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What Many Progressives Misunderstand About Fighting Climate Change

9 points by RestlessMind 4y ago

RestlessMind 4y ago
Key line which captures the essence of the article: "Many progressive commentators ... believe that countering climate change requires a fundamental reordering of the West’s political and economic systems."
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  Devil's Advocate here... > "A massive infusion of private investment, made not for charity but in the anticipation of future profits, is precisely what’s needed to accelerate the clean-energy transition—which, like all revolutions, will yield unpredictable results." So the answer to the problem is...to dpuble down on what created the problem? Frankly, that doesn't make sense either. We can't have change without change. We can't make the future better if we refuse to learn from the past.
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    > We can't have change without change. Agreed. But what to change? If the right solution requires changing only A but you end up lumping changes to B and C as well, is that really helpful?
    - chiefalchemist 4y ago
      My personal answer? I don't trust any of the systems and entities that got us to this point. For example, Big Oil knew where things were headed, and they buried that info. I have to presume plenty of elected officials knews (or could extrapolate) the same. Yet here we are making a case to trust those who haven't earned our trust. I'm not certain what the answer is exactly. But there is no reason to believe those who have failed us - again and again - are up to getting things back in order. To think otherwise is naive.
oblib 4y ago
I'm progressive but I don't think they really even came close to my thoughts or opinions on this issue so it feels to me like they just tossed that phrase in there because they're conservative capitalists looking to justify their profiteering. I have no problem with for profit businesses, but there are some things that really shouldn't corporatized, like health care, schools, roads, policing, fire depts, water depts, ambulance services, social services. I live in an area where our electric is provided by a user owned co-opt. Last year we had a pretty hard cold snap and those who live outside the co-opt were getting electric bills that way higher than what we paid. Not as bad as what Texans went through a year or two ago when they had that vicious ice storm, but still a huge corporate gouging scam because there are no laws to prevent them from doing that. And the same thing happened with those using propane to heat their homes here. We had a propane tank too but hadn't been using it for a few years. When that happened I called them and told them to come get it and they were stunned. Couldn't believe that we'd do that after they literally raped folks here who depended on them.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  > but there are some things that really shouldn't corporatized, like health care,... I agree with your list generally but I believe private sector has a huge role to play in health care. Incentives are nicely aligned between advancing cutting edge healthcare solutions and rich people wanting to live a long healthy life. For example, COVID vaccine was developed by the private sector and rolled out for the US and a few rich European countries, since they were willing to foot the bill. The vaccine wasn't developed by some socialist regime with universal rationed healthcare. Said otherwise, public sector is great for putting a floor on the healthcare available for someone. But private sector is essential to raise the ceiling which will benefit only the rich at first, but everyone else in the long run.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
The author really seems to be getting ahead of themselves, imagining that environmentalist corporations would be making massive investments in ending climate change if only those darn progressive activists would get out of the way. Please point me to these corporations and point me to the activists against them. At the moment I'm not aware of any such eager corporations ready and willing to throw money at these problems. Not in my country, where the energy companies are heavily lobbying the government to be able to pump more oil and gas and to build more pipelines to sell it around the world. Absolutely there are heaps of old 70s era environmentalists that are weary of nuclear power, but this entire issue seems hypothetical and made up in the authors head.

9 points by RestlessMind 4y ago

Key line which captures the essence of the article: "Many progressive commentators ... believe that countering climate change requires a fundamental reordering of the West’s political and economic systems."

chiefalchemist 4y ago
Devil's Advocate here... > "A massive infusion of private investment, made not for charity but in the anticipation of future profits, is precisely what’s needed to accelerate the clean-energy transition—which, like all revolutions, will yield unpredictable results." So the answer to the problem is...to dpuble down on what created the problem? Frankly, that doesn't make sense either. We can't have change without change. We can't make the future better if we refuse to learn from the past.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  > We can't have change without change. Agreed. But what to change? If the right solution requires changing only A but you end up lumping changes to B and C as well, is that really helpful?
  - chiefalchemist 4y ago
    My personal answer? I don't trust any of the systems and entities that got us to this point. For example, Big Oil knew where things were headed, and they buried that info. I have to presume plenty of elected officials knews (or could extrapolate) the same. Yet here we are making a case to trust those who haven't earned our trust. I'm not certain what the answer is exactly. But there is no reason to believe those who have failed us - again and again - are up to getting things back in order. To think otherwise is naive.

oblib 4y ago

I'm progressive but I don't think they really even came close to my thoughts or opinions on this issue so it feels to me like they just tossed that phrase in there because they're conservative capitalists looking to justify their profiteering. I have no problem with for profit businesses, but there are some things that really shouldn't corporatized, like health care, schools, roads, policing, fire depts, water depts, ambulance services, social services. I live in an area where our electric is provided by a user owned co-opt. Last year we had a pretty hard cold snap and those who live outside the co-opt were getting electric bills that way higher than what we paid. Not as bad as what Texans went through a year or two ago when they had that vicious ice storm, but still a huge corporate gouging scam because there are no laws to prevent them from doing that. And the same thing happened with those using propane to heat their homes here. We had a propane tank too but hadn't been using it for a few years. When that happened I called them and told them to come get it and they were stunned. Couldn't believe that we'd do that after they literally raped folks here who depended on them.

RestlessMind 4y ago
> but there are some things that really shouldn't corporatized, like health care,... I agree with your list generally but I believe private sector has a huge role to play in health care. Incentives are nicely aligned between advancing cutting edge healthcare solutions and rich people wanting to live a long healthy life. For example, COVID vaccine was developed by the private sector and rolled out for the US and a few rich European countries, since they were willing to foot the bill. The vaccine wasn't developed by some socialist regime with universal rationed healthcare. Said otherwise, public sector is great for putting a floor on the healthcare available for someone. But private sector is essential to raise the ceiling which will benefit only the rich at first, but everyone else in the long run.

Tiktaalik 4y ago

The author really seems to be getting ahead of themselves, imagining that environmentalist corporations would be making massive investments in ending climate change if only those darn progressive activists would get out of the way. Please point me to these corporations and point me to the activists against them. At the moment I'm not aware of any such eager corporations ready and willing to throw money at these problems. Not in my country, where the energy companies are heavily lobbying the government to be able to pump more oil and gas and to build more pipelines to sell it around the world. Absolutely there are heaps of old 70s era environmentalists that are weary of nuclear power, but this entire issue seems hypothetical and made up in the authors head.