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I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The c

I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.

FpUser 3y ago
I thought pleasure is more important than business. The only reason I do business at all is to feed my interest in doing whatever I like.
ForHackernews 3y ago
If there were less investment in fossil fuel exploration, prices for fossil fuels could rise and airfare might be priced more appropriately. They would fly less because it cost more, or trains and boats might become more competitive. Moaning about individual "cognitive dissonance" is absolute nonsense when talking about global scale problems that require policy solutions. The activists' intuitions are more correct than yours, I'd wager. Climate change is not an engineering problem.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Protesting Chase doesn’t stop investments. It just pushes them elsewhere. Those activists are morons and stopping their flights would do far more to help than to protest a single bank. If they were protesting the government to massively increase oil taxes then you might have a point. Alas, they don’t have any economic intuition.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    If those protestors did not have tickets on those flights, somebody else would be able to purchase them. It's not like the plane isn't going to fly that route because of this. So whether the protesters fly or somebody else, the plane is still make the emissions you're concerned about.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      “If I don’t rob this bank, someone else will!”
    - deadlyllama 3y ago
      If enough people didn't buy tickets, then the airlines would have to reduce capacity on the routes, and that would reduce emissions.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        what's more likely, people stop traveling by plane, or these seats will remain filled? I'm all for making changes, but let's make them realistic ones with actual chances of getting implemented. the world is a big place, and air travel is not going to be replaced by steamships. we've been there, done that, and tired of the slowness. progress, not regression. improve the engines for air travel. don't expect air travel to stop
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    They're not protesting Chase, they're protesting fuel investments. If government did its job, this wouldn't even be needed. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/11/climate-change-policies-contradictions/675967/?gift=HLOKkW3uo7UNe883ugE5GODKq4MO0YMPvOzD-YjPP7o&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/11/climate-... > The international agency’s analysis, in contrast, assumes countries will follow through with more climate-friendly policies and renew the ones they already have on the books. “Look how different things could be,” Bowman said. The difference is night and day, despair and hope. > Policy, and only policy, appears to make that difference. It represents the choices that our leaders make about when to finally change course. Naughten, the Antarctic-ice scientist, reminded me that “climate is a spectrum; it isn’t an on/off switch.” Whenever we do make a different set of decisions, ones that make the math properly compute, we will be saving what we have left, preventing some layer of livability from being irrecoverably sloughed off and swept away.
- TylerE 3y ago
  What do you think trains and ships are fueled with exactly?
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    This level of comment is honestly insulting on this site. In case anyone needs it spelled out: train and boat travel are vastly more energy efficient than air travel.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      If fossil fuels rise, the cost of transportation of EVERYTHING goes up and the entire economy explode. Do you want 50% annual inflation? What you saw during COVID would only be a taste.
      - ForHackernews 3y ago
        Your comments are an insult to readers' intelligence. Efficiency is good. Cutting fossil fuel use ASAP is crucial for the future of humanity. Shifting demand from air travel to high speed rail and from air cargo to ocean freight are unalloyed goods. If you want to bleat nonsense about imagined 50% inflation, please go do it on twitter.
        TylerE 3y ago
        I suggest you read the HN guidelines about personal attacks.
lazide 3y ago
Or they want to look like they care, while having as much fun as possible?
zmmmmm 3y ago
there are other ways to look at it though Is it more or less hypocritical than someone who pays lip service to climate change, flies 3-4 times a year and doesn't go to sit ins? Their total overall alignment of their actions and their words are probably greater than vast majority of people who also don't even consider emissions from flying but say they care about climate change. It's legitimate to agitate for change at a higher level while maintaining individual behaviours that align with status quo.
- lazide 3y ago
  No? They’re literally more hippocritical? That’s like saying the catholic priest is more aligned with their sermons, even if they’re having random hookups too?
heavenlyblue 3y ago
Flying is only 1% of the total emissions
gopher_space 3y ago
Where’s the line between hypocrisy and an understanding of scale in your model?
- quacked 3y ago
  You know, I'm not mad at them, and I don't think they're necessarily being hypocrites. I imagine that if they really understood the engineering and chemistry around oil, they would alter either their behavior or their politics. I'm bothered that anti-oil westerners are unaware of how heavily their existence is subsidized by oil. Every part of life we take for granted exists because of readily available petroleum. Western students are taught the environmental consequences of fossil fuel burning without ever really learning the degree to which every first-world nation in the world relies on petroleum for plastic, fertilizer, fuel for shipping food/fuel/goods, etc. For the record, I would like to divest from oil wherever possible, but I am actually ready to give up many of the modern benefits of the oil-consuming first world. I don't think the people I know who sit in at the banks are.

FpUser 3y ago

I thought pleasure is more important than business. The only reason I do business at all is to feed my interest in doing whatever I like.

ForHackernews 3y ago

If there were less investment in fossil fuel exploration, prices for fossil fuels could rise and airfare might be priced more appropriately. They would fly less because it cost more, or trains and boats might become more competitive. Moaning about individual "cognitive dissonance" is absolute nonsense when talking about global scale problems that require policy solutions. The activists' intuitions are more correct than yours, I'd wager. Climate change is not an engineering problem.

kortilla 3y ago
Protesting Chase doesn’t stop investments. It just pushes them elsewhere. Those activists are morons and stopping their flights would do far more to help than to protest a single bank. If they were protesting the government to massively increase oil taxes then you might have a point. Alas, they don’t have any economic intuition.
- dylan604 3y ago
  If those protestors did not have tickets on those flights, somebody else would be able to purchase them. It's not like the plane isn't going to fly that route because of this. So whether the protesters fly or somebody else, the plane is still make the emissions you're concerned about.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    “If I don’t rob this bank, someone else will!”
  - deadlyllama 3y ago
    If enough people didn't buy tickets, then the airlines would have to reduce capacity on the routes, and that would reduce emissions.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      what's more likely, people stop traveling by plane, or these seats will remain filled? I'm all for making changes, but let's make them realistic ones with actual chances of getting implemented. the world is a big place, and air travel is not going to be replaced by steamships. we've been there, done that, and tired of the slowness. progress, not regression. improve the engines for air travel. don't expect air travel to stop
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  They're not protesting Chase, they're protesting fuel investments. If government did its job, this wouldn't even be needed. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/11/climate-change-policies-contradictions/675967/?gift=HLOKkW3uo7UNe883ugE5GODKq4MO0YMPvOzD-YjPP7o&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/11/climate-... > The international agency’s analysis, in contrast, assumes countries will follow through with more climate-friendly policies and renew the ones they already have on the books. “Look how different things could be,” Bowman said. The difference is night and day, despair and hope. > Policy, and only policy, appears to make that difference. It represents the choices that our leaders make about when to finally change course. Naughten, the Antarctic-ice scientist, reminded me that “climate is a spectrum; it isn’t an on/off switch.” Whenever we do make a different set of decisions, ones that make the math properly compute, we will be saving what we have left, preventing some layer of livability from being irrecoverably sloughed off and swept away.
TylerE 3y ago
What do you think trains and ships are fueled with exactly?
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  This level of comment is honestly insulting on this site. In case anyone needs it spelled out: train and boat travel are vastly more energy efficient than air travel.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    If fossil fuels rise, the cost of transportation of EVERYTHING goes up and the entire economy explode. Do you want 50% annual inflation? What you saw during COVID would only be a taste.
    - ForHackernews 3y ago
      Your comments are an insult to readers' intelligence. Efficiency is good. Cutting fossil fuel use ASAP is crucial for the future of humanity. Shifting demand from air travel to high speed rail and from air cargo to ocean freight are unalloyed goods. If you want to bleat nonsense about imagined 50% inflation, please go do it on twitter.
      - TylerE 3y ago
        I suggest you read the HN guidelines about personal attacks.

lazide 3y ago

Or they want to look like they care, while having as much fun as possible?

zmmmmm 3y ago

there are other ways to look at it though Is it more or less hypocritical than someone who pays lip service to climate change, flies 3-4 times a year and doesn't go to sit ins? Their total overall alignment of their actions and their words are probably greater than vast majority of people who also don't even consider emissions from flying but say they care about climate change. It's legitimate to agitate for change at a higher level while maintaining individual behaviours that align with status quo.

lazide 3y ago
No? They’re literally more hippocritical? That’s like saying the catholic priest is more aligned with their sermons, even if they’re having random hookups too?

heavenlyblue 3y ago

Flying is only 1% of the total emissions

gopher_space 3y ago

Where’s the line between hypocrisy and an understanding of scale in your model?

quacked 3y ago
You know, I'm not mad at them, and I don't think they're necessarily being hypocrites. I imagine that if they really understood the engineering and chemistry around oil, they would alter either their behavior or their politics. I'm bothered that anti-oil westerners are unaware of how heavily their existence is subsidized by oil. Every part of life we take for granted exists because of readily available petroleum. Western students are taught the environmental consequences of fossil fuel burning without ever really learning the degree to which every first-world nation in the world relies on petroleum for plastic, fertilizer, fuel for shipping food/fuel/goods, etc. For the record, I would like to divest from oil wherever possible, but I am actually ready to give up many of the modern benefits of the oil-consuming first world. I don't think the people I know who sit in at the banks are.