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Do you ever consider that you personally are helping the extreme parties by passing on memes like "but what about the foreigners!" and "poor folks are paying th

Do you ever consider that you personally are helping the extreme parties by passing on memes like "but what about the foreigners!" and "poor folks are paying the bills!" when this topic comes up?

peteradio 3y ago
Do you think its not true or should we mute certain truths dare it support the evil faction?
- cbrozefsky 3y ago
  Noone has spoken facts on this matter. They made vague and incorrect statements, and "whattabouts". The energy price volatility is not due to green policies, or extreme parties in the EU, it's due to their reliance upon natural gas and oil from a global exporter who then decided to invade their neighbor and threaten all of Europe. That's the fact here.
- adrianN 3y ago
  I believe we should refrain from reducing complex topics like international carbon policy to „but the other guy“ style arguments.
gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
Is your suggestion to not look at the full picture when discussing policy topics? If so, how do you propose rational policies? The impact of parties outside of direct political control can offset any good done locally. If the local policies are too restrictive it could have knock on effects that make people’s live materially and psychologically worse.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Luckily environmental protections are extremely far from „too restrictive“ so there are no concerns about that.
  - gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
    If the price of energy is too high, you will suffer economically. This will lead to mental health issues. That will lead to suicide and broken homes. That will lead to cycle of poverty and pain across generations. We’re seeing this play out in children due to Covid lockdowns. Their development was retarded. They started speaking later. They lost functionally three years. Many are pushed through school compounding the issue. At the same time violence at home rose during that time due to stressor. We need to avoid such policy shortcomings. Administrations at various levels need to think things out. I’m not saying do nothing. I am saying tread lightly while considering many issues.
    - cbrozefsky 3y ago
      The politicians and policy makers are very aware of the energy price, so you are not introducing anything new to the policy makers decision making process. Read any of their materials and you will see the energy price sensitivity is a core measure for them. What you are doing, it bringing up a series of unrelated issue and trying to pin them on these policies, or suggest, in an ignorance, that they are not thinking about one of the core political realities of their career. This is all the more reason to speed up the transfer of renewables which have near zero marginal cost, and aren't emitting carbon and particles which damage the people around them. Speaking or cycle of pain and poverty, the particle pollution of coal plants and refineries is an ongoing public health crisis. This policy is an aspect of making them pay for the pollution they previously were making their neighbors pay for, in asthma, COPD, mercury poisoning, lung cancer and many other illnesses directly attributed to these plants emissions.
      - gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
        The Canadian and Californian governments don’t seem too concerned about increasing the cost of power.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tichiian 3y ago
"Whataboutism" isn't a proper counter-argument. Shutting down a few plants in the west is maybe just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and asking about the iceberg and the cold water isn't "whataboutism" in that it doesn't distract from the issue at hand. It rather points to the really important part of the issue. More like a kind of "reverse whataboutism". Relative emissions and various kinds of cost factors matter a lot. The climate isn't going to improve by stupidly and blindly spending billions, goodwill and precious time on low-yield measures, when less resources could be spent on high-yield measures elsewhere. That is why stuff like banning plastic straws or kitchen gas stoves is actively harmful. Because the "what about those foreign big emitters" argument is very valid.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  US per capita emissions are almost twice that of China, so a dollar spent on emissions reductions in the US has a bigger impact.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Total global warming is predicated on total CO2 emissions, which is the bottom line that is most significant. Yes, the US has higher per-capita emissions, and absolutely should reduce those. However US emissions have been flat or declining for decades now (since the 1970s or 1980s depending on how you look at it), whilst China's emissions, both total and per capita, have exploded in the past four decades as that country has industrialised and emerged as a mid-income nation. These facts re-hash arguments about planetary limits which have been ongoing since the 1970s if not before, and pit past growth, consumption, and pollution amongst western nations (the US, Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia, largely), with the hopes for economic growth, still strongly coupled to consumption and emissions, of the rest of the world, quite notably China and India, but also Africa's future billion or so in coming decades. It's notable that despite the Industrial Revolution and carbon age being roughly 250 years old, half of all emissions date from the 1970s, a time at which Western emissions were slowing heavily following the 1970s oil shocks. It's not a case of either/or but both, the reality is complex, and simple, and most especially nationalistic simplifications, finger-pointing, or whataboutisms really don't advance the discussion. <https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions>
jajko 3y ago
Man, I am not living in EU anymore so not personally affected by its policies, just mentioning that world and people are more complex than you would like it to be, not 'sowing' anything. Just relaying what I heard over and over in eastern part of EU, across multiple states, on personal but also institutional/government level. We all saw how quickly Brexit went, and neither UK nor Europe is better afterwards, you just need few skilled populists push the right levers at right time and its done, for good. Why feed them even more without even listening to their concerns? I am all for EU despite its dysfunctions and consider it overall a good institution in Europe, but ignoring problems and having tunnel vision only on efforts that you like ain't smartest approach, things will backfire. People and societies we form are complex in various ways, lets respect that a bit if we want some long term consensus and not constant infighting and ignored tensions which benefits just our enemies, like current one in the east.

Do you ever consider that you personally are helping the extreme parties by passing on memes like "but what about the foreigners!" and "poor folks are paying the bills!" when this topic comes up?

peteradio 3y ago

Do you think its not true or should we mute certain truths dare it support the evil faction?

cbrozefsky 3y ago
Noone has spoken facts on this matter. They made vague and incorrect statements, and "whattabouts". The energy price volatility is not due to green policies, or extreme parties in the EU, it's due to their reliance upon natural gas and oil from a global exporter who then decided to invade their neighbor and threaten all of Europe. That's the fact here.
adrianN 3y ago
I believe we should refrain from reducing complex topics like international carbon policy to „but the other guy“ style arguments.

gadflyinyoureye 3y ago

Is your suggestion to not look at the full picture when discussing policy topics? If so, how do you propose rational policies? The impact of parties outside of direct political control can offset any good done locally. If the local policies are too restrictive it could have knock on effects that make people’s live materially and psychologically worse.

adrianN 3y ago
Luckily environmental protections are extremely far from „too restrictive“ so there are no concerns about that.
- gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
  If the price of energy is too high, you will suffer economically. This will lead to mental health issues. That will lead to suicide and broken homes. That will lead to cycle of poverty and pain across generations. We’re seeing this play out in children due to Covid lockdowns. Their development was retarded. They started speaking later. They lost functionally three years. Many are pushed through school compounding the issue. At the same time violence at home rose during that time due to stressor. We need to avoid such policy shortcomings. Administrations at various levels need to think things out. I’m not saying do nothing. I am saying tread lightly while considering many issues.
  - cbrozefsky 3y ago
    The politicians and policy makers are very aware of the energy price, so you are not introducing anything new to the policy makers decision making process. Read any of their materials and you will see the energy price sensitivity is a core measure for them. What you are doing, it bringing up a series of unrelated issue and trying to pin them on these policies, or suggest, in an ignorance, that they are not thinking about one of the core political realities of their career. This is all the more reason to speed up the transfer of renewables which have near zero marginal cost, and aren't emitting carbon and particles which damage the people around them. Speaking or cycle of pain and poverty, the particle pollution of coal plants and refineries is an ongoing public health crisis. This policy is an aspect of making them pay for the pollution they previously were making their neighbors pay for, in asthma, COPD, mercury poisoning, lung cancer and many other illnesses directly attributed to these plants emissions.
    - gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
      The Canadian and Californian governments don’t seem too concerned about increasing the cost of power.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tichiian 3y ago

"Whataboutism" isn't a proper counter-argument. Shutting down a few plants in the west is maybe just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and asking about the iceberg and the cold water isn't "whataboutism" in that it doesn't distract from the issue at hand. It rather points to the really important part of the issue. More like a kind of "reverse whataboutism". Relative emissions and various kinds of cost factors matter a lot. The climate isn't going to improve by stupidly and blindly spending billions, goodwill and precious time on low-yield measures, when less resources could be spent on high-yield measures elsewhere. That is why stuff like banning plastic straws or kitchen gas stoves is actively harmful. Because the "what about those foreign big emitters" argument is very valid.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
US per capita emissions are almost twice that of China, so a dollar spent on emissions reductions in the US has a bigger impact.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Total global warming is predicated on total CO2 emissions, which is the bottom line that is most significant. Yes, the US has higher per-capita emissions, and absolutely should reduce those. However US emissions have been flat or declining for decades now (since the 1970s or 1980s depending on how you look at it), whilst China's emissions, both total and per capita, have exploded in the past four decades as that country has industrialised and emerged as a mid-income nation. These facts re-hash arguments about planetary limits which have been ongoing since the 1970s if not before, and pit past growth, consumption, and pollution amongst western nations (the US, Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia, largely), with the hopes for economic growth, still strongly coupled to consumption and emissions, of the rest of the world, quite notably China and India, but also Africa's future billion or so in coming decades. It's notable that despite the Industrial Revolution and carbon age being roughly 250 years old, half of all emissions date from the 1970s, a time at which Western emissions were slowing heavily following the 1970s oil shocks. It's not a case of either/or but both, the reality is complex, and simple, and most especially nationalistic simplifications, finger-pointing, or whataboutisms really don't advance the discussion. <https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions>

jajko 3y ago

Man, I am not living in EU anymore so not personally affected by its policies, just mentioning that world and people are more complex than you would like it to be, not 'sowing' anything. Just relaying what I heard over and over in eastern part of EU, across multiple states, on personal but also institutional/government level. We all saw how quickly Brexit went, and neither UK nor Europe is better afterwards, you just need few skilled populists push the right levers at right time and its done, for good. Why feed them even more without even listening to their concerns? I am all for EU despite its dysfunctions and consider it overall a good institution in Europe, but ignoring problems and having tunnel vision only on efforts that you like ain't smartest approach, things will backfire. People and societies we form are complex in various ways, lets respect that a bit if we want some long term consensus and not constant infighting and ignored tensions which benefits just our enemies, like current one in the east.