9 ms·
Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slo
by jokoon 7mo ago
Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.
And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years.
The pain will come slowly, people won't see it.
It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it.
And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.
- gman83 7mo agoI think it'll start hurting sooner than that. We're already seeing property insurance rates spiking, and in some places it's even impossible to get property insurance. We could well be up for a 2008-level real estate crash. That should get Americans' attention.
- californical 7mo agoI feel like the possible real estate crash could be really interesting. Even different parts of a city would likely be affected very differently, where the edges near the fire risks crash, and the even mildly safer areas boom with high demand
- Frogeman 7mo agoThe majority of pollution is caused by 3rd world/ eastern countries. Do you want to go to war with China to enforce an environmentalist agenda?
- wffurr 7mo agoIf this was the stated rationale and goal of the trade war, I'd be all for it. This is exactly the kind of situation tariffs are for.
- goatlover 7mo agoTariffs on goods the world pays China to make which drives up emissions?
- wffurr 7mo agoWhat? I think you forgot some words in there. The EU has applied tariffs for climate reasons with the carbon border adjustment. The idea is for a country to have domestic climate standards, and then apply tariffs on importers who import from countries that don't meet those standards. It's a straightforward application of tariffs to ensure domestic manufacturers aren't undercut by foreign rivals that aren't required to meet the same standards and redirect importers to sources that do meet standards or at least come closer. Carbon tax at home and carbon tariffs abroad is the only real economically sound strategy to nudge the economy towards emitting less. And yes, that does likely mean taxing Chinese imports in the short term. The Chinese leadership does understand the risks of climate change as well or better than many other countries and is already pursuing enormous amounts of clean energy and emission standards, so I'd not expect the tariffs on Chinese imports to last long on an environmental or carbon basis.
- queenkjuul 7mo agoChina produces a lot less carbon per capita than we do
- wing-_-nuts 7mo agoGlobal warming doesn't care about 'per capita'. Edit: Individuals do not build coal power plants, utilities (and therefore, governments) do. India and China are continuing to build fossil fuel power generation. Global warming does not care about 'fairness', global warming cares about co2 PPM in the atmosphere. When we address climate change, we have to do so at the government level, or we mine as well not bother. The whole idea that we should look at 'emissions per capita' or 'historical emissions' in the interest of fairness is simply giving a license to governments to kill genuinely poor people in the third world.
- californical 7mo agoAnd it also doesn’t care about arbitrary country boundaries. But it is affected by total emissions, and per-capita measurements is one fair way to judge how a country is doing
- Longwelwind 7mo agoIt also doesn't care about arbitrary groupings of humans (a.k.a countries). The fairest system would be for each human being to have an equal amount of pollution they are allowed to emit.
- myrmidon 7mo agoThere is literally no charitable interpretation of this point. How much of a problem any individuals CO2 emissions are is completely decoupled from what nation they live in, or how many people live in that nation specifically. If you hypothetically split up Asia or the US into 100 smaller countries then local emissions are not suddenly more (or less) of a problem than the are now (duh). And of course more people have more of an influence on global outcomes. This whole argument makes about as much sense as demanding that black people in Europe should not pay any income tax, because the total tax income from black people in Europe is very low, and "national budget does not care about per capita".
- mossTechnician 7mo agoI don't see why war is necessary. There could be something like the Space Race, where nations flex their technological skills at producing solutions to environmental problems.
- atlintots 7mo agoThat race already started, but China is the only one participating at the moment. The US has been running backwards, though.
- jmcgough 7mo agoOver the past century, the US has produced more cumulative carbon emissions than any other country, and it's not even close. China is in the middle of a massive expansion in wind, solar, and electric vehicles. The US is burning even more coal to support AI, and has gutted much of its federal emission reduction efforts.
- marcosdumay 7mo agoThis changed on the last decade or so. It's close now. Of course, China has 5 times more people than the US, so they get a little bit of leeway. But they are close, and their emissions are growing. That said, yes, they are investing more than anybody else. And they are improving the technology we need more than anybody else. People talking about military intervention are full of shit, but we could use some diplomatic collaboration.
- jimnotgym 7mo ago> and their emissions are growing. I know nothing about it. I have read comments on this very comments section, with references, that say China's emissions are not growing. This is what makes this subject so hard for the average numbskull like me, so much misinformation.
- marcosdumay 7mo agohttps://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions The discussion is about what happened last year. We don't have the last year's data assembled yet. There's a real possibility it changed.
- triceratops 7mo agoIt's still not that close. 15% for China vs 24% for just the US. Add in the EU-27 and it's 41%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-...
- abound 7mo agoI've been mentally tabulating a list of reasons rich (and/or older) people should care about climate change, even if you're only looking out for your own interests: - Your children and younger family members will have to deal with this - Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for airplanes - It will disproportionately affect your favorite vacation spots - Probably something about stock markets and pensions - a world constantly wracked with increasingly severe natural disasters isn't the most economically productive one
- cryptoegorophy 7mo agoClimate change is not the main cause for turbulence.
- mrintegrity 7mo agoAs you are probably aware, the op didn't say that it was
- DennisP 7mo agoAnd since perhaps a source would be helpful, here's the research saying climate change is having a significant effect: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023gl103814 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023gl10... BBC reporting: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-turbulence-climate-change-singapore-airlines https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-turbulenc...
- lovecg 7mo agoIn an indirect way it kind of is though. At the end of the day there’s more energy trapped in the atmosphere (stronger jet streams, more frequent and stronger frontal weather)
- throwawaysleep 7mo agoNone of that would matter. Farmers are going bankrupt and losing family land and yet... There are a certain number of people who just cannot change. There are large numbers of diabetics who die despite an enormous number of warnings.
- asib 7mo agoDeveloped rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc. Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed. This doesn't change until nearly everyone is affected, and by then we're so far into the catastrophe that the consequences don't even bear thinking about.
- socalgal2 7mo agoWhat have you done? Why is it someone else’s problem?
- wing-_-nuts 7mo agoIt's a collective problem that we all have to solve together. I'm doing my part. What have YOU done?
- lotsofpulp 7mo agoI don't know how much surface area you consume, but the single biggest cause of energy use is spread out living in detached single family homes in the USA and other developed countries. All the recycling, solar panels, electric cars, whatever don't come close to making up for the fact that each family of 4 living on a 0.1+ acre lot with all the various setbacks and whatnot, commuting many miles to work and school and grocery stores and the gym, moving all that mass of people, students, workers, food, water, sewage, trash, gas, etc is orders more consumption than if people were living in dense arrangements such as apartments in 4 and 5 story buildings. Energy = Force * distance From what I can tell, none of it means anything as long as detached single family homes are still the expected lifestyle, at current populations. Might as well consume as much as we can while we ride into the sunset, or cull the population quickly.
- kelvinjps10 7mo agoHow does he has the power to change it?
- jmcgough 7mo agoSoon, we'll have millions of climate change refugees, battles over resources, regular once-in-a-century storms, more wars. We're close to the point where we'll be too busy thrashing to address the root cause.
- energy123 7mo agoThe initial pain will be diffuse and not obviously caused by global warming. For example, destabilization of equatorial countries due to wet bulb temperatures, through multiple causal paths: worse education outcomes (many days off school during hot months), worse economy (can't work outside), worse life satisfaction -> more autocracies, more water scarcity. Then you get more emigration to the colder north, more conflict and more suffering. But not much of it is easily and directly attributable to temperatures. Much of it is foregone upside, like GDP growth that's 3% instead of 5%.
- marcyb5st 7mo agoI am not sure how not directly linked to global warming. I am currently on the phone but I remember a study that mentioned that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh would see a deadly heat (wet bulb temperatures) from basically 0 as it is right now to 30 days/year by 2050 or 2060. I can't remember right now. If that is not linkable to global warming I am not sure what is. And that is a huge event. In Europe we are struggling with accomodating perhaps 10M people. What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay they die?
- cess11 7mo ago"What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay they die?" More taxes go to ammunition for autonomous border guard systems.
- thinkcontext 7mo agoI wonder if the current war will significantly accelerate the roll out of non-fossil energy. If the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for a few more weeks there's going to be significant pain, not just for energy but things like fertilizer etc. Once you deploy a solar panel it works for 20+ years, conflict doesn't cut you off from energy.
- wing-_-nuts 7mo agoNothing will change until billionaires start losing money over it. Then it will be a national priority. It's also why I've sort of resigned myself to a cynical optimism that the worst won't come to pass. The rich are not going to tolerate losing money. They will force through geoengineering stopgap measures that will save us from catastrophic warming, at the cost of unknown consequences. This is why I vehemently disagree with those who say we shouldn't be conducting research on geoengineering. It will be done. The only question is, will we have done enough research to understand the potential consequences, or not?
- haizhung 7mo agoDon’t get cynic. The good news is: the worse it gets, the more impact every single .1 degree of prevented climate change has. I’m with you in the billionaires. Research has shown again and again that people do care about climate change and want it to be stopped - but only if they have the socioeconomic status to actually care. If, as so many people on this planet, you are living paycheck to paycheck, and the social security nets are being dismantled by the uber rich, you instead switch into a „protect what’s mine“ mindset. This further exacerbates the tragedy of the commons. So I am of the following opinion: fix wealth inequality; which will give people their actual lives back; and will reduce the political power of the sociopathic billionaire class. Then, the rest almost takes care of itself.
- 3371 7mo agoYeah just fix that already, how hard could it be? The problem is human, not society, I don't any any -ism can fix human.
- willis936 7mo agoThis is why I think the middle strength Global South countries, who hurt the most in the near term and have the necessary resources, will unilaterally start albedo modification. They don't need permission of rich nations and it will become an existential issue that they might risk sanctions and war over. That's when it will become "our problem" (in the eyes of the extremely selfish and/or stupid members).
- chewbacha 7mo agoThey are already in pain but are blaming immigrants instead of trusting science.
- xienze 7mo agoTrue or false: a person in a third world country has a lower carbon footprint than someone in a developed country. Also true or false: an immigrant from a third world country will have a higher carbon footprint if they emigrate to a developed country. Maybe they are part of the problem.
- deadbabe 7mo ago> Nothing will change. Fixed
- apexalpha 7mo agoA lot HAS changed. Europe even has a tax on CO2 emissions. It's just not enough and it's very hard to convince the public to accelerate when the US not only gave up but it actively reversing to fossil fuels.
- NDizzle 7mo agoAt what European tax rate will China and India work on reducing their CO2 emissions?
- jgraham 7mo agoChina has now had flat CO2 emissions for two years, and experienced a decline in overall CO2 emissions during 2025[1]. Part of this is that they're deploying way more renewables than basically any other large economy [2]. They've also pivoted their industrial strategy so that basically the entire green energy sector depends on Chinese supply chains. This is significantly contributing to their economic growth [3]. I don't know to what extent taxation in Europe contributed to China's decision making here, but it presumably created an market for green energy and therefore helped solidify the economics. This is of course not to say that there's nothing to criticize in China's environmental policies; there certainly is. But the trope of "why should we do anything because China won't" turns out to be spectacularly ill-informed. Indeed I think it makes more sense to ask the opposite: what are the likely consequences now that China has positioned itself as the global centre of green energy, and what should other countries be doing to ensure that they're not left behind? [1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... [2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/g7-falling-behind-china-as-worlds-wind-and-solar-plans-reach-new-high-in-2025/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/g7-falling-behind-china-as-world... [3] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-drove-more-than-a-third-of-chinas-gdp-growth-in-2025/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-drove-more...
- apexalpha 7mo agohttps://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustme... Here you go.
- inaros 7mo agoThe bottle is half full: https://youtu.be/CFyOw9IgtjY?list=PL3A647D3FD57E0F96&t=205 https://youtu.be/CFyOw9IgtjY?list=PL3A647D3FD57E0F96&t=205
- frogperson 7mo agoChaos is extactly where fascism thrives. Expect to see more trumps, not less.
- cess11 7mo agoWhy would something "change" because "developed rich countries" hurt? Why wouldn't those leaders just roll with it and see it as inevitable, or a purification of their degenerate populations, or just another day in the end times, or whatever? I expect "change" when people form unions or union like organisations and withhold or redistribute their labour, both waged and in more subtle forms, such as attention, and unwaged but socially important labour (e.g. women refusing to be servile homemakers and instead get guns and start soup kitchens).
- utopiah 7mo ago> until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Well Spain, 12th largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest in Europe, isn't exactly poor and yet seems to hurt quite a bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Spain#Impacts_on_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Spain#Impact... ... but I bet the wealthiest Spaniards have air conditioning, heating, bottled water delivered at home by staff, etc to isolate themselves. That does include politicians. So... IMHO until the richest of the rich countries hurt, then nothing will change. They (we?) are very sheltered precisely by leveraging their wealth to abstract away from the lowly difficulties of life, like the weather. TL;DR : yes, but the more insulated feel it less and consequently, rationally, think they have more time thus postponing the process.
- tlogan 7mo agoChina creates about 30–35% of global emissions. India about 8% but it is climbing fast. What rich countries do is they just export their factories to other countries and say: look we do not pollute.
- vixen99 7mo agoWould someone like to explain why the Chinese (if as you say produce 30-35% of global emissions) don't appear to see a problem or at least if alluding to it as they do, fail to do much about it as major contributors of emissions? And then of course there are the countries proud of a relative lack of emissions who are merely exporting the problem to somewhere else, often enough, China.
- youngtaff 7mo agoYes, they're still burning coal and gas but China are making huge strides in non CO2 intensive electricity generation China are the reason solar has become so affordable for the rest of the world
- tlogan 7mo agoThe latest major IEA estimate says China’s CO₂ emissions reached 12.6 Gt in 2023, up 4.7% from 2022. On the other hand U.S. CO₂ emissions decreased slightly between 2022 and 2023. About 2–3% (from 4.79 to 4.68 Gt) I just do not understand how we can claim any kind of progress here.
- triceratops 7mo agoThey absolutely are. You just haven't paid any attention.
- 01100011 7mo agoCA buying gasoline from Bermuda, shipped via the Panama Canal, because it refuses to allow new refineries is the perfect demonstration of this.
- mountainriver 7mo agoWe are already seeing it in Colorado. Record low snowfall, record heat, record winds; which are a very bad set of conditions for fires. The power company is now preemptively shutting off our power. Which is really fun in the winter. I’m honestly not sure about the future of my hometown Boulder. The odds of it fully burning to the ground seem to increase significantly every year.
- chazburger 7mo ago[flagged]
- ragall 7mo agoIt will take a few fires like the one in LA, but eventually even the USians will learn it's not a good idea to build cities out of wooden houses.
- chazburger 7mo ago[flagged]
- slibhb 7mo ago> Nothing will change Things have already changed!
- Eddy_Viscosity2 7mo agoNothing will happen until the super rich who define policy begin to hurt. And they won't hurt because they can exploit the situation to become even richer.
- pinkmuffinere 7mo agoI think it will change when the people that don't believe in global warming die off, ala 'Science progresses one funeral at a time'. For the US, that's basically Boomers and Gen X [1], so I still think your 10 - 20 years estimate is decent (they don't have to _all_ die, but as more pass away I expect progress) [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findings-how-americans-attitudes-about-climate-change-differ-by-generation-party-and-other-factors/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findi...
- deepsun 7mo agoWell, most deforestation happens in poor underdeveloped countries. Yes, they hurt, but keep doing it.
- jimnotgym 7mo agoFor the UK at least, this must be in a large part because we already cut our forests down. We simply couldn't deforest at a high rate, because there aren't enough trees left to go at.
- Aunche 7mo ago> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. The EU reduced their emissions by over a third from their peak. Their emissions per capita is less than that of China (not meant to be a dig at China who is the leader the development of renewables). Even Americans reduced their CO2 emissions by 15% in absolute terms and by about 30% per capita as well. Why is it so hard to understand that individual people, let alone hundreds of millions of people in aggregate, can have multiple priorities? This whole doomerist attitude doesn't help anyone. If anything, it contributes to the erosion of the good things we already have. Nobody gave a damn about USAID saving millions of people until it could be weaponized against Trump/Elon for taking it away.
- dismalaf 7mo agoRich countries will never feel it. Look at the middle east. Already scorching desert, they build indoor ski hills... On the plus side, I think we'll solve global warming, with technology, in a few generations.
- fortedoesnthack 7mo agoit depends where you live... I live in Japan now. One comment I hear often and see reflected in old TV shows is how different summers are already. 20-25 years ago it would have been considered a hot summer day around 30c. Now every summer day is 30c+. Also, a comment I hear often is that people didn't really need air conditioners back then. You definitely cannot get away with living in Tokyo without an air conditioners these days!
- jedberg 7mo agoSame with Los Angeles. In the 1950s, when my parents were young, you didn't need AC in LA. You just opened a window on the few hot days, and those were like high 70s/low 80s. By the 1990s, you didn't need AC, but your home/rental was more appealing if it had one, because there were a few hot days a year that were pretty uncomfortable otherwise. Now, you can't not have it. There are far too many hot days to live without it.
- _whiteCaps_ 7mo agoSame thing here in Vancouver. I took a picture of my car's dash display reading 43*C during the heat dome in 2021!
- koito17 7mo agoAdditionally: - cherry blossoms have been consistently blooming earlier each year - some areas have been breaking historic high temperatures over the past 3 years (e.g. 伊勢崎市) - even this year, there were several 20C days in Tokyo where the climate felt more like spring than winter - 気象庁 is surveying for a new word to describe days with temperature exceeding 40C, since they are now becoming common in some areas. Lastly, one joke my friends say is "In Japan there are four seasons: rainy season, summer, midsummer, and winter."
- 01100011 7mo agoI initially supported this comment but no, I think it's worse than this. As rich countries cut back, dirty energy becomes cheaper and developing nations just use more. They'll need to use more just to fight the climate. India, for instance, is going to need a whole lot of air conditioning just to survive. Sure, blame developed nations for getting us here, but the path forward isn't solely in the hands of those developed nations.
- bko 7mo ago> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon emissions. So I think you have it opposite, how much pain do rich countries have to endure before they realize that their efforts are in vain. And before you say "that's because the West outsources all the dirty production to China", even trade adjusted emissions are down considerably and continue to be down. Please do some research if you're interested in this topic, it's not hard to do. Just follow the logical steps. 1. What causes global warming 2. Who produces most of these chemicals 3. Are there any global trends over the last 20 years in production of these chemicals https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-crusade-against-air-conditioning https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-crusade-against-air-co...
- nicoburns 7mo agoA reminder that reducing emissions isn't enough. We actually need them to be net-negative.
- epistasis 7mo agoEventually we want to get there, post 2050, but at a very low rate compared to our net emissions right now. Still, it's far cheaper to avoid emitting now than it is to pull it down later, so every time you drive your kids to school remember the debt you are saddling them with.
- gzread 7mo agoChina is some years behind our industrial development then undevelopment, and is building an entire USA of solar panels every year or whatever - can we expect them to quickly reduce emissions soon?
- htx80nerd 7mo ago>Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. They already are. China does whatever it wants en mass meanwhile.
- tencentshill 7mo agoIt's going to cause slow, constant refugee crises, which will affect everyone.
- abustamam 7mo ago> The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. I'd argue that many lower and middle class folks already feel the effects of GW, even if they may not be able to articulate it. The flip side is that developed rich countries will hurt because of this but the people in power won't care because it probably only (visibly) affects the lower class, and they can always take their jets and rockets to countries (and eventually planets!) that haven't been fucked. And they'll spin it to blame it on immigrants somehow.
- ToucanLoucan 7mo ago> (and eventually planets!) This particular point is remarkably optimistic on the part of our ruling elites who genuinely seem to think they'll be abandoning Earth like the Titanic and running off to Mars or whatever. I wonder if it's just wishful thinking or if they genuinely believe living off-terra would be a luxury experience, and not what it far more likely would be, which is hurtling through a void separated from instant death by nothing more than sheet metal, and after months of that, living inside a specially pressurized biosphere on an alien world that is, at all times, trying to kill them. And is almost guaranteed to succeed if nothing else by attrition. I wonder if any will think as they prepare to die whichever death comes to them first that maybe just paying taxes and not having a private jet wasn't that steep of an ask after all.
- abustamam 7mo agoLol. Yeah I actually hope they aren't serious about it and are just using it as an excuse to send things to space because it's cool. Because I do not foresee us colonizing Mars in our lifetimes. I'd be happy for them to test the waters for us though.
- ToucanLoucan 7mo agoOh they're more than welcome to go. Everyone who signs up is basically volunteering to die for science, there is simply no other end to that.
- crystal_revenge 7mo ago> And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about. These are all related. All of them are connected to humans pushing the planetary resource limits from various directions. We're attacking Iran now in part because climate change has dramatically increased the water stress conditions making the population more susceptible to political collapse. It's also happening because it puts energy stress on our geopolitical adversaries (same with Venezuela). Trump emerged in the first place because declining American prosperity (despite GPD numbers) drove a large portion of the population to nihilism.
- gcanyon 7mo ago> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. There are two clear parallel points to this: 1. Over the time frames we're discussing (even the next 50 years) how many "poor" countries will there be left? We're seeing substantial progress on economic, educational, and other fronts over the past 50 years. 2. Will there ever be a time when the change occurring is direct and over a short enough time frame to matter to "rich" countries? Yes, it will suck if most of Florida is underwater, but this process has already started, and has been going on for 20, 30, 50 years? And most people care very little. If it takes a century for the state to completely submerge, that apathy will continue. Disclaimer: none of the above is saying we should or shouldn't take a particular course of action about warming, just to speak to the way people deal with very slow-moving issues.
- patwater10 7mo agoLook at the Colorado River situation to see how it's affected the US already. Now that hasn't really impacted consumers per say other than through indirect water conservation and higher consumer grocery prices (slightly not a primary driver on the latter). But it's a massive deal that will ripple out more and more in the coming years.
- thewebguyd 7mo ago> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. More specifically, nothing will change until the politicians and billionaires personally get hurt. The negative effects of climate change need to come for them personally for them to care.
- epistasis 7mo agoThe energy situation is actually changing very quickly precisely because renewables and storage are so cheap. Building a new natural gas plant today is really hard to justify in most places in the world. Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where it was cheap. The biggest impediment to change right now is actually political interference in deployment of cheaper renewables. You see this all across the US both in intentional and unintentional ways. Trump explicitly cancels permits for wind, tries to ban solar on federal lands, and forces coal plants to keep running even when they are super expensive and raise the cost electricity. Unintentional political impediments are also endemic in the US; permitting and interconnection of residential solar makes it 5x-6x more expensive than places like Australia, even in places like California that should be accelerating residential solar and storage. There's a lot to be hopeful about when it comes to climate change, in addition a lot to be scared about.
- M95D 7mo ago> Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where it was cheap. That "bunch of capitalists"... why are you avoiding the true word: "China"?
- epistasis 7mo agoThat's not the true word though, is it? It's an effort of capitalists the world over. And crucially, German government incentives when solar was still very expensive.
- M95D 7mo agoI can't say anything about the German gov. I don't live there and I have no info. But I wouldn't call bureaucrats "capitalists" either.
- gmuslera 7mo agoNot even countries, but rich/influential people on them. And they must be hit hard to be concerned enough about it. If some extreme weather event hits you you may lose your only house, your savings, your health, maybe a good percent of the population of rich countries are vulnerable ot that. In the other hand if someone rich and powerful in those or even somewhat poorer countries, they may buy another house, have more already, lose some money and goods but that's it. Until those extreme weather events, floods and so on affect enough of the people those people have around, to eventually affect their business and them. But by then it will be far too late.
- giarc 7mo ago>people won't see it. You are correct because it's happening already (massive wildfires burning down cities, 100 year floods every year, mass migration out of hot, dry climates) and the news will state something like "scientists are 85% certain this fire was accelerated by climate change" and then will move onto the next story. Climate change is all around us, but we refuse to see it.