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I mean we can... We can eat less animal food and cut down the farming areas used to grow food for them, we can ask politicians to ditch zoning, parking minimums

I mean we can... We can eat less animal food and cut down the farming areas used to grow food for them, we can ask politicians to ditch zoning, parking minimums, enforce more taxes on fossil vehicles, build better public transport, better bike infra and plant more trees and other vegetation for insect corridors. We can at least stop investing in fossil energy and redirect those $ on solar/wind/hydro/nuclear/geo. We can increase the taxes for car ownership to reduce it. But ultimately the question is will we? I don't think so. Ppl like their current lifestyle, politicians do like money from fossil industries and are invested in those. So...

Spivak 2y ago
I think the route that doesn't require 300mil people coordinate to solve a problem against their individual interests, which like you say probably isn't going to happen, is purposely growing the plants pollinators need and artificially constructing homes for ground-nesting native bees, treating those things as crops, and paying large landowners to use their land for pollinator habitats. Our system doesn't know what to do with land that isn't directly economically productive but I bet a lot of farmers would choose a "farm" that requires almost no effort and money to maintain for like 40% of what they would have got growing corn.
- Moldoteck 2y ago
  in the end it boils down to political will. It could facilitate planting more stuff polinators do like with tax incentives, or could ditch zoning/park mins or invest more in pub transport/bike infra to reduce pollution, but again, will they? Pub transport can longterm be cheaper than facilitating car infra and it's costs (the more cars - the faster you need to repair the road and the more parking you need over time) so it's clearly not even costs are enough motivators for them to act...
keybored 2y ago
What do you know about what ppl like? The car-centric infrastructure wasn’t built because a thousand would-be-drivers (consumers) voted for it and it won’t be changed to something else because a thousand reluctant drivers vote against it. People can “ask” all they want but like you reference the politicians’ phone lines are probably busy with the people they actually work for. And politicians do like their money but it’s not fundamentally so frivolous. You can try to not get millions in funding from some industry or other but good look in the election when the other candidates invests hundreds of thousands in attack ads against you. Which you won’t be able to do even if you wanted to because you have no money. Politicians are greedy and corrupt but that’s because the system selects for that. Ultimately you can say that the ppl do not want change hard enough to dedicate hours a week to work for the issues that you so easily list in a comment and then dismiss as impossible because ppl apparently do not want it. But that’s not a revealed preference for the status quo. You cannot make that conclusion.

Spivak 2y ago

I think the route that doesn't require 300mil people coordinate to solve a problem against their individual interests, which like you say probably isn't going to happen, is purposely growing the plants pollinators need and artificially constructing homes for ground-nesting native bees, treating those things as crops, and paying large landowners to use their land for pollinator habitats. Our system doesn't know what to do with land that isn't directly economically productive but I bet a lot of farmers would choose a "farm" that requires almost no effort and money to maintain for like 40% of what they would have got growing corn.

Moldoteck 2y ago
in the end it boils down to political will. It could facilitate planting more stuff polinators do like with tax incentives, or could ditch zoning/park mins or invest more in pub transport/bike infra to reduce pollution, but again, will they? Pub transport can longterm be cheaper than facilitating car infra and it's costs (the more cars - the faster you need to repair the road and the more parking you need over time) so it's clearly not even costs are enough motivators for them to act...

keybored 2y ago

What do you know about what ppl like? The car-centric infrastructure wasn’t built because a thousand would-be-drivers (consumers) voted for it and it won’t be changed to something else because a thousand reluctant drivers vote against it. People can “ask” all they want but like you reference the politicians’ phone lines are probably busy with the people they actually work for. And politicians do like their money but it’s not fundamentally so frivolous. You can try to not get millions in funding from some industry or other but good look in the election when the other candidates invests hundreds of thousands in attack ads against you. Which you won’t be able to do even if you wanted to because you have no money. Politicians are greedy and corrupt but that’s because the system selects for that. Ultimately you can say that the ppl do not want change hard enough to dedicate hours a week to work for the issues that you so easily list in a comment and then dismiss as impossible because ppl apparently do not want it. But that’s not a revealed preference for the status quo. You cannot make that conclusion.