Comment by alistproducer2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alistproducer2 | Hacker News Reader

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But here's the thing: the reality of current power in western countries is that it has been completely captured by large corporations and capital. Anything that causes disruption to the flow if money and growth will not be considered. Any real action will only come as a result of revolution. Revolutions are never fought with middle of the road ideologies as the catalyst and they aren't fought by populations as comfortable as those of successful western societies.

However you're kidding yourself if you the primary danger if climate change is the climate itself, at least to western societies. Look no further than the most existential threat to thd EU posed by a mere million migrants. Fascism js suddenly back in fashion all over the continent and the Brits want to self immolate and leave the EU. The failing of major crops due to seasons becoming unstable has already happened and will only accelerate in the coming years. The American corn crop was dangerojsly close to failing this year. Are these young people being hyperbolic in believing extinction is right around the corner? A bit, but their sentiment is correct. The civilization that they are accustomed to could very well be completely distroyed or in a state of disintegration in 15 years.

While I disagree with the details of your argument (closing borders isn't fascism), I agree with the overall thrust.

The only thing that can realistically wipe out humanity is war, and climate change could bring war.

> But here's the thing: the reality of current power in western countries is that it has been completely captured by large corporations and capital.

The economies in non-western countries aren't any different, often just less perfect versions of western market economies. (And sometimes, like with Taiwan or Singapore, more perfect versions.) The important point there, though, is that even imperfect market economies have led to enormous increases in prosperity for non-western countries. Market reforms in countries like India meant that GDP per capita more than quadrupled from 1999-2019, while it less than doubled from 1979-1999.

The climate justice folks, by contrast, want people from the developing world to rely on "endogenous and indigenous technologies and innovations in addressing climate change" so they can "develop, access, and transfer environmentally sound, socially acceptable, gender responsive and equitable climate technologies." https://www.peoplesdemands.org. (Luckily, countries like India are going with Thorium reactors instead: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/wolak1. And that will be the ironic outcome of climate justice efforts. It will be essential to get India and China on board to address climate change, but those countries are too smart to jump on that bandwagon.)

Ironically, it is precisely the dichotomy you mention that justifies the hard-line opposition of the right-wingers. If tweaking market economies is not the solution, and the alternative to the status quo is "revolution," then it is utterly rational to seek to protect the status quo.

I was going to look this up but instead I'm just going to ask: what or who or what is "The People's Demands" and why should anyone care what they think? Is there some way in which they speak for everyone in a broader climate justice movement?

Mainstream environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth are signatories to that demand: https://www.peoplesdemands.org. So is Rashida Tlaib's office. A group with a similar platform counts the Sierra Club as among the leadership: https://peoplesclimate.org/platform.

Of course nobody speaks for the "climate justice movement" categorically, in the same way as nobody speaks for "conservatism" or "progressiveism" as a movement. But if someone had said in 2008 that ACA was a stepping stone to Medicare for All, would that have been inaccurate?

Putting it another way: I don't think market-oriented environmentalists--for whom averting climate change is a matter of appropriately pricing carbon externalities--are driving the bus of that movement anymore.

Friends of the Earth appears to be an organization that split from the Sierra Club because it wasn't environmentally radical enough. I care about the environment and about social justice. Why would you think "The People's Demands" speaks for me?

Rashida Tlaib supports Scandinavian social democratic policies, and supports this website. But she'd support the social democratic policies either way. I agree with you and not with her (on Scandinavian social policies applied to the US), but her support for this website is not really evidence for it being representative of the mainstream; Tlaib is herself not even representative of the mainstream of her own party. That's why they call her, Omar, and AOC "the Squad".

So to rephrase my question: do you really believe the majority of people who believe we should make tradeoffs in our economy to favor combating climate change also believe in the nonsense in this People's Demands site? Because that's what you sort of directly implied.

I don’t think that’s an implication of what I wrote. The majority may not buy into all the ideas of climate justice, but you can’t tell how coalitions will shake out, or what compromises the majority will be willing to make to protect its coalition. And you don’t know what the next battlefield will be. The question isn’t do you think the majority believes in that stuff, it’s whether you trust the majority to protect free markets at the cost of its coalition, or to stop once necessary changes have been achieved.

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