flying short distances on private planes is egregious; yes, your own personal carbon footprint pales in comparison. And yes, it feels nice to abdicate personal responsibility and say "those corporations/rich people should be responsible." Great, now what? To all of that I say: all of the above. We need everything from sweeping legislation to individual action, and everything in between, with as little bickering or blame-shifting as possible.

PKop 4y ago
There is no "humanity" in the matter of geopolitics and self-interest, and there is no escape from political conflict. There are competing groups and individuals, and there are competing power centers, governments, nations etc. Geopolitical reality and human history point to inevitable outcome that to be strong and dominant you use the resources available to you, and if others don't, you will be stronger than them. Look at Europe right now, having pursued ESG policies their economy and industry is becoming much weaker than US and China. What if US and China don't care about carbon footprint? They win, Europe loses. Same with wealthy vs middle class etc. Too much incentive not to subscribe to energy policy of "less" and "weakness".
- haswell 4y ago
  Doesn't all of this notion of "winning" just dissolve when earth ceases to be habitable? What you’re describing essentially sounds like mutually assured destruction.
  - PKop 4y ago
    Just consider that anyone who cares deeply about this problem must organize with like minded people and wield power against the holdouts. Even if what you stated above sounds like "insanity", the only question is...will it exist? Will there be those that pursue power and self interest in opposition to long term policy of "less" and "weakness", even if we all were to agree that long term it's mutually assured destruction (I'm not saying I agree with that though..). Then what?

SllX 4y ago

100% this. If all we do is talk down to or try to control people we don’t agree with, the people we talk about will just keep doing the same to us. Some of that will happen anyway, but you and I and everyone else reading this don’t have to be a part of it.

gred 4y ago

Preach. If this is really an existential threat, then it's counter-productive to use as just another political cudgel to score Twitter points on the "other" tribe. Doing so actually signals that it's business-as-usual, and that these "concerns" are worthy of the same treatment afforded any other political disagreement. To take it one step further, to the extent that proposed fixes look like "big government" intervention, with little-to-no regard for conservative concerns or sensitivities, they will look like political power grabs and be treated accordingly.

DFHippie 4y ago
> If this is really an existential threat, then it's counter-productive to use as just another political cudgel to score Twitter points on the "other" tribe. This isn't what is happening. When you see injustice, it's a natural human impulse to get mad and start ascribing blame to particular individuals. It isn't people dishonestly using "just another political cudgel". It's people getting mad, as people have always done, and personalizing things. That being said, yes, we don't have time for normal human psychology, though normal human psychology is what got us into and keeps us in this mess. Just as it's normal for people to get mad at other people, it's normal for the people accused to get defensive and deny or invert responsibility. "You don't really care! You're just trying to score points! Al Gore is fat and flies on planes!" Both sides are reacting normally, predictably, in counter-productive ways, like the various Palestinian liberation fronts in "The Life of Brian" killing each other in the sewers while the Romans look on in bemusement.
- RockingGoodNite 4y ago
  I generally feel it's mostly loud types trying to score Twitter points or Reddit karma; very few would genuinely get truly mad over something that was years in the making, by the whole population of the planet, and will take the whole population years to fix.

yowlingcat 4y ago

Agreed. We should be able to view this propaganda for what it is -- inflammatory, vacuous rhetoric, devoid of substance; something which doesn't help us solve the real logistic issues we face in achieving clean, scalable energy. My wager is on nuclear energy + hydrogen for portable energy. There are lots of issues with this model, but it's loads better than where we are today; and most importantly, it provides a way for us to solve the actual problem rather than slinging blame.

RockingGoodNite 4y ago
Agreed, except I'd like to see iron batteries small enough and efficient enough to replace lithium ion in vehicles but until then, I would like to see Hydrogen/Stirling Engine hybrid vehicles and iron batteries for power plants to reduce their on cycle time.

PKop 4y ago

It will never not be inflammatory, because there is always incentive not to follow the self-sacrifice position. What happens when groups, nations etc simply decline to weaken themselves by using less energy? Those who pursue energy use and power will dominate those who do not. Now, if there's a collective of those who wont accept that position because of existential views on the matter, then what? How does it not inevitably escalate into inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric and action? Follow the logic to it's conclusions..

wikitopian 4y ago
There is, actually. The rich can be led to believe that reducing consumption is an elite status symbol, and an opportunity for posturing among their rich friends. Though rich people will always consume more energy than poor people, there have been promising shifts, such as the rich competing to own the latest efficient electric car instead of competing to own the most fuel inefficient sports car.
- PKop 4y ago
  "led to believe.." By whom? And, all of them? How about on the level of nation-states where the true power lies. As national policy, entire nations/empires will be "convinced" as status symbol? No one will see the power on the table that everyone else has left?

RockingGoodNite 4y ago

I'm a software engineer, I voted for Trump. Glad to see someone saying if it's real, then let's really all get on board with figuring out how to fix things.

lazyeye 4y ago

If you're wealthy and hired a public relations consultant to manage the optics regarding your excessively large carbon footprint, this is the kind of argument they'd be making.

RockingGoodNite 4y ago
That was a sort of passive aggressive way of dismissing the parent comment as the enemy.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Accurate though. I think Trump has been a wonderful diversion for particular sectors of society. All they have to do is accuse their critics of being Trump supporters and immediately they become the good guys. No matter their self-interested behaviour or transparent attempts at deflection.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Let me turn it around and think about it from another perspective. Imagine that I’m the leader of a company that is one of those sources of pollution. It sounds like my best option is to try and make the issue as political as possible in order to prevent groups from realizing their shared interest in regulating me. Classic divide and conquer.

UtopiaPunk 4y ago

I don't want to be inflammatory and am genuinely curious: if I'm understanding you correctly, you are frustrated that this conversation alienates people like republicans, is that right? What is a way to have a productive conversation and move towards meaningful action on this issue with "everybody who voted for trump or itemized their taxes or whatever"? What are the values to appeal to or what is the language that doesn't alienate?

wikitopian 4y ago
Climate Change should be approached as an engineering problem that threatens everybody and not packaged as a "social justice" problem against the affluent. One could as easily frame climate change as a problem caused by the global south industrializing and achieving higher living standards, leaving larger carbon footprints. I'm not a republican. I'm a proponent of science, technology, and climate journalism that focuses on education instead of polarization.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  If all the cat owners refused to believe in climate change, you'd see a lot of "climate change will kill more dogs in hot cars" type stories because the dog vote would become more valuable. It's simple political calculus. Many of the people involved may prefer terrapins or tarantulas as pets, but if the cat-lovers have ruled themselves out, then anyone else who cares about animals will be courting the large dog vote in order to get things done on other issues. The cat-lovers then saying "See it was all about dogs all along" just further isolates them and hands more power to the non cat-lovers. As long as the cat lovers don't start a war based on this paranoia it's almost as good an outcome for society as them accepting the truth for climate change believers, and an extra bonus for dog lovers who get their democratic desires met because they are able to collaborate with people who disagree with them on some things but want to work together on climate/energy.