I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I advocate for every policy that will reduce carbon emissions, and I will celebrate both a denied permit and a carbon tax instead of demonizing one of them. Maybe if otherwise likeminded folks like yourself didn’t spend so much time dumping on carbon taxes in favor of your “ideal” policy, we’d have slightly higher support.
What an odd revisionist characterization. Schultz was active in many administrations, including Regan’s. You’re both elevating his relevance to the movement (one which your own link at the Volt describes as left leaning grassroots campaigners) and mischaracterizing the entire approach. Reaganomics is synonymous with tax cuts, deregulation, and “trickle down”. A carbon fee and dividend is not a tax cut, it’s not deregulation, and it’s the opposite of trickle down. Schultz was also a key part of Montreal protocol, literally the most effective international policy of all time. Is the Montreal protocol “Reaganomics” as well?
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/advisory-board/george-p-shultz/
There are many, many more people involved in CCL than you’re attempting to characterize here, including a wide mix of academics. That’s because they promote good policy.
As to the Volt article you linked, while interesting, all it says is that support tends to be static for the first few years in two countries. It should surprise anyone that conservatives in Alberta are still against a carbon tax a few years later. This isn’t even the right success metric - what matters is effectiveness over time. Public perception needs to be high enough to avoid a repeal, and not higher. You still haven’t addressed your original claim that the fossil fuels lobby is behind a carbon tax, which they so obviously are not.
Your “solutions” are a fine a slow way to transform one sector of the economy - electricity generation. That’s not enough, and it’s not fast enough. I’m not saying don’t do those things too - I love the IRA and I love federal efficiency standards and gas bans and all that good stuff, but no reason to argue against some rocket fuel to accelerate carbon reductions (and touch the rest of the economy).
Pretty sure if e.g. the US manages to pass a carbon fee, Greta herself wouldn’t say that fossil lobby won, she’d probably say great, now also do XYZ and raise the carbon price higher while you’re at it. That’s a much more mainstream attitude.
You can’t just call any market based solution “Reaganomics”, but ok. It’s logically inconsistent to say that carbon taxes are favored by industry and neoliberals, when those very people aren’t actually pushing for carbon taxes. Since neoliberals and industry have a stranglehold on policy and they haven’t done it, I must conclude you’re wrong. Why don’t you cite some of the voices "in the climate movement " that are against carbon taxes? I’m not seeing them. What I see is trust the science, and the desire to build political momentum that will results in the science based solutions coming into effect. Things like ending fossil fuels subsidies, requiring utilities switch to renewables, increasing vehicle emissions standards, incentives for electrification, and yes, carbon taxes.
I’m really curious what your actual solution is here. How are you going to get everyone to leave the oil and gas in the ground? A white whale is something you can’t actually find - seems like destroying capitalism or whatever your vague idea is fits that description much better than pricing in externalities via a tax, something that can very simply be layered in to our market structures with our current institutions (and something that is actually happening in dozens of countries, but is somehow impossible according to you).
Then why does CCL actively promote carbon fee and dividend as its most beneficial policy? Your logic doesn’t even make sense - you’re saying the fossil lobby would love to be taxed further? Nonsense. If that were true, we’d have a carbon fee enacted decades ago. It’s not innately regressive, and your reasoning doesn’t even make sense because your entire premise rests on complexity = bad, not any actual logic. This isn’t to say it’s politically feasible, but you haven’t offered a politically feasible method for just stopping drilling altogether. All a carbon fee does is offer a revenue neutral way to slowly and surely shift everyone’s behavior by pricing in externalities. It’s very much viable and equitable, and if you think it’s somehow harder than banning fuel and banning capitalism you’re simply not being serious. We have a market mechanism to prevent bad behavior - taxes and fees. Let’s use them. Feel free to ban extraction too, but that’s not where I’ll be focusing my personal lobbying efforts.
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/
To me the point is more that the post WW2 boom and the resulting ability of a cashier to buy a home and support a family was somewhat an aberration, not a new normal. Something similar could happen again if the conditions were right (much more modest house building via major zoning reform, free education, healthcare, and childcare, high taxes on the wealthy) but we’re not actually achieving those necessary things politically, so here we are. And even if we did achieve all that, new homes won’t look like current new homes because 4000 ft2 suburban homes are fundamentally unsustainable.
How, and be specific here, do you think OP should publish their hundreds of useful comments out of thousands over the past decade plus on Reddit? There is no easy way to move entire threads with context and answers. So your proposal, which sounds reasonable enough, isn’t really viable. OP will continue to provide answers here and wherever they choose. If you’re upset, blame Reddit, not OP.
This is both very likely true while also being the peak male Lemmy user fantasy that will confuse future alien archaeologists the most. Thanks for sharing!
Classic, of course you follow with whattaboutism. Like I said, we’ve seen the Russian talking point already. Next.
Also the US isn’t single handedly supporting Ukraine. You need to dramatically increase your whattaboutism to cover the other 50 or so countries.
No amount of nuance will make your core position tenable to those that think Ukraine deserves outside (e.g. NATO) support to protect them from the Russian invaders. You simply don’t think Ukraine deserves support, condemning them to genocide. Everything else you said is weird posturing to try and disguise your actual point. It’s not our first rodeo, we can all see right through this.
Your entire rant boils down to “I disagree with Russia’s invasion, but since they did it anyway they should have no consequences, even when they commit genocide”. A conversation isn’t required to counter this dogshit position.
Many things can be the status quo at once. I’m just tired of binary, weak thinking that blames any one party 100% and absolves all others, which is why I started my original post with “yes and no”. It’s not productive, and it’s already crystal clear what we need to do as a society - go read Drawdown for a simple primer on decarbonization and what needs to happen. If people actually did the individual action thing en masse it would have a real effect (not enough in isolation of course) but surprise, lots of people don’t actually give a shit and hide behind their nihilism and the “corporations are the real problem” thing. Folks should focus on enacting policies first, then individual actions where they can. Doing nothing is, well, worth nothing.
Considering huge numbers of people don’t vote at all, and many others that do vote against their self interests and for their short term gain over environmental policies, we collectively have a lot of work to do on this front. I agree voting is the bare minimum but it bears repeating since we suck at it.
If you actually care about my “next advice”, you should be writing your reps, nationally and locally, on a regular basis, you should organize with groups like CCL, and you should get involved in local transportation and housing policy discussions. What’s your job/career? Can you enact any change there, or move to a job that has more opportunity? I could go on and on. Not attacking you personally, but most folks I’ve met with the doom and gloom, not my problem attitude don’t do fuck all.
You’re asking me what people can do and I’ve given multiple examples. What are your ideas? All I’m hearing is we should have done a general strike and killed capitalism, as if cheap natural gas is only a problem when a capitalist burns it for profit.
No, it’s propaganda to absolve people from their collective responsibility and blame the nebulous capitalist and corporatism boogeymen while ignoring things they actually can accomplish, like voting for policies and regulations that will have an actual impact. The Soviet Union and China have emitted a shit ton of carbon, but I suppose that’s all capitalism’s fault too. Your post is a walking contradiction - people have no responsibility or agency and shouldn’t bother doing anything, yet are also supposed to general strike and fix everything. Your attitude is pro-status quo and therefore serves the entrenched interests you claim to be rallying against.
Yes and no, I think. Obviously one single person can’t make a tangible difference all by themselves, but to stop the thought process there does a massive disservice to the importance of collective action. It doesn’t take all that many people to affect change, both politically and culturally. Join CCL (US focus here), vote and advocate for carbon fee and dividend and other beneficial policies, buy less shit you don’t need, ride a bike if you can, and if you have the means electrify your home/vehicle and support more ethical companies. Basically, don’t blame BP if you’re putting 20 gallons of their shit in your 4runner every week so you can commute to an office job with a permanent rooftop tent and a “save our winters” sticker on the back (yes I live in the front range). You’re not responsible for all of humanity, but you are responsible for your own actions when you have the means to choose a less carbon intensive option.
Ultra marathons are an entirely different sport from the 10k, and even marathons. Obviously training matters, but we also don’t have to pretend all humans are identical and only training and grit separate them.