Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 97 posts

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#51

Post by 3qz »

anemoiac wrote: post #30

Decreasing consumption doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in quality of life. In the West, at least, we generally work too much, have too little social engagement, and spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives. Many things that could actually make us happier don't require much consumption, but they're essentially luxury goods because of the modern lifestyle's high demands. I'm…

> Decreasing consumption doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in quality of life

Decreasing consumption in a more simplified way is just decreasing energy use. For 90% of people on earth this would be worse than climate change. It’s never going to happen.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#52

Post by pcthrowaway »

Unsurprising that one of the world's most successful capitalists is advocating for innovation to drive consumerism rather than anti-consumerism.

I'm not saying he's wrong; it's hard to get people to reflect on, and change, their lifestyles.

But it sends a harmful message; it's like saying it's pointless to teach people to swim safely, because staffing better lifeguards would be more likely than changing peoples' behaviour. Then people count on other people to bail them out from their poor decisions and end up drowning (an actually possible scenario with rising sea levels)

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#54

Post by abdullahkhalids »

yucky wrote: post #36
ps901 wrote: post #12

[flagged]

>The only thing left is to ditch capitalism entirely How exactly does that work?

Listen to the anarcho-syndacalists like Chomsky, which demand that companies be owned by workers in that company. There are many proposals for this, but here is an off the cuff one I just came up with:

Every company with more than 100 workers, must have 80% of its ownership by those same workers. The difference between the ownership stake of the top worker and the bottom worker must be no more than a 5x.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#55

Post by carlmr »

presentation wrote: post #23
disabled wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above poster is just suggesting that Bill Gates not be a hypocrite with respect to consuming less. He consumes way way way more than the average citizen. I don’t even know why people listen to him. Shouldn’t we be listening to actual climate scientists in the US government? And not some software CEO who has conflicts of interest? Why are we even platforming this dude and giving him any legitimacy?

If I were Bill Gates it would probably be miserable to take normal flights, can't walk two steps before someone gawks. If anything just reinforces that being famous sucks.

You could still then have other famous people join you on your flights until they're packed like economy flights.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#56

Post by prng2021 »

I see many comments here, in various media, and hear in real world conversations blaming corporations and billionaires. They're not faultless but we should be way more critical of ourselves as average citizens.

Every year we want bigger and bigger cars, particularly in the West, but it's a global long term trend. If you compare pretty much any 2022 vs 2002 model vehicle, say the Honda Accord, you're going to be shocked by the increase in physical dimensions.

How is that not incredibly hypocritical to want ever larger cars (mostly SUVs and trucks now) and yet point fingers at the companies we work for for their poor ESG funding and goals? We aren't even willing to accept cars that remain the same dimensions. They literally have to be bigger. That's despite average family sizes gradually declining for many decades. Climate change matters.. but not enough to give up the chance for a larger car next time.

Bigger vehicles means more materials (plastics, metals, etc), weight that could have been shaved, worse fuel/battery efficiency, and it wouldn't surprise me if it requires signifantly more asphalt and road repairs over time to accommodate the vehicles.

I could keep going about how obsessed we are with more and more horsepower and with lower 0-60 mph times, all of which are extremely excessive wants in the face of climate change.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#57

Post by Gigachad »

prng2021 wrote: post #56

I see many comments here, in various media, and hear in real world conversations blaming corporations and billionaires. They're not faultless but we should be way more critical of ourselves as average citizens. Every year we want bigger and bigger cars, particularly in the West, but it's a global long term trend. If you compare pretty much any 2022 vs 2002 model vehicle, say the Honda Accord, you're going to be shock…

Bill calls for greater innovation, but as soon as we get more efficient things, we just consume more.

We have constantly gotten better and better tech, and yet our consumption of resources only goes up. It seems that resource usage has nothing to do with how efficient or advanced our tech is, but simply the maximum amount of human labor we can allocate to resource extracting.

So climate change can only really be solved by a lower population.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#58

Post by Rebelgecko »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #47
anemoiac wrote: post #30

Decreasing consumption doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in quality of life. In the West, at least, we generally work too much, have too little social engagement, and spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives. Many things that could actually make us happier don't require much consumption, but they're essentially luxury goods because of the modern lifestyle's high demands. I'm…

>> we generally work too much I decide if I work too much. You don't get to decide if I work too much. >> have too little social engagement I get to decide my level of social engagement. You don't get to decide my level of social engagement. >> spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives I get to decide how to spend my money. You don't get to decide how to spend my money.

I don't think any of those are mutually exclusive. Choosing or being manipulated into choosing an unhealthy level of social engagement doesn't make it any less unhealthy

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#59

Post by bheadmaster »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #47
anemoiac wrote: post #30

Decreasing consumption doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in quality of life. In the West, at least, we generally work too much, have too little social engagement, and spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives. Many things that could actually make us happier don't require much consumption, but they're essentially luxury goods because of the modern lifestyle's high demands. I'm…

>> we generally work too much I decide if I work too much. You don't get to decide if I work too much. >> have too little social engagement I get to decide my level of social engagement. You don't get to decide my level of social engagement. >> spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives I get to decide how to spend my money. You don't get to decide how to spend my money.

Hard agree.

Anyone claiming that "we are X and Y" is just an authoritarian in disguise, trying to dictate how everyone else should live.

At some point they should really ask themselves whether "saving the planet" is actually worth it if everyone is locked up in a cage for the sake of controlling consumation. Might as well just kill us all.

Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less

#60

Post by The_Amp_Walrus »

Gigachad wrote: post #57
prng2021 wrote: post #56

I see many comments here, in various media, and hear in real world conversations blaming corporations and billionaires. They're not faultless but we should be way more critical of ourselves as average citizens. Every year we want bigger and bigger cars, particularly in the West, but it's a global long term trend. If you compare pretty much any 2022 vs 2002 model vehicle, say the Honda Accord, you're going to be shock…

Bill calls for greater innovation, but as soon as we get more efficient things, we just consume more. We have constantly gotten better and better tech, and yet our consumption of resources only goes up. It seems that resource usage has nothing to do with how efficient or advanced our tech is, but simply the maximum amount of human labor we can allocate to resource extracting. So climate change can only really be solv…

> as soon as we get more efficient things, we just consume more

That doesn't seem to be true in terms of C02 output

https://www.google.com/search?q=us+carbon+emissions+per+capi...

Post reply on HN