Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling • Hacker News Board

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#51

Post by derelicta » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:05 PM UTC

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #15

Next: Europe loses the fight and submits to the coalition of authoritarian regimes. Those swiss baboushkas will be writing complaints from their gulag cells in broken Russian or Chinese. Nice job. When conquered by the authoritarian regimes, we are going to lose the environment much quicker while losing our freedom, democracy and human rights too.

Ur so right sweety its so totalitarian! People should simply mimick the Greatest Republic mankind has ever known aka America and do jack-shit while megacorps dump ungodly amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere and microplastics in our rivers for it is Real Freedom™!

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#52

Post by MichaelZuo » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:08 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #47

constantcrying wrote: post #9

This is legitimately insane. You have a court, which was created in an attempt to give legal options to victims of crimes committed by nation state and which could not be heard elsewhere. And people are suing over whatever a tiny European state doesn't do to stop environmental harm. Which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all . And these people are from the country on earth where the population h…

> So the human rights violation is essentially being committed by the population themselves. Yes, but people have the right to sue the population itself. Usually the legal system comes with ranks, and if a higher rank rule contradicts a lower rank rule, the higher rank rule prevails. Usually the constitution is at the top, then come international treatises, laws, then contracts. So if a law has been voted by the peop…

Changing the constitution in Switzerland has a very low bar, I actually cant think of another country where it's easier.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#53

Post by Rochus » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:16 PM UTC

yareal wrote: post #8

Rochus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a pretty far-fetched interpretation. Let's stick to the obvious. One should be able to expect that a board of an association that is committed to a cause should have at least a few people on it who have formal training in that cause and appropriate professional experience. Otherwise, you could ask yourself with good reason why they can't find any experts to officially represent their cause.

Are they doing science? Or are they litigating to influence their government based on the science. I'd argue that, contextually, they do have people with formal training on the cause - influencing governmental change. Those folks can hire experts to interpret white papers if needed, but they aren't participating in science, they are consuming it. (I don't need to be an excellent musician to advocate for the belief th…

Would you buy stocks in a biochemistry or medicine company without a single biochemist or physician on the board?

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#54

Post by mrtksn » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:23 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #41

mrtksn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is one thing but China might be on the way to pull one giant success here, despite being one of the worse offenders up until recently. They actually built giant infrastructure projects like high speed rail and become the leading country in automobile electrification(at least we can say that it BYD is the top dog when it comes to electric cars, not Tesla or some established company like VW). I have never been t…

China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds [1] China continues coal spree despite climate goals [2] Two "progressive" outlets report on how China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week . No matter how much you may want to root for China's right to grow its economy this does not seem like a "giant success" when seen through a "climate" l…

These are not really contradicting positions. You can improve the efficiency of your infrastructure when building coal plants and the improved efficiency of your infrastructure will still be a step in the right direction. Also, China doing some things right is not the same as China being the best, let's not look at the world in black & white.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#55

Post by bschne » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:24 PM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #35

bschne wrote: post #5

I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a pr…

>despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact Sorry but Switzerland is hosting some of the largest coal mining and sale intermediaries in the world (Vitol, Glencore, etc), where a lot of wealth is made from fossil fuel mining and sales, even if it's not a direct consumer or producer, along with Nestle and other major Swiss conglomerates being directly responsible for environmental da…

I was talking about GHG emissions, directly and embedded in consumption, as that seems to mostly have been the thing at issue in this case.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#56

Post by neoromantique » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 12:58 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #50

neoromantique wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offtopic: How serious of a worry is it? I'm considering moving to Portugal next year to be further away from Russian border, from outside it looks like fairly quiet and stable-ish place.

Not sure on how it will evolve, right now the parliament is mostly composed by right parties, and the moderated right party alliances (which won), can hardly do anything without the votes from extreme right parties or the other major party theh socialists (moderated left). So it depends pretty much how they will do their goverment deals with other parties, as means to get their proposals approved. From 230 seats, 58…

Thanks, I'll try to familiarize with it more(As in, what it would mean for me on a practical level).

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#57

Post by fsflover » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 1:09 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #53

yareal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they doing science? Or are they litigating to influence their government based on the science. I'd argue that, contextually, they do have people with formal training on the cause - influencing governmental change. Those folks can hire experts to interpret white papers if needed, but they aren't participating in science, they are consuming it. (I don't need to be an excellent musician to advocate for the belief th…

Would you buy stocks in a biochemistry or medicine company without a single biochemist or physician on the board?

A biochemistry or medicine company must do something novel to be relevant. In this case it's not necessary.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#58

Post by fsflover » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 1:11 PM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #17

yareal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they doing science? Or are they litigating to influence their government based on the science. I'd argue that, contextually, they do have people with formal training on the cause - influencing governmental change. Those folks can hire experts to interpret white papers if needed, but they aren't participating in science, they are consuming it. (I don't need to be an excellent musician to advocate for the belief th…

I don’t take a group that’s all advocacy, zero expertise as a serious attempt to solve a complex challenge facing society. If you wanted to be taken seriously about “equitable pay for musicians”, then you’d absolutely need people who understand the economics and market dynamics of the music industry. Only having legal expertise makes it seem like you’re merely lobbying your personal feelings — not about a real proble…

The difference here is that there is nothing unclear about the climate change. Opinion of the experts is available online, without a need to involve them in every action.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#59

Post by soco » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 1:11 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #9

This is legitimately insane. You have a court, which was created in an attempt to give legal options to victims of crimes committed by nation state and which could not be heard elsewhere. And people are suing over whatever a tiny European state doesn't do to stop environmental harm. Which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all . And these people are from the country on earth where the population h…

One of the big reasons so little gets done on the climate topic is exactly this attitude: let the others do something because they're bigger/worse/richer/whatever. And everybody waits for the everybody else, in a very mexican standoff. Now look, the Swiss did something, right? Which is much more than many others - including those you mentioned - currently do.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#60

Post by leereeves » Tue, Apr 09, 2024, 1:15 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #54

hagbard_c wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds [1] China continues coal spree despite climate goals [2] Two "progressive" outlets report on how China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week . No matter how much you may want to root for China's right to grow its economy this does not seem like a "giant success" when seen through a "climate" l…

These are not really contradicting positions. You can improve the efficiency of your infrastructure when building coal plants and the improved efficiency of your infrastructure will still be a step in the right direction. Also, China doing some things right is not the same as China being the best, let's not look at the world in black & white.

Sure, China can improve "efficiency" by building more green energy plants at the same time as coal plants, if the proportion of new coal plants is lower than existing plants.

But that still increases total emissions.