4 ms·

Ah yes it could have been so easy: All we needed to do was convince everyone in the world to behave a certain way.

coldbrewed 2mo ago
Exactly, kinda like what we did with CFCs! Granted fossil fuels are much more ubiquitous than CFCs and comparatively more difficult to replace, but we have prior art for changing industrial practices in the interest of improving climate conditions.
- anigbrowl 2mo ago
  That was an awful lot simpler, int aht we (or rather governments) just had to lean on a small number of manufacturers and tell them to find alternatives for CFCs in their products. Nobody was up in arms saying 'my hairspray isn't the same without CFCs' or whatever. I'll bet the majority of consumers never even noticed the difference.
  - marcosdumay 2mo ago
    > Nobody was up in arms saying 'my hairspray isn't the same without CFCs' or whatever. Oh, boy. There was a huge number of loud people complaining about that. And worst thing is that most of them only knew about the CFCs being replaced years after it stopped being in sprays.
    - anigbrowl 2mo ago
      My memory was that once satellite imagery of the ozone hole became available and it suddenly became something you could actually plot on a map the serious debate suddenly ended and complaining about 'they took our CFCs' became a kook issue. But looking up old media coverage, I see that dissatisfaction entrepreneurs like Rush Limbaugh aggressively milked the issue and then recycled successful tropes in other contexts.
lucb1e 2mo ago
Most people agree on basic values. It's really not that big a stretch to appeal to such common values, seeing as rapid global warming would cause mass relocation, suffering, adaptation costs for those who can stay put, etc.
- gottorf 2mo ago
  > Most people agree on basic values This isn't even true at a local level, let alone at the global scale.
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Yeah they do, on the really basic stuff, on a global level.
    - lucb1e 2mo ago
      Not really the topic here but I actually think most people agree on most things; everyone wants to do right by them and theirs. We just focus on the areas where we differ in opinion on how to get there and have things to discuss
    - HighGoldstein 2mo ago
      Do you believe half the human population should have the same rights as the other half? I'd say this is rather basic, yet the subject of much disagreement.
  - lucb1e 2mo ago
    Bit of an easy claim without concrete examples as I gave. Would hold more water if you'd tell us which local or global culture does not have basic decency towards each other as a value / wants to cause any of the things I mentioned such as forced relocation
    - zahlman 2mo ago
      > if you'd tell us which local or global culture does not have basic decency towards each other as a value Look around the thread at how people are treating each other, and then keep in mind that HN is probably like 99th percentile for civility on the Internet in this regard. Look at what happens in threads about any other politically charged issue, for that matter. Heck, look how far the discussion will veer into politically charged off-topic matters, whenever the OP is about some meta-level "how to be convincing" "how to argue fairly" etc. point.
DangitBobby 2mo ago
It really was very achievable, the main reason we didn't was we had a bunch of people spreading lies about it for 100 years or so.
- parineum 2mo ago
  We couldn't have stopped using fossil fuels heavily until nuclear power was widespread and implemented, around the late 70s or 80s. We could have traditioned our grids off of fossil fuels but we also depend on them for fertilizer to feed the world and for transportation which, until very recently, didn't have a viable alternative.
  - DangitBobby 2mo ago
    Nuclear was also kneecapped by FUD and astroturfing, and we didn't properly fund renewables because Republican administrations were in the pockets of big oil. Did you know GM made a fully viable electric car that people loved back in the 90s? Setback after setback, all self-inflicted, people pretending we have these insurmountable hurdles all over the place. Pathetic for an empire that prides itself as a champion of industry. The fertilizer thing is a perfect example. We don't need to extract, refine, and burn nearly as much fuel as we do to get the fertilizer we need. People make the same empty argument about the cheap plastic shit that dominates the economy as if the world didn't exist before cheap plastic shit and couldn't exist after.
    - doublerabbit 2mo ago
      To be fair, Chernobyl didn't exactly help the cause.
      - DangitBobby 2mo ago
        Definitely true. But you see the blame placed on the public fearing nuclear from these events. There was some fear, but also astroturfing to make sure nuclear stayed dead.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
pasquinelli 2mo ago
individual people don't matter, they're peanuts. otoh the single biggest consumer of fossil fuels is the US DOD. and why is that, really?
- otterley 2mo ago
  Is this actually true? That sounds suspicious. I’d love to see that data.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - pasquinelli 2mo ago
    https://www.ucs.org/resources/us-military-and-oil https://www.ucs.org/resources/us-military-and-oil that article links to the dod's own reporting.
    - otterley 2mo ago
      You said “the DoD is the single largest consumer of fossil fuels” (emphasis mine). That is a very different claim than what the article says, which is that the DoD uses “more oil than any other institution in the world." Oil is just one type of fossil fuel; natural gas and coal are others. I would also contend that an institution is a very narrow class of consumer. What you said is much more vague and could be reasonably interpreted to mean “the DoD uses more fossil fuels than the entire country of China,” which seems intuitively false.
      - cumshitpiss 2mo ago
        [dead]
- alex_duf 2mo ago
  One person's consumption doesn't matter, but multiply it by 8 billion and it does. It's like being in a traffic jam and complaining about the other people in the traffic jam... Dude, you're one of them.
hliyan 2mo ago
There is currently a multi-billion, if not trillion, dollar industry (advertising and marketing) that is convincing everyone to behave the opposite way, i.e. maximize consumption with no regard to negative externalities. If we simply curb them, or better yet, use those same mechanisms to propagate a more rational message, yes, that that's all we need to do.

Exactly, kinda like what we did with CFCs! Granted fossil fuels are much more ubiquitous than CFCs and comparatively more difficult to replace, but we have prior art for changing industrial practices in the interest of improving climate conditions.

anigbrowl 2mo ago
That was an awful lot simpler, int aht we (or rather governments) just had to lean on a small number of manufacturers and tell them to find alternatives for CFCs in their products. Nobody was up in arms saying 'my hairspray isn't the same without CFCs' or whatever. I'll bet the majority of consumers never even noticed the difference.
- marcosdumay 2mo ago
  > Nobody was up in arms saying 'my hairspray isn't the same without CFCs' or whatever. Oh, boy. There was a huge number of loud people complaining about that. And worst thing is that most of them only knew about the CFCs being replaced years after it stopped being in sprays.
  - anigbrowl 2mo ago
    My memory was that once satellite imagery of the ozone hole became available and it suddenly became something you could actually plot on a map the serious debate suddenly ended and complaining about 'they took our CFCs' became a kook issue. But looking up old media coverage, I see that dissatisfaction entrepreneurs like Rush Limbaugh aggressively milked the issue and then recycled successful tropes in other contexts.

lucb1e 2mo ago

Most people agree on basic values. It's really not that big a stretch to appeal to such common values, seeing as rapid global warming would cause mass relocation, suffering, adaptation costs for those who can stay put, etc.

gottorf 2mo ago
> Most people agree on basic values This isn't even true at a local level, let alone at the global scale.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Yeah they do, on the really basic stuff, on a global level.
  - lucb1e 2mo ago
    Not really the topic here but I actually think most people agree on most things; everyone wants to do right by them and theirs. We just focus on the areas where we differ in opinion on how to get there and have things to discuss
  - HighGoldstein 2mo ago
    Do you believe half the human population should have the same rights as the other half? I'd say this is rather basic, yet the subject of much disagreement.
- lucb1e 2mo ago
  Bit of an easy claim without concrete examples as I gave. Would hold more water if you'd tell us which local or global culture does not have basic decency towards each other as a value / wants to cause any of the things I mentioned such as forced relocation
  - zahlman 2mo ago
    > if you'd tell us which local or global culture does not have basic decency towards each other as a value Look around the thread at how people are treating each other, and then keep in mind that HN is probably like 99th percentile for civility on the Internet in this regard. Look at what happens in threads about any other politically charged issue, for that matter. Heck, look how far the discussion will veer into politically charged off-topic matters, whenever the OP is about some meta-level "how to be convincing" "how to argue fairly" etc. point.

DangitBobby 2mo ago

It really was very achievable, the main reason we didn't was we had a bunch of people spreading lies about it for 100 years or so.

parineum 2mo ago
We couldn't have stopped using fossil fuels heavily until nuclear power was widespread and implemented, around the late 70s or 80s. We could have traditioned our grids off of fossil fuels but we also depend on them for fertilizer to feed the world and for transportation which, until very recently, didn't have a viable alternative.
- DangitBobby 2mo ago
  Nuclear was also kneecapped by FUD and astroturfing, and we didn't properly fund renewables because Republican administrations were in the pockets of big oil. Did you know GM made a fully viable electric car that people loved back in the 90s? Setback after setback, all self-inflicted, people pretending we have these insurmountable hurdles all over the place. Pathetic for an empire that prides itself as a champion of industry. The fertilizer thing is a perfect example. We don't need to extract, refine, and burn nearly as much fuel as we do to get the fertilizer we need. People make the same empty argument about the cheap plastic shit that dominates the economy as if the world didn't exist before cheap plastic shit and couldn't exist after.
  - doublerabbit 2mo ago
    To be fair, Chernobyl didn't exactly help the cause.
    - DangitBobby 2mo ago
      Definitely true. But you see the blame placed on the public fearing nuclear from these events. There was some fear, but also astroturfing to make sure nuclear stayed dead.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

pasquinelli 2mo ago

individual people don't matter, they're peanuts. otoh the single biggest consumer of fossil fuels is the US DOD. and why is that, really?

otterley 2mo ago
Is this actually true? That sounds suspicious. I’d love to see that data.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- pasquinelli 2mo ago
  https://www.ucs.org/resources/us-military-and-oil https://www.ucs.org/resources/us-military-and-oil that article links to the dod's own reporting.
  - otterley 2mo ago
    You said “the DoD is the single largest consumer of fossil fuels” (emphasis mine). That is a very different claim than what the article says, which is that the DoD uses “more oil than any other institution in the world." Oil is just one type of fossil fuel; natural gas and coal are others. I would also contend that an institution is a very narrow class of consumer. What you said is much more vague and could be reasonably interpreted to mean “the DoD uses more fossil fuels than the entire country of China,” which seems intuitively false.
    - cumshitpiss 2mo ago
      [dead]
alex_duf 2mo ago
One person's consumption doesn't matter, but multiply it by 8 billion and it does. It's like being in a traffic jam and complaining about the other people in the traffic jam... Dude, you're one of them.

hliyan 2mo ago

There is currently a multi-billion, if not trillion, dollar industry (advertising and marketing) that is convincing everyone to behave the opposite way, i.e. maximize consumption with no regard to negative externalities. If we simply curb them, or better yet, use those same mechanisms to propagate a more rational message, yes, that that's all we need to do.