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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

#111

Post by aussiesnack »

jshen wrote: post #11
aussiesnack wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a more general problem than something which is the result of capitalism Sure, but the point is that dismantling of ecosystems is capitalism's central organising principle. It's what capitalism is : denote sophisticated evolved ecosystems as "property" rather than world, then allow the "owners" to dismantle them to create crude technological systems that require ongoing inputs from the outputs of pr…

I think you are conflating a few things. The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.

The modern capitalist concept of property is abstracted a long way from its roots.

> Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.

I'm not proposing anything. I'm just describing our current system of organising the world, but in physical rather than the usual virtual terms. As a physical process, our current political/economic systems are dismantling the systems we live within. That doesn't mean I (not being a Nobel prize candidate!) could magically come up with a system to manage billions of people and an entire planet! I'm not particularly sanguine about anyone (or any collective) being able to. The destructive mechanisms are pushing us into emergency territory requiring fairly quick action, and H. Sapiens' cognitive/affective/conative capacities don't seem well adapted to the task of managing an entire planet. Given that evolution can't anticipate, why would they be?

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

#112

Post by t0bia_s »

HKH2 wrote: post #106
_8j50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, politi…

> So getting important people, politicians, celebrities use the best possible term I think is crucial. Getting them to be consistent in their messaging is even more important.

Propaganda never works.

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

#113

Post by csallen »

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…

Is there any evidence whatsoever that the "majority of the emissions of those countries belong to Western corporations"?

From what I've seen, the vast majority of the emissions/pollution from China and India are byproducts of them supporting their own citizens. It's not all exports. It's not majority exports.

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

#115

Post by aussiesnack »

verdverm wrote: post #20
dbingham wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit of a semantic dispute, but not an unimportant one. We are causing a major extinction event that is up there with the worst ones the Earth has experienced. That said, the end result is likely to be that we either go extinct or come very close and the remaining life on Earth picks up the pieces and starts re-evolving new biodiversity from the diversity bottleneck. It's happened before and life on Earth, as…

Unlike the other instances, we have the potential to reverse the trend. Blaming capitalism does not help, it's just how we organize economically, to which there is no known better alternative

> Blaming capitalism does not help

Why should descriptions 'help'?

> to which there is no known better alternative

Why should there be? The only reason I can think of is if you have a prior religious/metaphysical belief in a specific species (in this case H. Sapiens) having a 'destiny'. If OTOH you see species as contingently arising, well, then: they come, they change, and sometimes they overrun, and go.

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

#116

Post by adrianmonk »

We all want to find a bogeyman to pin climate change on. Especially if that bogeyman is someone we already like hating. Popular targets of hate which might be compatible include: capitalism, corporations, oil companies, our government, someone else's government, and someone else's generation.

But, if you choose to frame it in terms of guilt, the truth is we are all "guilty". We all benefited from it. Some definitely share more guilt than others, but honestly we let many of them get away with it on purpose so we could get the benefits.

Internal combustion engines (and before that external combustion engines) are how industrialization happened. It's how we got to our current level of development. We, the human race, used energy to lift ourselves out of what we'd now consider poverty, and we created that energy by burning whatever we could get our hands on that would burn. And I really think there was no other way at the time.

If you are able to read this message through the magic of the internet, or if you have access to a reliable source of food and some choice of what to eat, or if you're wearing clothes you didn't sew yourself, or if you received modern healthcare, or if you lived in a society that was prosperous enough that it could give you an education, all that was to a large degree made possible by the industrial revolution and fossil fuels.

What's more, if you have a solar panel on your roof, or if you are able to buy electricity that comes from wind energy, or if you drive an electric car, all of that was also made possible by fossil fuels. Clean technology didn't invent itself. We had to get to the point where we could invent it, and that is the result of humanity having the resources available for centuries to invest in developing science, math, engineering, and manufacturing.

Now, of course, we've put ourselves in a situation which is unsustainable, and we have to move on to the next phase and basically discard half the world's infrastructure and start over. It absolutely has to be done, but it's going to be crazy expensive and disruptive, and that's a tough pill to swallow. But making it about guilt and blame doesn't actually help get it done. The only thing it does is help you feel better if you believe the guilt rests on someone else. You can tell yourself, "We're screwed, but it's not my fault." Even if it's true, the value of that consolation prize isn't much.

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

#117

Post by Schroedingersat »

civilized wrote: post #37

The slow, halting pace at which we are addressing climate change is the product of human stupidity and selfishness, as well as the immense difficulty of rebuilding our energy infrastructure from scratch. None of that is inherent to capitalism. Show me a non-capitalist country that is combatting climate change better than a capitalist country. Countries that don't emit because they're poor don't count. The closest thi…

There are no capitalist nuclear reactors.

They're all funded through government intervention for non-market reasons. The general trend is for more private intervention leading to them being less successful and more likely not to even be built. The EDF was a public entity when they built most of their reactors, and Flamanville was an absolute debacle.

Capitalism is fundamentally incapable of building for the future and paying for its externalities in the way required to build safe nuclear power. This is exactly the same problem that leads to climate change.

Thankfully we have solar panels which are compatable with capitalism.

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

#118

Post by _8j50 »

t0bia_s wrote: post #112
HKH2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So getting important people, politicians, celebrities use the best possible term I think is crucial. Getting them to be consistent in their messaging is even more important.

Propaganda never works.

Umm... it works very well on most people, that's why i lt exists. If you doubt this, examine your own beliefs and look for propaganda.

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

#119

Post by civilized »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #117
civilized wrote: post #37

The slow, halting pace at which we are addressing climate change is the product of human stupidity and selfishness, as well as the immense difficulty of rebuilding our energy infrastructure from scratch. None of that is inherent to capitalism. Show me a non-capitalist country that is combatting climate change better than a capitalist country. Countries that don't emit because they're poor don't count. The closest thi…

There are no capitalist nuclear reactors. They're all funded through government intervention for non-market reasons. The general trend is for more private intervention leading to them being less successful and more likely not to even be built. The EDF was a public entity when they built most of their reactors, and Flamanville was an absolute debacle. Capitalism is fundamentally incapable of building for the future an…

I agree that government is needed for the biggest "capital" expenditures. Separate point from the article, which is just more cliche "once we somehow stop believing in the capitalism ideology (and believe in my preferred ideology instead) people will stop being bad and there will be sunshine and rainbows"

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

#120

Post by nightski »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #104
nightski wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy is the lifeblood of humanity. We can't demonize it, the only path forward is to embrace it and find a way to utilize the near infinite energy available to us in the universe in a fashion that is environmentally safe. Also capitalism is about efficient allocation of capital. It really doesn't require growth of the economy as a whole (imho). Sure it encourages innovation and growth of new ideas, but that is usua…

> Energy is the lifeblood of humanity. We can't demonize it, the only path forward is to embrace it and find a way to utilize the near infinite energy available to us in the universe in a fashion that is environmentally safe. I didn't say that energy was bad. What I wrote was > Capitalism incentivizes increased economic output, which incentivizes increased energy consumption. Barring regulations to internalize the ex…

I guess I was just saying that humans incentivize energy consumption, not capitalism. Capitalism maybe just facilitates it since that is what people want? That was my premise.
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