The Swiss reject key climate change measures • Hacker News Board

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#51

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #9

Smart, in my opinion. Industrial producers are engaged in a massive and well-funded propaganda campaign aimed at distracting people from the fact the overwhelming majority of carbon emissions are from industrial and commercial sources. Even in a car-happy country like the US, personal vehicle use including commuting only makes up 16 percent of carbon emissions.

Industrial and commercial needs for what, exactly. Just the car industry relies on so many things (for happy car owners) that you can categorize as industrial and commercial. Reduce the need for cars and everything decrease quasi proportionally.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#52

Post by pyuser583 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

fencepost wrote: post #29

pyuser583 wrote: post #11

Is there a certain point where we say “it’s going to be worse case climate scenario, let’s prepare?” I’m asking for a friend from a different planet …

If you have or are planning to have a family, you should likely be thinking about just this already on a personal and family level. Do what you can to reduce your footprint, but also do your long-term planning based on expectations of climate change. Among other things, don't buy property within anything considered 100-year or possibly even 500-year flood zones - climate change may mean that 100-year zones start gett…

Meh. I mean I have my family. We’ve bought property.

I think the important thing is how careful the local government is about resiliency.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#53

Post by gshixman » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

monk_e_boy wrote: post #14

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #5

It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of voting by age. Environmental destruction has a much greater impact to the young.

Votes need change from INT to FLOAT, so old people get 0.75 of a vote and young people get 1.5 ... because [edit] downvotes! Why? Is it a crazy idea that young people should have more of a say about their future than old people? Where I live the old generation are fucking over the young generation in a big way.

It's downvoted because it is obviously ageist... Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#54

Post by lucb1e » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #11

Is there a certain point where we say “it’s going to be worse case climate scenario, let’s prepare?” I’m asking for a friend from a different planet …

There isn't, actually. Even if we would find ourselves in a +4°C world tomorrow (iirc that's the worst-case scenario for 2100), we would still be trying to reduce emissions because things don't get better. It appears to be cheaper to reduce emissions than to cope with the change it causes, partially because we have really large error bars on what changes it causes and the median already isn't pretty.

At the same time, of course, we're also preparing. Iceland has broken ground on big port, expecting the warmer climate to make the Northeast Passage to become navigable year-round and more ships to pass by there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnafjord_Port

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#55

Post by PKop » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #49

PKop wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for them. Ultimately they view their positions on these issues as best for the well being of their nation and its people. Who are you to say otherwise, should they pursue policies that go against their interests to satisfy foreigners? Why would they want refugees and migrants to come into their country? How would it benefit them?

> should they pursue policies that go against their interests to satisfy foreigners? To some extent I think it’s absolutely fair to expect that, yes. Especially in the richer countries of the world.

This is not how politics works. Nations are definitionally a group of people with shared interests. No one else is going to vote in the interest of the Swiss, only they will for themselves. It is absurd to equate well run, successful, wealthy nations with an obligation to harm themselves by adopting bad policies that hurt their own people. Anyone advocating for that should be ignored.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#56

Post by disposekinetics » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #28

version_five wrote: post #19

The Swiss rejected some taxes. I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are c…

Okay. Now do Swiss voters on migrants, refugees, and participation in science programmes of the EU. What you’ll find is that the Swiss are an insular myopic bunch.

I wish I could say the same for my home country.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#57

Post by Diggsey » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #19

The Swiss rejected some taxes. I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are c…

There are three main ways governments can change behaviours:

- Tax the behaviour they want to discourage. - Subsidise a behaviour they want to encourage. - Outlaw a behaviour they want to discourage.

It looks like all three were attempted based on the article.

> A proposal to outlaw artificial pesticides, and another to improve drinking water by giving subsidies only to farmers who eschew chemicals were both voted down by 61%.

> There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy.

Someone is going to suffer with any climate change measure, or else the measure would not be necessary. The only question is how that burden should be spread out, so it's not really a false dichotomy...

And yes, this can be a problem attributed to direct democracy: a majority of people in Switzerland can agree that some measure should be introduced, without being able to obtain a majority for any specific measure. With direct democracy that means that no measure will be introduced.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#58

Post by samatman » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

Diggsey wrote: post #57

version_five wrote: post #19

The Swiss rejected some taxes. I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are c…

There are three main ways governments can change behaviours: - Tax the behaviour they want to discourage. - Subsidise a behaviour they want to encourage. - Outlaw a behaviour they want to discourage. It looks like all three were attempted based on the article. > A proposal to outlaw artificial pesticides, and another to improve drinking water by giving subsidies only to farmers who eschew chemicals were both voted do…

Artificial pesticides is the naturalistic fallacy rearing its ugly head.

Some of the pesticides which are allowed in organic farming are quite pernicious. It stands to reason that the opposite is true, and some of the pesticides used by conventional farming are less of an insult to ecosystems and human health than the 'natural' ones.

Banning 'artificial' pesticides, in other words, is a blunt instrument, one which stands a good chance of not accomplishing the actual goal toward which the legislation is intended.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#59

Post by belorn » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #31

IdiocyInAction wrote: post #7

* Swiss CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita): 4.17 * US CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita): 15.5 Switzerland is already among the lowest polluters in the EU and much lower than Australia/Canada/US. Just for context.

> EU Europe, not the EU From a ballpark look, your numbers look to be production-based accounting. If you look at Switzerland with consumption-based accounting[0], it looks pretty bad with higher per-capita emissions, and an upward trend while other comparably rich European countries have a downward trend. [0]: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/switzerland#consumpti...

If a country focus on reducing emissions from their industry, for whom does that improvement benefit? The producer or the importer?

As an example, in north of Sweden there is a lot of focus on creating green steel, most which will be exported. With consumption-based accounting, all that investment will have close to zero impact on the Swedish efforts to reduce CO2, as otherwise we would have double accounting.

Consumption-based accounting has it uses but one need to be very careful in interpreting them. A country that has a lot of coal power plants should not be seen as decreasing their pollution if they suddenly start to export most of it. Some blame should be put at the consumer end, but the primary focus must sit on those who actually pollute the environment.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#60

Post by jollybean » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #19

The Swiss rejected some taxes. I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are c…

"The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, "

You have no way of knowing that.

It could be that they simply don't support fighting climate change, or deny that it exists, and could possibly want to claw back other related programs.

"the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy"

Actually that's a false proposition ... because Taxes are not Wealth Distribution.

If they were taxing to give to the poor, somehow in the name of 'climate change' then maybe. But taxing travel to reduce usage - or - to pay for offsets, or to use to invest in climate programs - that's not 'wealth redistribution'.

"There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are captured by framing it as them having rejected climate change measures. "

They voted squarely against measures which were designed to help meet the Paris Accord targets. While there is obviously more nuance to it, the editorial framing is close enough that it's fair.

It is what it is.