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That's ignoring all the issues American environmentalists identified and were proven right about since the dawn of the movement. DDT thinning bird eggs and cau

That's ignoring all the issues American environmentalists identified and were proven right about since the dawn of the movement. DDT thinning bird eggs and causing near extinction of many species? Banning DDT resulted in recovery. Companies dumping sewage, PCBs and industrial waste into our water, killing entire ecosystems? While not perfect, the Great Lakes and many rivers are worlds apart from where they were 50 years ago thanks to the EPA and Clean Water Act. Same situation for the Clean Air Act. Same for the Endangered Species Act. Same situation for banning lead from paint and automotive gasoline. Same situation for the ozone layer and the Montreal Protocol. These movements were not unopposed. In most of those fights, business and conservative (in the traditional sense of the word) groups fought against the regulation needed to address the problem. Hell, the current GOP platform for 2024 is to completely gut the EPA's authority within the first year. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/28/far-right-climate-plans-00107498 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/28/far-right-climate-p... Climate change is much more complex than any of the mentioned issues and will take much more global cooperation. Crazy to somehow blame this on environmentalists just because the effects are larger scale and slower-changing.

gottorf 3y ago
Everything in life is a tradeoff. There are no "solutions" to problems, because every solution must be accomplished using scarce resources that have alternative uses, and may carry unintended consequences. > Banning DDT resulted in recovery. It also caused more people to die of malaria[0,1]. > Same for the Endangered Species Act And adds to worsening homelessness in the Bay Area[2], so much so that a recent infrastructure bill signed by the governor weakens many environmental protections[3]. Banning things is easy. We can just ban every modern convenience and go back to pre-Industrial Revolution living standards and drop our carbon emissions by 99%. But the hidden side of every success story that comes from a ban of whatever material or practice you can think of is the human toll at the other end. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173321/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173321/ [1]: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817939326_261.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... [2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/woodside-blocks-new-housing-development-cites-endangered-cougars/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/woodside-blocks-ne... [3]: https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2023/06/29/building-california-how-will-the-infrastructure-deal-affect-development-wildlife https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2023/06/29/building-ca...
- dashundchen 3y ago
  I'd love to hear what the mainstream right-wing plan for addressing climate change is then. Because right now it appears to be "deny it's happening, let's continue enriching fossil fuel shareholders" [0]. And there is increasingly large human cost to doing that too. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-climate-project2025.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-clima...

gottorf 3y ago

Everything in life is a tradeoff. There are no "solutions" to problems, because every solution must be accomplished using scarce resources that have alternative uses, and may carry unintended consequences. > Banning DDT resulted in recovery. It also caused more people to die of malaria[0,1]. > Same for the Endangered Species Act And adds to worsening homelessness in the Bay Area[2], so much so that a recent infrastructure bill signed by the governor weakens many environmental protections[3]. Banning things is easy. We can just ban every modern convenience and go back to pre-Industrial Revolution living standards and drop our carbon emissions by 99%. But the hidden side of every success story that comes from a ban of whatever material or practice you can think of is the human toll at the other end. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173321/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173321/ [1]: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817939326_261.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... [2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/woodside-blocks-new-housing-development-cites-endangered-cougars/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/woodside-blocks-ne... [3]: https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2023/06/29/building-california-how-will-the-infrastructure-deal-affect-development-wildlife https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2023/06/29/building-ca...

dashundchen 3y ago
I'd love to hear what the mainstream right-wing plan for addressing climate change is then. Because right now it appears to be "deny it's happening, let's continue enriching fossil fuel shareholders" [0]. And there is increasingly large human cost to doing that too. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-climate-project2025.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-clima...