3 ms·

> there are plenty people in other parts of the world who don't have such a high standard of living, and it's not that big of a problem. Go live like that for

> there are plenty people in other parts of the world who don't have such a high standard of living, and it's not that big of a problem. Go live like that for 6 months and get back to us: food insecurity, inadequate healthcare, and few civil services or safety net. Those other countries are not net zero pollution either. You wanna crash the economy? How then will we develop the innovations to fix this problem? Can't believe this comment is top rated.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
I upvoted you, but IMO: - private cars and their usage are too cheap - air travel is too cheap - producing garbage is to cheap - politics is top centered around providing infinte fuel for "growth" instead of distributing resources rationally Yes, this is a political opinion. The stunt many people do is pretending that climate denialism and politics centered on fueling growth are not a political opinion but "rational" and sustainable.
- lr4444lr 3y ago
  Agreed, both on the whole and in the details. But if I'm forced into the "either/or" mindset of the OP of a hypothetical choice to shrink GDP by 1% by stopping all vacation car travel or deficit spend 1% GDP as a "Manhattan Project" to get lab grown beef commercially viable, I'm voting for the latter.
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    The latter sounds like fantasy though, and it's not the lab-grown meat per se I'm talking about. Also I wasn't talking about car usage exclusively during vacations, I was explicitly talking about private car usage. People literally get governmental subsidies for building homes in the suburbs, then commute by car and pollute the planet in order to avoid car traffic. Anyone who fails to see the absurdity of this has drank too much Kool-aid for my taste.
- concordDance 3y ago
  If your issue is global warming you should be campaigning for electric cars rather than against private cars. But I suspect you actually dislike cars in and of themselves, even if they could be grown on trees and powered by banana skins.
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    I like driving cars or being a passenger in them. I also acknowledge their importance for society as a whole. But since you ask: Cars are not a subject but an object, a tool to me. "Suspecting" that I "dislike" this tool does not sound like a coherent argument to me. Yes, I hate cars when being outside them, because they are a major obstruction and source of pollution, noise and overshooting environmental damage. I hate their artifical abundance, for which I am forced to pay. I'm not sure what you are talking about with the hypothetical banana car and why you care about my feelings. Seems like an ideological argument to me. Do EVs grow on trees? I agree that global warming is only the tip of the iceberg of the damage we do. And yes, EVs are marginally better for the nearby environment compared to CEVs. They don't solve the larger problem though and they still impose huge resource costs. Subsidizing EVs (again) is putting more fuel into the fire. In my country, there are and were already so many subsidies and benefits for buying a new car, it isn't funny anymore. It's always being justified by the newer cars ostensively being better for the environment. Even before there were affordable EVs, the government paid people bonuses to buy a new car and trash/sell the previous one with this justification. As a person with a license, but without a car: this is disgusting and reminds me of 1984. One of the many subsidies for buying cars in Germany was called "Umweltprämie" (environment bonus). As early as 2009. It was basically a tax-funded bonus for trashing and buying cars to fund the industry. That being said, cars of course are only one particularly obvious example of insane policies.
nroets 3y ago
Europe doesn't have food insecurity. Health is pretty good and there's a safety net. Even China scores pretty well on those points. Yet their per capita emissions are much lower than the US.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  Europe has tons of cars and air travel that is cheaper and more plentiful than that of US.
  - nroets 3y ago
    Europe may have many cars, but they are smaller and drive shorter distance. Perhaps air travel is cheaper. But wages are lower meaning people need to work more hours before they can take a flight.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Yes, that was golden when US mandated larger, more powerful cars with the cover up of green regulations. Do not disagree here.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    What? Europe has tons of mass transit and walkable cities.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Despite this, they also have a huge length of high speed highways with cars going back and forth. The topology is not much different than in the US. Difference is there, but it's quantitative and will not in any way prevent climate change, especially as it also relies on infrastructure that US does not have and will take a huge carbon footprint to build.
      - dv_dt 3y ago
        They also have huge lengths of high speed and regional rail. The difference shows up in the energy per capita numbers. Nothing prevents climate change unless we get more intentional and scaled investments in renewable energy and circular green economies.
lossolo 3y ago
> Can't believe this comment is top rated. Same. I think it's just helplessness, they feel something bad is coming, and they can't do anything about it, so they try to propose radical solutions that will not fix anything but just make things worse.
- fullshark 3y ago
  More like they don't understand the true cost of their "solution"
mempko 3y ago
Before we can talk about food insecurity, (we have that too in the USA), we need to talk about the insane amount of food waste here. You can downshift the economy and IMPROVE food security if we take that as a priority. It's all about political capital.
c048 3y ago
It also completely ignores the fact that developing countries move exactly to what the Western world does. Why do so many people eat insects or are pure vegetarian in India? Because many are simply too poor to afford meat. You know what's one of the first major things Indians change when their wealth increases? Adding more meat to their diets.

moritzwarhier 3y ago

I upvoted you, but IMO: - private cars and their usage are too cheap - air travel is too cheap - producing garbage is to cheap - politics is top centered around providing infinte fuel for "growth" instead of distributing resources rationally Yes, this is a political opinion. The stunt many people do is pretending that climate denialism and politics centered on fueling growth are not a political opinion but "rational" and sustainable.

lr4444lr 3y ago
Agreed, both on the whole and in the details. But if I'm forced into the "either/or" mindset of the OP of a hypothetical choice to shrink GDP by 1% by stopping all vacation car travel or deficit spend 1% GDP as a "Manhattan Project" to get lab grown beef commercially viable, I'm voting for the latter.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  The latter sounds like fantasy though, and it's not the lab-grown meat per se I'm talking about. Also I wasn't talking about car usage exclusively during vacations, I was explicitly talking about private car usage. People literally get governmental subsidies for building homes in the suburbs, then commute by car and pollute the planet in order to avoid car traffic. Anyone who fails to see the absurdity of this has drank too much Kool-aid for my taste.
concordDance 3y ago
If your issue is global warming you should be campaigning for electric cars rather than against private cars. But I suspect you actually dislike cars in and of themselves, even if they could be grown on trees and powered by banana skins.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  I like driving cars or being a passenger in them. I also acknowledge their importance for society as a whole. But since you ask: Cars are not a subject but an object, a tool to me. "Suspecting" that I "dislike" this tool does not sound like a coherent argument to me. Yes, I hate cars when being outside them, because they are a major obstruction and source of pollution, noise and overshooting environmental damage. I hate their artifical abundance, for which I am forced to pay. I'm not sure what you are talking about with the hypothetical banana car and why you care about my feelings. Seems like an ideological argument to me. Do EVs grow on trees? I agree that global warming is only the tip of the iceberg of the damage we do. And yes, EVs are marginally better for the nearby environment compared to CEVs. They don't solve the larger problem though and they still impose huge resource costs. Subsidizing EVs (again) is putting more fuel into the fire. In my country, there are and were already so many subsidies and benefits for buying a new car, it isn't funny anymore. It's always being justified by the newer cars ostensively being better for the environment. Even before there were affordable EVs, the government paid people bonuses to buy a new car and trash/sell the previous one with this justification. As a person with a license, but without a car: this is disgusting and reminds me of 1984. One of the many subsidies for buying cars in Germany was called "Umweltprämie" (environment bonus). As early as 2009. It was basically a tax-funded bonus for trashing and buying cars to fund the industry. That being said, cars of course are only one particularly obvious example of insane policies.

nroets 3y ago

Europe doesn't have food insecurity. Health is pretty good and there's a safety net. Even China scores pretty well on those points. Yet their per capita emissions are much lower than the US.

thriftwy 3y ago
Europe has tons of cars and air travel that is cheaper and more plentiful than that of US.
- nroets 3y ago
  Europe may have many cars, but they are smaller and drive shorter distance. Perhaps air travel is cheaper. But wages are lower meaning people need to work more hours before they can take a flight.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Yes, that was golden when US mandated larger, more powerful cars with the cover up of green regulations. Do not disagree here.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  What? Europe has tons of mass transit and walkable cities.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Despite this, they also have a huge length of high speed highways with cars going back and forth. The topology is not much different than in the US. Difference is there, but it's quantitative and will not in any way prevent climate change, especially as it also relies on infrastructure that US does not have and will take a huge carbon footprint to build.
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      They also have huge lengths of high speed and regional rail. The difference shows up in the energy per capita numbers. Nothing prevents climate change unless we get more intentional and scaled investments in renewable energy and circular green economies.

lossolo 3y ago

> Can't believe this comment is top rated. Same. I think it's just helplessness, they feel something bad is coming, and they can't do anything about it, so they try to propose radical solutions that will not fix anything but just make things worse.

fullshark 3y ago
More like they don't understand the true cost of their "solution"

mempko 3y ago

Before we can talk about food insecurity, (we have that too in the USA), we need to talk about the insane amount of food waste here. You can downshift the economy and IMPROVE food security if we take that as a priority. It's all about political capital.

c048 3y ago

It also completely ignores the fact that developing countries move exactly to what the Western world does. Why do so many people eat insects or are pure vegetarian in India? Because many are simply too poor to afford meat. You know what's one of the first major things Indians change when their wealth increases? Adding more meat to their diets.