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Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

globalpolicyjournal.com

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Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#81

Post by gruez »

jfengel wrote: post #54
yrgulation wrote: post #24

Quoted post unavailable.

That's kind of the point of the article: it's all capitalism. (Despite the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, it's run under "capitalism with Chinese characteristics".) Capitalism is the reason we have climate change: the environment is an externality that isn't priced in, and so it's treated as zero cost. Anybody who tries to incorporate that cost single-handledly will be at an economic disadvantage to somebody wh…

>it's run under "capitalism with Chinese characteristics"

Not sure if you're using the quote to imply that's the position of the chinese government, but their line is "Socialism with Chinese characteristics"[1], not capitalism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact...

>Capitalism is the reason we have climate change: the environment is an externality that isn't priced in, and so it's treated as zero cost. Anybody who tries to incorporate that cost single-handledly will be at an economic disadvantage to somebody who doesn't, and capitalism will destroy the former and reward the latter.

How do you explain the communist regimes out there that also consume fossil fuels?

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#83

Post by miguelazo »

nostromo wrote: post #77
otikik wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incredibly short sighted. The reason why you don’t see that much pollution in your country is that it has been outsourced to other countries with more lax pollution laws and less worker protection laws. This means that fabrication of an item produces more pollution than if it was built in your country (where there’s more regulation). And then there’s even more pollution due to the long transportation haul. Bu…

Germany and the US also export a tremendous amount of goods, and do so without clogging up our rivers (and eventually the ocean) with trash. And studies have shown that only 15% of China's CO2 emissions are for the production of exports. That means that 85% of their CO2 emissions are for local production. [1] Lastly, the amount of economic value the US and other advanced nations produce per unit of Co2 is much higher…

That's mostly due to the TYPES of exports involved.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#84

Post by [deleted] »

jfengel wrote: post #54
yrgulation wrote: post #24

Quoted post unavailable.

That's kind of the point of the article: it's all capitalism. (Despite the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, it's run under "capitalism with Chinese characteristics".) Capitalism is the reason we have climate change: the environment is an externality that isn't priced in, and so it's treated as zero cost. Anybody who tries to incorporate that cost single-handledly will be at an economic disadvantage to somebody wh…

[deleted]

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#85

Post by _8j50 »

geenew wrote: post #62
_8j50 wrote: post #26

Hear me out: "Climate change" is a terrible phrase, of course climate changes, when talking to regular people that's like saying "water flow" to describe flooding. "Climate destabilization" or something akin to that would communicate what is happening better to the people that vote.

At this point, there's been - Inadvertent climate modification* - Global Warming - Anthropogenic Global Warming - Global Heating - Climate Change - Climate Crisis - Climate Emergency I don't disagree with the thrust of your point, but the same argument you make against 'climate change' could also be made against 'climate destabilizaiton', since destabilization can have human and non-human causes (for example, the ris…

A lot of people (anti-vaxx types) don't buy it because of supposed incorrect past predictions bu science, they believe science is misinterpreting the cause of the change, so it is important to emphasize that you are not unsure about the cause and it is a very serious thing. Most people believe things when people they trust say so, since they know they lack the expertise themselves. So getting important people, politicians, celebrities use the best possible term I think is crucial.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#86

Post by gruez »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #64
epistasis wrote: post #49

Is every form of industrialization, from the USSR to the UK to the US to China, capitalist? Is the current energy transition, funded by massive amounts of capital, and the result of industrialization of technology, somehow less capitalistic? Are the ESG efforts somehow less capitalist? Sometimes, our mental frames are traps rather than tools for understanding the world. This essay makes me think that this person is q…

> This idea that capitalism is all growth is a very simple-minded and inaccurate view of capitalism. It's also the death of firms. It's stagnation. Its fortunes squandered, in addition to fortunes built. Capitalism incentivizes increased economic output, which incentivizes increased energy consumption. Barring regulations to internalize the externalities of co2 emissions, this means it incentivizes increased fossil f…

>Capitalism incentivizes increased economic output

You think the central planners in USSR or PRC didn't care about economic output?

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#87

Post by amelius »

epistasis wrote: post #49

Is every form of industrialization, from the USSR to the UK to the US to China, capitalist? Is the current energy transition, funded by massive amounts of capital, and the result of industrialization of technology, somehow less capitalistic? Are the ESG efforts somehow less capitalist? Sometimes, our mental frames are traps rather than tools for understanding the world. This essay makes me think that this person is q…

> You know what else is grow-or-die? Life itself. All of life is a series of exponential growth, followed by slower growth. It's all logistic curves.

Isn't that true in pathological cases only? Like when a bacterium takes over an entire petri dish?

In balanced ecosystems, I don't think what you say holds (there may be logistic curves but it's not one species that takes over the entire habitat).

In contrast, in capitalism without government intervention, we all know that the end-game is a monopoly that may even span multiple markets.

So in your biology analogy this would correspond perhaps to humans taking over the planet and destroying all other life.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#88

Post by [deleted] »

unity1001 wrote: post #67
yrgulation wrote: post #24

Quoted post unavailable.

> Wondering what are countries such as china and india doing to maintain a cleaner planet if anything at all They did SO gigantic a reforestation that it is visible from space. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144540/china-and-in... > We keep blaming ourselves while underdeveloped and corrupt nations pollute virtually everything in the their management. That literally sounds like supremacist, 'we are civilize…

[deleted]

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#90

Post by turtlebits »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #35
yrgulation wrote: post #24

Quoted post unavailable.

Where do you think all the products manufactured in China are going? The west is taking advantage of cheap labor in China and pushing all the externalities there. You're using a computer or smartphone that was presumably largely made in China to post this message. To then turn around and say that climate change is entirely China's fault is absurd. You have to look at what countries are actually consuming the products…

Consumer demand isn't the problem. The willingness to ignore pollution, labor conditions and safety in order to produce goods at the lowest price is.
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