4 ms·

We've made a decision: we prefer to continue having this world (and all its conveniences including steak multiple times a week and flying for cheap) and lose it

We've made a decision: we prefer to continue having this world (and all its conveniences including steak multiple times a week and flying for cheap) and lose it soon-ish than move to another one right now with less access to... stuff. And the only way we can have it differently is with violence, which nobody wants. So we'll walk to the abyss together.

Earw0rm 1y ago
"but I worked really hard to EARN that steak. I'm not having some goddamn commie take it away from me." "The rich declare themselves poor" - George Michael, Praying For Time, 1990.
intended 1y ago
We - depends on the definition. If there is a structural force shifting the market places of ideas and decisions, forcing certain choices or protecting and harvesting voting blocs - it’s not “we” in the sense of personal choice. I concede, that if we define corporations as an expression of human desires - then yes, “we” have made that decision.
scottLobster 1y ago
We already have insane and growing wealth inequality and stagnant wage growth. The one thing that somewhat compensated for it is cheap goods, taking that away is not a winning argument in this environment. It's also a hard sell when Jeff Bezos has a wedding in Italy where dozens of private jets flew in and collectively emitted more carbon for that one wedding than all the gasoline vehicles multiple generations of my family have driven in their lifetimes. And yet I, with my already depressed wages and kids to feed, should sacrifice steak and coach airline tickets? I'm all for climate action, but it has to be policy level. If it's a choice between a warming world where we're solvent with some middle class prosperity, and a warming world where my wife, kids and I are broke because we went into six figures of debt replacing our ICE cars with EVs and retrofitting my house to passivhaus stanadards, I'm taking the former.
- triceratops 1y ago
  > I'm all for climate action, but it has to be policy level Policy level climate action is the only kind that has any hope of succeeding. That or some magic technology that can suck carbon out of the air at zero cost.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    China scaling up EVs, solar, and batteries is what will do it. Most humans don’t have the will or constitution to make it happen, but China will out of rational economics. The politicians making these poor climate policy decisions will be out of office eventually. Just keep grinding towards success whenever possible while the death rate keeps aging out those slowing progress down. (EVs and PHEVs are ~50% of car sales in China 2025 H1, global light vehicle TAM is ~90M units/year, we're installing 1GW of solar every 15 hours, roughly 1TW/year etc.)
    - triceratops 1y ago
      The progress on EVs, solar, and batteries has been nothing short of stunning. It has to continue, and will spread in any place where people use brains over ideology. But it won't solve everything. We don't have emissions-free alternatives for jet travel and many industrial processes. Carbon-neutral maybe, by synthesizing hydrocarbons, but not emissions-free. And we have to undo the last 100 years of damage.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        Not wrong, but we're mostly locked in on the light vehicles and electrification front, the rest (as you mention) can continue to be worked towards. There is no silver bullet, just lots of work towards all the problems at once. Half of marine traffic is moving fossil fuels around the world, for example. That evaporates in the future. India and Africa will buy electrification and light vehicles from China, versus locking in a fossil fuel based economy. Everyone who needs fossil fuels is racing away from them for obvious economic and national security reasons, and everyone selling them is going to be desperate to sell them to the shrinking demand for them. There was $800B more capital invested in clean energy (~$2T) than fossil fuels globally in 2024. To your point, the most important part is going to be how to rapidly remove the CO2 industrialization has injected into the atmosphere. This remains to be solved for at reasonable cost, but importantly, we're going to need a material amount of low carbon energy for that process. “This is not inevitable. We have the tools, the instruments, the capacity to change course,” Guterres said. “There are reasons to be hopeful.” https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/07/22/un-says-booming-solar-wind-and-other-green-energy-hits-global-tipping-point-for-ever-lower-costs/ https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/07/22/un-says-booming-solar... https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-solar-wind-power-fossil-fuels-6aca4846e594ea8405f91edda39a03ad https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-solar-wind-power-f... https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transition-report_2025.pdf https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transiti...

Earw0rm 1y ago

"but I worked really hard to EARN that steak. I'm not having some goddamn commie take it away from me." "The rich declare themselves poor" - George Michael, Praying For Time, 1990.

intended 1y ago

We - depends on the definition. If there is a structural force shifting the market places of ideas and decisions, forcing certain choices or protecting and harvesting voting blocs - it’s not “we” in the sense of personal choice. I concede, that if we define corporations as an expression of human desires - then yes, “we” have made that decision.

scottLobster 1y ago

We already have insane and growing wealth inequality and stagnant wage growth. The one thing that somewhat compensated for it is cheap goods, taking that away is not a winning argument in this environment. It's also a hard sell when Jeff Bezos has a wedding in Italy where dozens of private jets flew in and collectively emitted more carbon for that one wedding than all the gasoline vehicles multiple generations of my family have driven in their lifetimes. And yet I, with my already depressed wages and kids to feed, should sacrifice steak and coach airline tickets? I'm all for climate action, but it has to be policy level. If it's a choice between a warming world where we're solvent with some middle class prosperity, and a warming world where my wife, kids and I are broke because we went into six figures of debt replacing our ICE cars with EVs and retrofitting my house to passivhaus stanadards, I'm taking the former.

triceratops 1y ago
> I'm all for climate action, but it has to be policy level Policy level climate action is the only kind that has any hope of succeeding. That or some magic technology that can suck carbon out of the air at zero cost.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  China scaling up EVs, solar, and batteries is what will do it. Most humans don’t have the will or constitution to make it happen, but China will out of rational economics. The politicians making these poor climate policy decisions will be out of office eventually. Just keep grinding towards success whenever possible while the death rate keeps aging out those slowing progress down. (EVs and PHEVs are ~50% of car sales in China 2025 H1, global light vehicle TAM is ~90M units/year, we're installing 1GW of solar every 15 hours, roughly 1TW/year etc.)
  - triceratops 1y ago
    The progress on EVs, solar, and batteries has been nothing short of stunning. It has to continue, and will spread in any place where people use brains over ideology. But it won't solve everything. We don't have emissions-free alternatives for jet travel and many industrial processes. Carbon-neutral maybe, by synthesizing hydrocarbons, but not emissions-free. And we have to undo the last 100 years of damage.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      Not wrong, but we're mostly locked in on the light vehicles and electrification front, the rest (as you mention) can continue to be worked towards. There is no silver bullet, just lots of work towards all the problems at once. Half of marine traffic is moving fossil fuels around the world, for example. That evaporates in the future. India and Africa will buy electrification and light vehicles from China, versus locking in a fossil fuel based economy. Everyone who needs fossil fuels is racing away from them for obvious economic and national security reasons, and everyone selling them is going to be desperate to sell them to the shrinking demand for them. There was $800B more capital invested in clean energy (~$2T) than fossil fuels globally in 2024. To your point, the most important part is going to be how to rapidly remove the CO2 industrialization has injected into the atmosphere. This remains to be solved for at reasonable cost, but importantly, we're going to need a material amount of low carbon energy for that process. “This is not inevitable. We have the tools, the instruments, the capacity to change course,” Guterres said. “There are reasons to be hopeful.” https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/07/22/un-says-booming-solar-wind-and-other-green-energy-hits-global-tipping-point-for-ever-lower-costs/ https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/07/22/un-says-booming-solar... https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-solar-wind-power-fossil-fuels-6aca4846e594ea8405f91edda39a03ad https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-solar-wind-power-f... https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transition-report_2025.pdf https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transiti...