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Naomi Klein has a 2014 book called "this changes everything", and she makes the following argument. (1) if we don't act, everything will change (via climate ca

Naomi Klein has a 2014 book called "this changes everything", and she makes the following argument. (1) if we don't act, everything will change (via climate catastrophe) (2) if we do act, everything will change (via our actions) (3) in the former case it's basically just bad things are happening to us, in the latter we have some choice how we change it. (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative This is, of course, radically compressed, she is more subtle and writes better than I do. I think a massive problem is that this argument hasn't spread wider. A lot of people seem to think/wish/hope/imagine/copium/lie/phantasise/extrapolate a future basically like our world, just a bit more futuristic, is a possibility. It isn't. And telling your children the coral reefs will be okay creates more of such people.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Part of the problem here is that we have/had the option to have a world pretty much like the existing one, except that it was one in which oil and coal companies went out of business or lost trillions of dollars, and got replaced with renewable and nuclear power generation and electric vehicles etc. But those trillion dollar industries fought against their own destruction, and continue to do so, and all of the other alternatives are worse. The best time to fossilize the fossil fuel industries was 30 years ago. The second best time is right now.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
> (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative Forget "conservatism." I posted an article a few days ago that made a convincing case that capitalism is no longer possible. It hit the front page, then got flagged to death all within 15 minutes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 And it's all because the capitalist mind virus has taken hold to such an extent that ""the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it." [0] It's a sentiment that gets paraphrased into "people find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." In the entire history of capitalism and industrial society, neither global energy use nor global CO2 emissions have ever decreased, except for one brief instant when we shut everything down in order that many more of us wouldn't die of COVID. We're driving ourselves off a metaphorical cliff and laughing about it. We're not going to get the last laugh on this one. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism
- simbolit 3y ago
  anti-capitalism is not much popular around here. something with "We Must End Capitalism" in the title is definitely too strong for HN.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    Humanity can swallow the bitter pill now and have a shot at saving civilization, or it can poison itself slowly and die on the vine. We (you and I) are literally talking about how the end of civilization is more palatable than the end of capitalism. Well, I say "fuck that." If supposedly rational people can't handle having their belief systems challenged, we have no hope of a future anyway.
    - SauciestGNU 3y ago
      I've basically come to terms with how fucked we are as a species. I'm just hoping to live my life in a fulfilling manner, minimize the damage I personally do, and die with the understanding that our species and much life on this planet is probably doomed thanks to people too stupid to see through the oil propaganda, too lazy to change their lifestyles, or too greedy to be prevented from committing ecocide.
nvm0n2 3y ago
> And telling your children the coral reefs will be okay creates more of such people. You and the article author are behind the curve. The coral reefs are fine and the idea of climate coral destruction has been debunked in the past few years. The Great Barrier Reef is currently at record highs for example, after a bleaching event in 2019 that coral "experts" said would wreck the GBR for at least a decade. By 2022 they had to walk that back completely as the reef rebounded far faster than they had ever imagined and reached never before seen growth. Clearly, their understanding of corals is not good enough to make these sorts of predictions. There's also just a really basic problem with the coral/climate story: corals respond to fast local changes in temperature but CO2 is meant to create slow global changes in temperature. But it's understandable you don't know this because almost nobody does. A survey done this summer showed that only 3% of Australians were aware that the GBR had reached record levels of coral. The majority still think the GBR is dying. This is for the same reason as covered in the article: academics like to tell stories that will cause people to behave in the right way, as they see it. Sometimes this means downplaying what they think, other times it means exaggerating it or not reporting good news. Three-quarters of sampled Australian green voters believe the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is doing worse than usual, with 44% stating the coral is at a record low. Overall only 3% of all Australian voters knew that the coral was at a “record high” – the correct answer following two years of record growth that has broken all previous records. The “phenomenal health” of the GBR is said to be virtually unknown, yet the public are paying half a billion dollars in taxes to save it. In addition the country is “being misled into thinking that expensive low carbon policies and Net Zero targets will help protect the reef, when there is no correlation between CO2 levels and coral cover”. https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/25/just-3-of-australians-are-aware-that-the-great-barrier-reef-is-at-a-record-high-survey-finds/ https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/25/just-3-of-australians-ar...
- defrost 3y ago
  The results come from a survey carried out by the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) and is the work of coral authority Dr. Peter Ridd and science journalist Jo Nova. Well, there's your problem. Still, the Daily Skeptic fits your world view so stick with that and Sky News anti-science climate change outrage. It was no wonder ScoMo was stridently anti-AGW: https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/climate-change-causes-religion-race https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/climate-change-causes-relig...

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Part of the problem here is that we have/had the option to have a world pretty much like the existing one, except that it was one in which oil and coal companies went out of business or lost trillions of dollars, and got replaced with renewable and nuclear power generation and electric vehicles etc. But those trillion dollar industries fought against their own destruction, and continue to do so, and all of the other alternatives are worse. The best time to fossilize the fossil fuel industries was 30 years ago. The second best time is right now.

Paul-Craft 3y ago

> (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative Forget "conservatism." I posted an article a few days ago that made a convincing case that capitalism is no longer possible. It hit the front page, then got flagged to death all within 15 minutes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 And it's all because the capitalist mind virus has taken hold to such an extent that ""the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it." [0] It's a sentiment that gets paraphrased into "people find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." In the entire history of capitalism and industrial society, neither global energy use nor global CO2 emissions have ever decreased, except for one brief instant when we shut everything down in order that many more of us wouldn't die of COVID. We're driving ourselves off a metaphorical cliff and laughing about it. We're not going to get the last laugh on this one. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

simbolit 3y ago
anti-capitalism is not much popular around here. something with "We Must End Capitalism" in the title is definitely too strong for HN.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  Humanity can swallow the bitter pill now and have a shot at saving civilization, or it can poison itself slowly and die on the vine. We (you and I) are literally talking about how the end of civilization is more palatable than the end of capitalism. Well, I say "fuck that." If supposedly rational people can't handle having their belief systems challenged, we have no hope of a future anyway.
  - SauciestGNU 3y ago
    I've basically come to terms with how fucked we are as a species. I'm just hoping to live my life in a fulfilling manner, minimize the damage I personally do, and die with the understanding that our species and much life on this planet is probably doomed thanks to people too stupid to see through the oil propaganda, too lazy to change their lifestyles, or too greedy to be prevented from committing ecocide.

nvm0n2 3y ago

> And telling your children the coral reefs will be okay creates more of such people. You and the article author are behind the curve. The coral reefs are fine and the idea of climate coral destruction has been debunked in the past few years. The Great Barrier Reef is currently at record highs for example, after a bleaching event in 2019 that coral "experts" said would wreck the GBR for at least a decade. By 2022 they had to walk that back completely as the reef rebounded far faster than they had ever imagined and reached never before seen growth. Clearly, their understanding of corals is not good enough to make these sorts of predictions. There's also just a really basic problem with the coral/climate story: corals respond to fast local changes in temperature but CO2 is meant to create slow global changes in temperature. But it's understandable you don't know this because almost nobody does. A survey done this summer showed that only 3% of Australians were aware that the GBR had reached record levels of coral. The majority still think the GBR is dying. This is for the same reason as covered in the article: academics like to tell stories that will cause people to behave in the right way, as they see it. Sometimes this means downplaying what they think, other times it means exaggerating it or not reporting good news. Three-quarters of sampled Australian green voters believe the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is doing worse than usual, with 44% stating the coral is at a record low. Overall only 3% of all Australian voters knew that the coral was at a “record high” – the correct answer following two years of record growth that has broken all previous records. The “phenomenal health” of the GBR is said to be virtually unknown, yet the public are paying half a billion dollars in taxes to save it. In addition the country is “being misled into thinking that expensive low carbon policies and Net Zero targets will help protect the reef, when there is no correlation between CO2 levels and coral cover”. https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/25/just-3-of-australians-are-aware-that-the-great-barrier-reef-is-at-a-record-high-survey-finds/ https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/25/just-3-of-australians-ar...

defrost 3y ago
The results come from a survey carried out by the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) and is the work of coral authority Dr. Peter Ridd and science journalist Jo Nova. Well, there's your problem. Still, the Daily Skeptic fits your world view so stick with that and Sky News anti-science climate change outrage. It was no wonder ScoMo was stridently anti-AGW: https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/climate-change-causes-religion-race https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/climate-change-causes-relig...