4 ms·

But what are you doing that actually is in your power to change things? What political options and movements do you support, for example? Have you gone out and

But what are you doing that actually is in your power to change things? What political options and movements do you support, for example? Have you gone out and participate in climate protests and the like? It's not much, but it's what we can do as citizens. The world changes through politics, and we should do more to participate actively in it.

beachy 3y ago
I believe you are responding to some rather lame sarcasm.
- haswell 3y ago
  Perhaps, but it’s a position that quite a few people misguidedly take very seriously. I think it’s good to counter these arguments where they come up if only to leave behind something for a future curious reader unsure of what to do.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
clnq 3y ago
With our highly individualistic and stratified society, I don’t think we have the voting power or any negotiating power against deeply capitalistic corporations. They simply follow the capitalistic imperative - optimize capital gains. We - the society - on the other hand, have no such imperative to follow and can’t even decide what we want. Some think the capitalism needs to restricted to ethical boundaries, others think the former are evil communists. If people weren’t so echo-chambered and isolated to ideas different than their own, perhaps one day we could decide what our universal priorities and values as humanity are. Are they about maximizing capital, or preserving our planet and survival? Or maybe they are about something else. But we can’t even begin to have a serious discussion about this with the overwhelming majority of people today. And that would be just the first step to change. So I really think we are powerless to change how capitalism is dooming the planet. There are probably some people in the world capable of changing this - governments, presidents, kings, hedge fund managers, religious figures, and maybe some other leaders. I can’t make the needle move much even if I spend my life doing it. I’m just not in a position of power large enough to steer capitalism itself on a global scale.
- haswell 3y ago
  > I can’t make the needle move much even if I spend my life doing it. I’m just not in a position of power large enough to steer capitalism itself on a global scale. Steering things on a global scale shouldn’t be the goal to begin with at the individual level. This isn’t the needle individuals need to try to move. You absolutely can make a difference though. Change starts with you and me. And then the people around us. The way we choose to spend our money. By getting involved in our local governments. By supporting organizations that take action. By volunteering to take action. Every movement starts with an individual. Every massive human endeavor has required the collective effort of many individuals, and this is no different.
  - clnq 3y ago
    Don’t expect people aren’t doing these individual things. Reuse, buying ethical products, recycling, public transit, and so on. It’s just that you’d never see the needle moved this way, so you probably wouldn’t be able to tell how many people are doing these things.
- jerojero 3y ago
  I will once again recommend Helene Landemore's "Open Democracy" as well as Camila Vergara's "Systemic corruption: constitutional ideas for an anti-oligarchic republic". I think seeing what the french convention for the climate produced is really helpful. I had flaws of course but overall a very positive opportunity that has been definitely further refined with the convention for the end of life. And now we are already seeing a push for others one to tackle the pension crisis in France. These are real political alternatives, as of now, there is little real power that are given to these. But mostly people don't even know what's possible so they're just not pushed by the public. I believe pushing for more popular power and better (real) representation that's not tied to voting is our only way of addressing the corruption that's present in our political systems, dominated by oligarchic/elitist/plutocratic ideas. We are not powerless, it's possible, we just need to be aware of what are the right alternatives that we ought to push for and start coordinating to bring these to the masses. At the very least, I believe, different social movements should be pushing for the same "tools" to be used to address the problem. I know climate change groups push for something similar to the citizen's convention for the climate in their own respective countries. But these things are "new". I encourage you to take a look at the books I recommended in the beginning, see if maybe your perspective is shifted a bit and you become a little more optimistic :)
mr_toad 3y ago
Global CO2 emissions need to be reduced by 45% very soon. Like by the end of the decade soon. Less than seven years. There is no political solution. There’s no hope of any government taking any meaningful action. It’s all words and greenwashing. A substantial reduction in consumption for everyone? Blame companies all you like, but companies don’t sell what people aren’t buying. Consumers around the world aren’t going to scale back consumption by double digit percentages in less than a decade. They’ll revolt against anyone who tried to make them. There’s no technical solution that can come on line fast enough. Renewable energy is just not going to scale up scale that fast. Especially not when governments are still subsidising fossil fuel, opening new coal mines, and coal power plants. So what’s left? You can hope that the ‘worst case’ scenarios aren’t that bad, (and hope even harder that the scenarios the official reports deliberately omit the worst of the worst case scenarios, never happen). And even in the best case scenarios if we don’t reduce carbon emissions we’re going to see famine, pestilence and war. Maybe in the end war will accomplish what politics couldn’t. If we destroy enough of the world’s economies it might be enough to stop all the ice melting completely.
- bushbaba 3y ago
  More likely is a huge population decline from cost of living being too great for most to have kids.
- jerojero 3y ago
  Well, I know in France there was a citizens convention for the climate that developed citizens-led initiatives such as banning short flights and so on. That's significant. When you say "consumers would revolt against these policies", would they? Because representative citizens assemblies pretty much prove you otherwise, these are not political activists that got together to push an agenda; it's the result of a representative (through sortition) sample of the french people. Maybe in America things would be different, but I honestly wouldn't say with certainty that it is so. Although for the citizens convention for the climate in France from the ~180 proposals only 30ish were approved by congress. So this shows the tension between what people might want and what congress is willing to pass; probably because congress is under a much higher pressure from lobbying, so they're much less bold. But really, my point here is that there are political alternatives. These are not very well known but they're very much real. I know climate movements and activists in other countries, such as Norway, are very much aware of these and these are the policies they want to push for. So I would say, really, there's a big difference between not knowing and not being involved and actually not any viable alternatives to the problem being out there. I would say the first step is awareness and is involvement. Literally, just talking about it in a serious manner and not simply going "ugh, but politics is so useless!". Ask yourself why and what is being done and what people are trying out there. Because a lot is being tried, particularly in Europe. Just get involved locally and bring these ideas forward. Basically what I'm saying is we should be pushing for a "let us actually decide for ourselves" movement rather than specifically something about climate. And this I believe is something a lot of people can agree on, from the current polarized political spectrum. As there is a very real crisis of representation in our democracies. No one likes politicians.

beachy 3y ago

I believe you are responding to some rather lame sarcasm.

haswell 3y ago
Perhaps, but it’s a position that quite a few people misguidedly take very seriously. I think it’s good to counter these arguments where they come up if only to leave behind something for a future curious reader unsure of what to do.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

clnq 3y ago

With our highly individualistic and stratified society, I don’t think we have the voting power or any negotiating power against deeply capitalistic corporations. They simply follow the capitalistic imperative - optimize capital gains. We - the society - on the other hand, have no such imperative to follow and can’t even decide what we want. Some think the capitalism needs to restricted to ethical boundaries, others think the former are evil communists. If people weren’t so echo-chambered and isolated to ideas different than their own, perhaps one day we could decide what our universal priorities and values as humanity are. Are they about maximizing capital, or preserving our planet and survival? Or maybe they are about something else. But we can’t even begin to have a serious discussion about this with the overwhelming majority of people today. And that would be just the first step to change. So I really think we are powerless to change how capitalism is dooming the planet. There are probably some people in the world capable of changing this - governments, presidents, kings, hedge fund managers, religious figures, and maybe some other leaders. I can’t make the needle move much even if I spend my life doing it. I’m just not in a position of power large enough to steer capitalism itself on a global scale.

haswell 3y ago
> I can’t make the needle move much even if I spend my life doing it. I’m just not in a position of power large enough to steer capitalism itself on a global scale. Steering things on a global scale shouldn’t be the goal to begin with at the individual level. This isn’t the needle individuals need to try to move. You absolutely can make a difference though. Change starts with you and me. And then the people around us. The way we choose to spend our money. By getting involved in our local governments. By supporting organizations that take action. By volunteering to take action. Every movement starts with an individual. Every massive human endeavor has required the collective effort of many individuals, and this is no different.
- clnq 3y ago
  Don’t expect people aren’t doing these individual things. Reuse, buying ethical products, recycling, public transit, and so on. It’s just that you’d never see the needle moved this way, so you probably wouldn’t be able to tell how many people are doing these things.
jerojero 3y ago
I will once again recommend Helene Landemore's "Open Democracy" as well as Camila Vergara's "Systemic corruption: constitutional ideas for an anti-oligarchic republic". I think seeing what the french convention for the climate produced is really helpful. I had flaws of course but overall a very positive opportunity that has been definitely further refined with the convention for the end of life. And now we are already seeing a push for others one to tackle the pension crisis in France. These are real political alternatives, as of now, there is little real power that are given to these. But mostly people don't even know what's possible so they're just not pushed by the public. I believe pushing for more popular power and better (real) representation that's not tied to voting is our only way of addressing the corruption that's present in our political systems, dominated by oligarchic/elitist/plutocratic ideas. We are not powerless, it's possible, we just need to be aware of what are the right alternatives that we ought to push for and start coordinating to bring these to the masses. At the very least, I believe, different social movements should be pushing for the same "tools" to be used to address the problem. I know climate change groups push for something similar to the citizen's convention for the climate in their own respective countries. But these things are "new". I encourage you to take a look at the books I recommended in the beginning, see if maybe your perspective is shifted a bit and you become a little more optimistic :)

mr_toad 3y ago

Global CO2 emissions need to be reduced by 45% very soon. Like by the end of the decade soon. Less than seven years. There is no political solution. There’s no hope of any government taking any meaningful action. It’s all words and greenwashing. A substantial reduction in consumption for everyone? Blame companies all you like, but companies don’t sell what people aren’t buying. Consumers around the world aren’t going to scale back consumption by double digit percentages in less than a decade. They’ll revolt against anyone who tried to make them. There’s no technical solution that can come on line fast enough. Renewable energy is just not going to scale up scale that fast. Especially not when governments are still subsidising fossil fuel, opening new coal mines, and coal power plants. So what’s left? You can hope that the ‘worst case’ scenarios aren’t that bad, (and hope even harder that the scenarios the official reports deliberately omit the worst of the worst case scenarios, never happen). And even in the best case scenarios if we don’t reduce carbon emissions we’re going to see famine, pestilence and war. Maybe in the end war will accomplish what politics couldn’t. If we destroy enough of the world’s economies it might be enough to stop all the ice melting completely.

bushbaba 3y ago
More likely is a huge population decline from cost of living being too great for most to have kids.
jerojero 3y ago
Well, I know in France there was a citizens convention for the climate that developed citizens-led initiatives such as banning short flights and so on. That's significant. When you say "consumers would revolt against these policies", would they? Because representative citizens assemblies pretty much prove you otherwise, these are not political activists that got together to push an agenda; it's the result of a representative (through sortition) sample of the french people. Maybe in America things would be different, but I honestly wouldn't say with certainty that it is so. Although for the citizens convention for the climate in France from the ~180 proposals only 30ish were approved by congress. So this shows the tension between what people might want and what congress is willing to pass; probably because congress is under a much higher pressure from lobbying, so they're much less bold. But really, my point here is that there are political alternatives. These are not very well known but they're very much real. I know climate movements and activists in other countries, such as Norway, are very much aware of these and these are the policies they want to push for. So I would say, really, there's a big difference between not knowing and not being involved and actually not any viable alternatives to the problem being out there. I would say the first step is awareness and is involvement. Literally, just talking about it in a serious manner and not simply going "ugh, but politics is so useless!". Ask yourself why and what is being done and what people are trying out there. Because a lot is being tried, particularly in Europe. Just get involved locally and bring these ideas forward. Basically what I'm saying is we should be pushing for a "let us actually decide for ourselves" movement rather than specifically something about climate. And this I believe is something a lot of people can agree on, from the current polarized political spectrum. As there is a very real crisis of representation in our democracies. No one likes politicians.