7 Comments

А не пошел бы ты на хуй со своим климатом, уебок? Верни путешествия в полном объеме, сколько можно держать людей взаперти? В отлоичие от тебя я жила за железным занавесом в СССР, мне хватило, я хочу свободы передвижений и мне плевать на климат и прочую муть!

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While it sounds a little absurd, I think the glaring omission here is that any such policy will just lead to another episode of fascism. Real wage decline, rise in unemployment, and decimation of entire industries will just be the future-equivalent of unemployed WW1 veterans who became the rank-and-file of street crime-turned-despotic fascist parties.

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Seems like the best recipe for unprecedented inequality.

Rich countries may adopt these policies, since their citizens (especially the rich ones) will not suffer as much as the rest of the world. And why would everyone else follow them? Just to improve the lives of people in West Europe and North America? I doubt that the rich countries are going to share anything and help others to build infrastructure and improve life quality to the same extent as, for example, in Germany. Moreover, new rules will undoubtedly be welcomed by the richest people, because they will retain all the privileges of "unethical" consumption and will be glad to enjoy travelling without crowds, good food; increasing xenophobia will give rise to new fascist-like regimes.

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I agree very much, except that in the absence of real democracy, the "we" you speak of is nonexistent. We know, empirically, that the preference of voters (at least in America) affects policy almost not at all, compared to elites and business interests [https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/the-influence-of-elites-interest-groups-and-average-voters-on-american-politics/] -- in addition, even if empirically the case for voters' preferences is different in other nations, there is still no international form of democracy, just a series of elite decision-making processes steered principally by America, again. So if the "we" that exists is a group of primarily American business elites, then I'm afraid you may be outlining a second form of 'magical thinking', even if I agree with it.

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Thanks for this post. My question is does a commitment to phase out coal, a main point of contention at COP of course, necessarily condemn many in the third world countries to poverty? (I also believe the focus on air travel and meat consumption, versus say construction, which according to many sources, the latter appears to account for a far greater proportion of global carbon, may be misguided.)

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Climate, Gender, Race are components of a religious - i.e. magical - view of the world. The converted will continue much as they have done and sensible people must try to minimise the harm that they do. I think this article is a contribution to that task.

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The problem is that some (many?) goods which contribute to carbon consumption of the rich are also consumed by the poor: less intensely in the absolute but with no possible substitute. Look at the increase in tax on gasoline planned by the French government a couple of years ago: the large cars of the rich would have been hit harder but the rebellion came from the poor who depended on their car to go to work from their remote house.

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