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Comment by Normille | Hacker News Reader

  >The whole point of dealing with climate change and pollution is that we all have to make some compromises...

Said a load of government ministers and other junketeers, after flying halfway round the world in private jets, to attend a conference discussing the environment.

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I always dislike this line of argument, it feels unproductive.

I detest frivolous use of fossil-fuel private jets and all flights of them should absolutely be taxed to the roof and the funds used for climate mitigation.

However, if you’re a bigshot person who can have outsized influence (like POTUS or some billionaire or something) then by all means attend the relevant conferences and make an impact.

If your beef is that the conferences are not effective then that’s something we can discuss, but don’t distract by talking about the way people arrive, unless it’s to propose some kind of carbon/pollution tax in which case I wholeheartedly agree.

  >I always dislike this line of argument, it feels unproductive.

Even if you believe these kind of conferences are productive; why couldn't they have organised it virtually over Zoom/Skype/etc.? If ever there was a chance to 'lead by example' COP27 [and previous COPs] were a golden opportunity. But, instead it was the same old same old; lots of rich political and industry leaders and their hangers-on, flying off into the sun in their private jets, for a cozy get-together. And then emerging aterwards to tell the rest of us to try harder.

Zoom meetings are good for quick status checks, routine procedures or information dissemination without much interaction.

Real work, hard work and sensitive work does not happen over zoom, but face to face.

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