Teenage Climate Change Activist "I want you to panic"

[Darth Wedgius]

Yes, poor people have fewer choices. Yes, that makes sense to me. Yes, it can make it harder for them to have a lower carbon footprint. But most can ease up on the carbon a lot more than they do. That poor people have fewer choices does not make a few rich people responsible for them.

Fuzzy, people moved to the suburbs when automobiles became affordable and roads more decent. If people had stayed in the cities then cars would not have been nearly as popular. But people like lawns, privacy, and less crime.

People could also take the bus, which uses gas (or natural gas or diesel) and is quite passenger-mile-per-gallon efficient if it has a lot of people on it. It's a lot less convenient, but it's a personal choice.

Vegan food consumption doesn't have to be expensive. Vegetables are not especially expensive; trust me, I'm vegetarian and I'm cheap. Meat is expensive. Meat substitutes can be expensive, and organic anything can be expensive, but potatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, legumes, rice, those aren't especially costly.

It does when the rich spend billions of dollars to prevent legislation that could do more to fix the issue than any number choice the sum totality of poor people in the US could make.

Again, that legislation would be used to constrain choices. People could already make the choices you want them to make.

One, legislation can be used to create choices. For instance had their been tax incentives for electric or higher mileage cars earlier, the consumer would have more options because more of those cars would be available.

Two, one of the major purposes of government is to avert the tragedy of the commons.

For one, which of those rich guys stopped those tax incentives? For the second, yes, but that doesn't take away from what I said. "You should have forced us to be smarter" is not, IMHO, equivalent to "this is all your fault!"

[Draco Dracul]

Yes, poor people have fewer choices. Yes, that makes sense to me. Yes, it can make it harder for them to have a lower carbon footprint. But most can ease up on the carbon a lot more than they do. That poor people have fewer choices does not make a few rich people responsible for them.

Fuzzy, people moved to the suburbs when automobiles became affordable and roads more decent. If people had stayed in the cities then cars would not have been nearly as popular. But people like lawns, privacy, and less crime.

People could also take the bus, which uses gas (or natural gas or diesel) and is quite passenger-mile-per-gallon efficient if it has a lot of people on it. It's a lot less convenient, but it's a personal choice.

Vegan food consumption doesn't have to be expensive. Vegetables are not especially expensive; trust me, I'm vegetarian and I'm cheap. Meat is expensive. Meat substitutes can be expensive, and organic anything can be expensive, but potatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, legumes, rice, those aren't especially costly.

It does when the rich spend billions of dollars to prevent legislation that could do more to fix the issue than any number choice the sum totality of poor people in the US could make.

Again, that legislation would be used to constrain choices. People could already make the choices you want them to make.

One, legislation can be used to create choices. For instance had their been tax incentives for electric or higher mileage cars earlier, the consumer would have more options because more of those cars would be available.

Two, one of the major purposes of government is to avert the tragedy of the commons.

For one, which of those rich guys stopped those tax incentives? For the second, yes, but that doesn't take away from what I said. "You should have forced us to be smarter" is not, IMHO, equivalent to "this is all your fault!"

The oil lobby has spent nearly five decades trying to deny that climate change is even a thing. It's hard to make any kind of legislation to address climate change through any means, carrot or stick, when it's a major political fight to even get it acknowledged as a thing.

[Darth Wedgius]

Yes, poor people have fewer choices. Yes, that makes sense to me. Yes, it can make it harder for them to have a lower carbon footprint. But most can ease up on the carbon a lot more than they do. That poor people have fewer choices does not make a few rich people responsible for them.

Fuzzy, people moved to the suburbs when automobiles became affordable and roads more decent. If people had stayed in the cities then cars would not have been nearly as popular. But people like lawns, privacy, and less crime.

People could also take the bus, which uses gas (or natural gas or diesel) and is quite passenger-mile-per-gallon efficient if it has a lot of people on it. It's a lot less convenient, but it's a personal choice.

Vegan food consumption doesn't have to be expensive. Vegetables are not especially expensive; trust me, I'm vegetarian and I'm cheap. Meat is expensive. Meat substitutes can be expensive, and organic anything can be expensive, but potatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, legumes, rice, those aren't especially costly.

It does when the rich spend billions of dollars to prevent legislation that could do more to fix the issue than any number choice the sum totality of poor people in the US could make.

Again, that legislation would be used to constrain choices. People could already make the choices you want them to make.

One, legislation can be used to create choices. For instance had their been tax incentives for electric or higher mileage cars earlier, the consumer would have more options because more of those cars would be available.

Two, one of the major purposes of government is to avert the tragedy of the commons.

For one, which of those rich guys stopped those tax incentives? For the second, yes, but that doesn't take away from what I said. "You should have forced us to be smarter" is not, IMHO, equivalent to "this is all your fault!"

The oil lobby has spent nearly five decades trying to deny that climate change is even a thing. It's hard to make any kind of legislation to address climate change through any means, carrot or stick, when it's a major political fight to even get it acknowledged as a thing.

The fossil fuel industry has been highlighting the uncertainties of anthropogenic factors in climate change. Yes, they are self-serving, but even on this subject playing devil's advocate isn't unreasonable. And it still doesn't make them responsible for people not making what changes they could.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

They are supporting their own short-term financial goals at the expense of every human life on the planet/ Why are you licking their boots? Do they give you a commission or something?

[Draco Dracul]

Yes, poor people have fewer choices. Yes, that makes sense to me. Yes, it can make it harder for them to have a lower carbon footprint. But most can ease up on the carbon a lot more than they do. That poor people have fewer choices does not make a few rich people responsible for them.

Fuzzy, people moved to the suburbs when automobiles became affordable and roads more decent. If people had stayed in the cities then cars would not have been nearly as popular. But people like lawns, privacy, and less crime.

People could also take the bus, which uses gas (or natural gas or diesel) and is quite passenger-mile-per-gallon efficient if it has a lot of people on it. It's a lot less convenient, but it's a personal choice.

Vegan food consumption doesn't have to be expensive. Vegetables are not especially expensive; trust me, I'm vegetarian and I'm cheap. Meat is expensive. Meat substitutes can be expensive, and organic anything can be expensive, but potatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, legumes, rice, those aren't especially costly.

It does when the rich spend billions of dollars to prevent legislation that could do more to fix the issue than any number choice the sum totality of poor people in the US could make.

Again, that legislation would be used to constrain choices. People could already make the choices you want them to make.

One, legislation can be used to create choices. For instance had their been tax incentives for electric or higher mileage cars earlier, the consumer would have more options because more of those cars would be available.

Two, one of the major purposes of government is to avert the tragedy of the commons.

For one, which of those rich guys stopped those tax incentives? For the second, yes, but that doesn't take away from what I said. "You should have forced us to be smarter" is not, IMHO, equivalent to "this is all your fault!"

The oil lobby has spent nearly five decades trying to deny that climate change is even a thing. It's hard to make any kind of legislation to address climate change through any means, carrot or stick, when it's a major political fight to even get it acknowledged as a thing.

The fossil fuel industry has been highlighting the uncertainties of anthropogenic factors in climate change. Yes, they are self-serving, but even on this subject playing devil's advocate isn't unreasonable. And it still doesn't make them responsible for people not making what changes they could.

They do in fact have to take some of the blame for because by spending billions to underplay the threat and to actively subsidize themselves they've served to make good options less attractive. Not only that, but they worked to actively suppress findings showing the extent of global warming since the 1970s and spent billions of dollars doing so. It's like saying that Oprah and Jenny McCarthy don't deserve blame for the current rash of measles outbreaks.

They are supporting their own short-term financial goals at the expense of every human life on the planet/ Why are you licking their boots? Do they give you a commission or something?

Because why blame the rich for abusing power when you can blame the poor for not knowing the information that the rich active tried to prevent them from getting?

[Robovski]

Here's an idea. Talk to Musk and convince him not to throw his money at physically impossible pipe-dreams and instead kickstart an industry that helps people make their homes more energy-efficient or even energy-independant. You may not be able to reliably supply an entire country by solar and wind-energy, but you sure as hell can stuff a battery into the cellars and throw solar power cells onto everyone's roof in the suburbs and Kansas' countryside. If it works in Germany (and only fails to find wider spread use is, because it costs money to convert that people don't have), then it sure as hell does in MAGA-country.

*cough* https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

[Madner Kami]

*cough* https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Huh, I learned something today. Thank you for that lesson. Still I wish, Musk would stop wasting money and time on a vacuum railroad and other such nonsense and put it into valuable research and lobbying.

[Darth Wedgius]

They do in fact have to take some of the blame for because by spending billions to underplay the threat and to actively subsidize themselves they've served to make good options less attractive. Not only that, but they worked to actively suppress findings showing the extent of global warming since the 1970s and spent billions of dollars doing so. It's like saying that Oprah and Jenny McCarthy don't deserve blame for the current rash of measles outbreaks.

They are supporting their own short-term financial goals at the expense of every human life on the planet/ Why are you licking their boots? Do they give you a commission or something?

Because why blame the rich for abusing power when you can blame the poor for not knowing the information that the rich active tried to prevent them from getting?

OK, they do take some of the blame. Those particular executives may have been at Davros. But the truth has been out for a good long time now, and what are the masses doing about it? I think calling them responsible for the majority of emissions is at least an exaggeration.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

To attain the necessities of life, in most cases, you need a car. Being a consumer isn't really optional in this late capitalist hellscape.

So, if it's putting the blame on people who have the dreadful corkscrew of necessity poking into their prostate, or putting the lions share of it on people who have enough money to do just about anything they could conceivable want to do, including bribing policy makers with multi-million dollar campaign contributions, I'm going with the varblenecking klorbags who own all these carbon-spewing factories and oil-extraction machines and could, by their own hand, make clean energy much more viable, but don't because they'd rather make $2,017 an hour instead of $2,012 an hour.

[Antiboyscout]

*cough* https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

The dirty little secret of the powerwall is. If you program it to reduce CO2 emissions it makes electricity more expensive.