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This could be interpreted as saying unless you fix everything at once, any incremental change should be seen as disingenuous and merely a distraction. Would you

This could be interpreted as saying unless you fix everything at once, any incremental change should be seen as disingenuous and merely a distraction. Would you like to rephrase?

pclmulqdq 3y ago
I'm not the OP but I share this attitude. The argument is that it is hypocritical to heat your 50-room house using hydrocarbons and fly around in a private jet while telling other people to cut their CO2 usage. If you aren't willing to sacrifice for your cause, why should other people sacrifice anything for it?
- uoaei 3y ago
  This is actually a well-studied effect in psychology. It's called social loafing: if someone sees another person violating some rule, they are much less likely to feel obligated to follow that same rule. Rules can be unspoken or written down, the effect is basically the same.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Are you saying everyone who thinks we need to sacrifice for climate change owns a 50 room house and flies around in a private jet?
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Not at all, but I am saying that a large fraction of the most visible people who are very publicly evangelizing for it do. If the movement can't convince its evangelists to make the significant lifestyle changes they are demanding of everyone, why would you expect others to adopt them first? I am half convinced that Greta Thunberg was given a lot of media attention because they finally found someone evangelizing for the cause (with enough political connections, etc) who was actually willing to lead by example.
    - nuancebydefault 3y ago
      IMHO there is a fault in this way of reasoning, please let me explain. People who are very visible, tend to: - Have more impact about what they say, because they reach a big population group and some people identify with their reasoning. (lets call it the elon effect) - Have a lot more money than average. Following your reasoning, what these wealthy people say would be almost always be the wrong thing to do, since those people have more money and hence spend more, and hence consume directly or indirectly more energy. Hence they pollute a lot more than average, at least indirectly by buying expensive things that create pollution by their manufacturing. If those people would say the right thing (e.g. poluting less is better), you wouldn't take them serious. And your conclusion would be polluting less is not better or at least we should not take that advice for granted, because of who said it.
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        I'm not saying that they lose their right to an opinion because they are not paragons of virtue. I'm saying that these wealthy people make no attempt at all to mitigate their environmental impact while telling you to essentially pay off their carbon bill. Elon Musk is not alone in taking his private jet on 10-30 minute flights for trips that could easily have been done in a car. Bill Gates has a gigantic unmitigated environmental footprint, for example. Generally, you would expect people with more wealth and status to be focused on preserving that status. Part of that project is (ostensibly) preserving the world. If Bill Gates does not think that mitigating his own carbon footprint is important for the preservation of his fortune (including several seaside mansions, apparently), I doubt it's important for any of us in the preservation of our futures, despite what Bill Gates is saying about it. This is an example of the phenomenon of revealed preference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference) - you can learn a lot about what Bill Gates actually thinks by looking at what he does rather than what he says. For the record though, I do think that what these wealthy people say is almost always the wrong thing to do in general. Wealthy people are known for giving bad advice on how to get wealthy, for example. Because some of them run their mouths a lot, they are also generally known for not being smarter than the average person outside of their area of expertise. Because I'm picking on Bill Gates, go ask anyone at the WHO or the CDC about their opinion of Gates' level of expertise on vaccines and disease prevention - it's not high. Also, wealth and publicity are kind of correlated, but not that significantly. Bernard Arnault famously rarely says a word in public. Larry Ellison is very private. You probably haven't heard a word from Steve Ballmer, the Bettencourt family, or Larry/Sergei. The people who speak a lot about social causes are the ones who are trying to build a brand around those causes. You get a lot of famous actors worth single-digit millions (thanks to reckless spending habits) speaking about climate change, for example, while also not opting to adopt any green habits themselves. I'm picking on them too. EDIT: I'm picking on rich people too much. You see the same behavior in politicians, too. They are completely unwilling to risk their political careers to make meaningful carbon impacts, and instead do inane things like banning plastic straws. That suggests to me that their level of concern is about at the level where someone would ban plastic straws: they want to do visible and silly things to placate the activists, but don't really think the issue is serious.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ericmay 3y ago
No, I would not like to rephrase. This specific incremental change is at best a distraction and at worst very harmful. We can do many things at once, question is why aren’t we tackling any of the actual problems?
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  Changes are incremental in general, because change takes time, at least if you want change with not too many unwanted side effects. Suppose you would say, from tomorrow on, it is totally forbidden to burn any fuel. Most activities would stall and as a result people would starve.
  - ericmay 3y ago
    I’m not sure I was suggesting anywhere that we shouldn’t pursue incremental change. Moreso we should pursue incremental change that the public can get behind (private jet emissions charges and such) before pursuing incremental change that the public is hesitant to make when people suggesting the change are the biggest polluters comparatively. Honestly just think about it. You really think it’s fruitful to try to start solving this problem by convincing someone that they need to no longer use a gas stove when “insert billionaire” is flying around on a private jet? It’s a non-starter. It reeks of injustice even if it’s the right thing to do and the public will instead of cooperate will fight tooth and nail until perceived justice is accomplished.
    - nuancebydefault 3y ago
      Sorry i guess i misunderstood. Okay the incrementalness is not the thing. The thing is more, the injustice, the unevenness so to say. Well, I think we should not try to solve the injustice problem and the environmental problem with the same measures. For every rule, there will be people that break it, does that mean nobody should follow that rule? Also, for every form or quantity of pollution, there are heavier forms. The jet owner will say that the old-aeroplane-collector or a war in a neighboring country pollutes more. My point is, following that kind of reasoning, it will be almost impossible to take any action.
FpUser 3y ago
When fixing one gives you 0.01% and fixing the other - 99.99% you go for a second one to achieve any sizeable gains. Doing it the other way is only good for fooling people to gain some points in one's political career. And you do not even have to fix second one completely to see positive results so it is not fixing everything at once.
- ericmay 3y ago
  Too simplistic. You can’t do the “99.99%” thing if you violate a population’s sense of justice. In fact you will almost surely make the problem even worse.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    My sense of justice is violated just by looking what Governments do to their citizens never mind "green area". And it is all across the world save for the degree of shittiness.
- vel0city 3y ago
  What's the one thing that will solve 99.99% of climate change issues?
  - tomp 3y ago
    General non-discriminatory carbon tax. Investing heavily in nuclear. Just 2 obvious ideas that noone is even trying.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      Investing heavily in nuclear isn't going to remove 99.99% the sources of greenhouse gasses. Adding some taxes will reduce some of the usage but not 99.99%, unless you price the tax so high nobody can realistically afford jet fuel or diesel or propane or steak or bacon. Increasing the price of concrete might make projects more expensive, but they're probably still going to use concrete. Neither of these are 99.99%. Probably not even 80%.
kortilla 3y ago
Increments so small they set the expected completion time to 1000 years from now are worthless. There is only so much time people have to create, debate, modify, and enforce policies. Every time you waste our collective time to change on something so irrelevant, you starve out real topics. Incremental change is fine, but the increments need to be large enough to actually put us on the needed “increments per year” path to get somewhere. Something like 6 years ago California banned water being given out by restaurants by default. It did nothing to move the needle on the drought and had people debating water usage in people’s day to day lives for months. It was the tiniest increment and California was only saved by a massive winter precipitation event this winter. We won’t have a massive winter to stop climate change. Stop fucking around with incremental shit and tax all hydrocarbons heavily.
redeeman 3y ago
or how about this? what if I choose to never use motorized vehicles for transport, I never fly, I use only lowpower devices, but I want to use a gas range. Isnt it fair that I get to choose what I spend my emissions on?

This could be interpreted as saying unless you fix everything at once, any incremental change should be seen as disingenuous and merely a distraction. Would you like to rephrase?

pclmulqdq 3y ago

I'm not the OP but I share this attitude. The argument is that it is hypocritical to heat your 50-room house using hydrocarbons and fly around in a private jet while telling other people to cut their CO2 usage. If you aren't willing to sacrifice for your cause, why should other people sacrifice anything for it?

uoaei 3y ago
This is actually a well-studied effect in psychology. It's called social loafing: if someone sees another person violating some rule, they are much less likely to feel obligated to follow that same rule. Rules can be unspoken or written down, the effect is basically the same.
bcrosby95 3y ago
Are you saying everyone who thinks we need to sacrifice for climate change owns a 50 room house and flies around in a private jet?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Not at all, but I am saying that a large fraction of the most visible people who are very publicly evangelizing for it do. If the movement can't convince its evangelists to make the significant lifestyle changes they are demanding of everyone, why would you expect others to adopt them first? I am half convinced that Greta Thunberg was given a lot of media attention because they finally found someone evangelizing for the cause (with enough political connections, etc) who was actually willing to lead by example.
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    IMHO there is a fault in this way of reasoning, please let me explain. People who are very visible, tend to: - Have more impact about what they say, because they reach a big population group and some people identify with their reasoning. (lets call it the elon effect) - Have a lot more money than average. Following your reasoning, what these wealthy people say would be almost always be the wrong thing to do, since those people have more money and hence spend more, and hence consume directly or indirectly more energy. Hence they pollute a lot more than average, at least indirectly by buying expensive things that create pollution by their manufacturing. If those people would say the right thing (e.g. poluting less is better), you wouldn't take them serious. And your conclusion would be polluting less is not better or at least we should not take that advice for granted, because of who said it.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      I'm not saying that they lose their right to an opinion because they are not paragons of virtue. I'm saying that these wealthy people make no attempt at all to mitigate their environmental impact while telling you to essentially pay off their carbon bill. Elon Musk is not alone in taking his private jet on 10-30 minute flights for trips that could easily have been done in a car. Bill Gates has a gigantic unmitigated environmental footprint, for example. Generally, you would expect people with more wealth and status to be focused on preserving that status. Part of that project is (ostensibly) preserving the world. If Bill Gates does not think that mitigating his own carbon footprint is important for the preservation of his fortune (including several seaside mansions, apparently), I doubt it's important for any of us in the preservation of our futures, despite what Bill Gates is saying about it. This is an example of the phenomenon of revealed preference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference) - you can learn a lot about what Bill Gates actually thinks by looking at what he does rather than what he says. For the record though, I do think that what these wealthy people say is almost always the wrong thing to do in general. Wealthy people are known for giving bad advice on how to get wealthy, for example. Because some of them run their mouths a lot, they are also generally known for not being smarter than the average person outside of their area of expertise. Because I'm picking on Bill Gates, go ask anyone at the WHO or the CDC about their opinion of Gates' level of expertise on vaccines and disease prevention - it's not high. Also, wealth and publicity are kind of correlated, but not that significantly. Bernard Arnault famously rarely says a word in public. Larry Ellison is very private. You probably haven't heard a word from Steve Ballmer, the Bettencourt family, or Larry/Sergei. The people who speak a lot about social causes are the ones who are trying to build a brand around those causes. You get a lot of famous actors worth single-digit millions (thanks to reckless spending habits) speaking about climate change, for example, while also not opting to adopt any green habits themselves. I'm picking on them too. EDIT: I'm picking on rich people too much. You see the same behavior in politicians, too. They are completely unwilling to risk their political careers to make meaningful carbon impacts, and instead do inane things like banning plastic straws. That suggests to me that their level of concern is about at the level where someone would ban plastic straws: they want to do visible and silly things to placate the activists, but don't really think the issue is serious.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ericmay 3y ago

No, I would not like to rephrase. This specific incremental change is at best a distraction and at worst very harmful. We can do many things at once, question is why aren’t we tackling any of the actual problems?

nuancebydefault 3y ago
Changes are incremental in general, because change takes time, at least if you want change with not too many unwanted side effects. Suppose you would say, from tomorrow on, it is totally forbidden to burn any fuel. Most activities would stall and as a result people would starve.
- ericmay 3y ago
  I’m not sure I was suggesting anywhere that we shouldn’t pursue incremental change. Moreso we should pursue incremental change that the public can get behind (private jet emissions charges and such) before pursuing incremental change that the public is hesitant to make when people suggesting the change are the biggest polluters comparatively. Honestly just think about it. You really think it’s fruitful to try to start solving this problem by convincing someone that they need to no longer use a gas stove when “insert billionaire” is flying around on a private jet? It’s a non-starter. It reeks of injustice even if it’s the right thing to do and the public will instead of cooperate will fight tooth and nail until perceived justice is accomplished.
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    Sorry i guess i misunderstood. Okay the incrementalness is not the thing. The thing is more, the injustice, the unevenness so to say. Well, I think we should not try to solve the injustice problem and the environmental problem with the same measures. For every rule, there will be people that break it, does that mean nobody should follow that rule? Also, for every form or quantity of pollution, there are heavier forms. The jet owner will say that the old-aeroplane-collector or a war in a neighboring country pollutes more. My point is, following that kind of reasoning, it will be almost impossible to take any action.

FpUser 3y ago

When fixing one gives you 0.01% and fixing the other - 99.99% you go for a second one to achieve any sizeable gains. Doing it the other way is only good for fooling people to gain some points in one's political career. And you do not even have to fix second one completely to see positive results so it is not fixing everything at once.

ericmay 3y ago
Too simplistic. You can’t do the “99.99%” thing if you violate a population’s sense of justice. In fact you will almost surely make the problem even worse.
- FpUser 3y ago
  My sense of justice is violated just by looking what Governments do to their citizens never mind "green area". And it is all across the world save for the degree of shittiness.
vel0city 3y ago
What's the one thing that will solve 99.99% of climate change issues?
- tomp 3y ago
  General non-discriminatory carbon tax. Investing heavily in nuclear. Just 2 obvious ideas that noone is even trying.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    Investing heavily in nuclear isn't going to remove 99.99% the sources of greenhouse gasses. Adding some taxes will reduce some of the usage but not 99.99%, unless you price the tax so high nobody can realistically afford jet fuel or diesel or propane or steak or bacon. Increasing the price of concrete might make projects more expensive, but they're probably still going to use concrete. Neither of these are 99.99%. Probably not even 80%.

kortilla 3y ago

Increments so small they set the expected completion time to 1000 years from now are worthless. There is only so much time people have to create, debate, modify, and enforce policies. Every time you waste our collective time to change on something so irrelevant, you starve out real topics. Incremental change is fine, but the increments need to be large enough to actually put us on the needed “increments per year” path to get somewhere. Something like 6 years ago California banned water being given out by restaurants by default. It did nothing to move the needle on the drought and had people debating water usage in people’s day to day lives for months. It was the tiniest increment and California was only saved by a massive winter precipitation event this winter. We won’t have a massive winter to stop climate change. Stop fucking around with incremental shit and tax all hydrocarbons heavily.

redeeman 3y ago

or how about this? what if I choose to never use motorized vehicles for transport, I never fly, I use only lowpower devices, but I want to use a gas range. Isnt it fair that I get to choose what I spend my emissions on?