Friday, 29 March 2019

The Green New Deal and the case against incremental climate policy

quote [ The only way Democrats can hope to pass climate legislation is by radically shaking up the status quo balance of powers. ]

People who think the Green New Deal isn't realistic can't seem to come up with a better idea.
[SFW] [environment & nature] [+3 Underrated]
[by hellboy@12:26amGMT]

Comments

steele said[1] @ 1:31am GMT on 29th Mar [Score:3]
zarathustra said @ 2:29am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Funsightful]
I imagine someone like Trump picking up a maul to knock down the door but holding it by the blade.
steele said @ 2:38am GMT on 10th May
See, and I just imagine them falling over. :)
steele said @ 1:47am GMT on 29th Mar [Score:1 Good]
5th Earth said @ 5:02am GMT on 29th Mar
I really wish I could like the GND. But there's a difference between realistic and specific actions that will help the environment and wildly unrealistic goals.

Solar subsidies? Great! Carbon taxes? Roll 'em out! Nuclear plants? Glow, baby, glow! 100% clean energy in 10 years? You have no fucking idea how infrastructure works.
Menchi said @ 5:30am GMT on 30th Mar [Score:1 Sad]
"It's totally unreasonable to expect me to sprint three quarters of a mile to the nearest bus stop to make it to work on time. I mean, I did hit snooze repeatedly for an hour and a half, but *still*!"

The time for -realistic- goals that would actually help came and went years ago. We knew it was happening, but still chose to do nothing and let it be future us's problem.
steele said @ 11:35am GMT on 29th Mar
5th Earth said @ 6:10pm GMT on 30th Mar
There's a difference between giving up and acknowledging that the median time needed to bring a nuclear power plant online is 7.5 years.
steele said[1] @ 6:18pm GMT on 31st Mar [Score:1 Underrated]
We need to bring a full fucking halt to most co2 emissions very soon. If that requires a radical restructuring of our society and its economic system, which is what the GND is working towards, so be it. I mean, your first two proposals are subsidies and carbon taxes... the time for market based solutions was 30 years ago. The market is currently valuing fossil fuel companies based on co2 fuel which MUST NEVER BE BURNED. While everyone is concerned for rising oceans because humans can't breathe water, they seem to be ignoring that we can't breathe co2 beyond certain amounts either without significant cognitive losses to our mental faculties, the most extreme of which is death. The fact of the matter is that the GND actually is not enough. The future of humanity in which we are not putting our most extreme goals front and center and throwing every available resource towards accomplishing them, no matter how impossible they may seem, is extinction.
hellboy said[1] @ 5:52am GMT on 1st Apr [Score:1 Sad]
When Kennedy gave his "man on the moon" speech, only one American had ever been in space, and only for 15 minutes, while literally floating in a puddle of his own piss. The point of the GND is to set ambitious goals, because without ambitious goals, we're fucked. Like, you may know how infrastructure works, but you have no idea how fucked we are.

The goal of the GND is to keep the increase in global temperature below two degrees Celsius (a level that has already been described as "genocide" by the inhabitants of islands which will no longer exist, and which James Hansen says "is actually a prescription for long-term disaster"). In order to meet that probably-inadequate goal, we can only release another 565 gigatons of CO2 by 2050; at the current rate of output we'll hit that limit in less than ten years. The amount of CO2 in the fossil fuels that have already been leased is 2,795 gigatons (as of 2014), 80% of which must never be burned.

Yeah, switching everything over to nuclear and solar in ten years seems pretty close to impossible. But the person who sets out to save up a million dollars and only makes it halfway is still better off than the person who succeeds in their goal of saving up $100K. And we need to get as close to carbon neutral as possible in ten years, because, in case it isn't clear yet, we are fucked.
ComposerNate said @ 4:33pm GMT on 2nd Apr
Stop animal agriculture and get an immediate 30 year additional window to green transport and energy.
mechanical contrivance said @ 4:41pm GMT on 2nd Apr
That's about as likely as stopping all coal consumption.
snowfox said @ 8:57am GMT on 8th Apr
In your projection, are you slaughtering all the animals or just, like, keeping them around until they die of natural causes? Are you letting their domesticated species go extinct? How are you housing the ones left? Or did you plan to release them into the wild where they either won't survive or will be an invasive species?

It's not as simple as you make it sound and I've asked you these questions before. You've never addressed these issues. Are they not worth addressing, or do you not have a solution?
ComposerNate said @ 10:08pm GMT on 29th Apr
snowfox said @ 4:05am GMT on 1st May
I don't think you understood my question... if the demand stopped today, all the existing livestock does not magically go away. No one is buying and eating it. It is still there. What do we do with this leftover stock? Your assumption in this video is that it will be gradual rather than a dramatic shift with a profound impact, but the boom and bust of a product is rarely such a nice taper.

And it still doesn't address... do we let these animals go extinct? If they have no right to exist, why is it wrong to eat them? If they do have a right to exist, are we not obligated to preserve these domesticated species in the numbers required for a breeding population to continue? You're not accidentally allowing their extinction, it's a deliberate choice. They didn't breed themselves to be the way they are, we did that; it is not their fault they have no place in nature. Do we not bear a continued responsibility to our creations?

What about pets? Cats are obligate carnivores. Do we get rid of all the cats? How do we feed the cats? What are we feeding our carnivorous pets? Do they not also have a right to exist in your vegan world? Do you think a dachshund can exist on its own? We gave it stubby legs. It needs us to feed it. Are we going to slowly let the animals we've domesticated, who no longer have a place in the wild, go extinct?

If you make the argument they are unnatural so that makes it ok... well it's natural to eat meat and even to use animal products (ants keep livestock), so why isn't that ok? Naturalness cannot be the standard here. An inherent right to life for animals cannot be the standard here. You do not uphold either. All that leaves is your own personal distaste for killing, and no one is making you.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:00pm GMT on 1st May
I recommend the Frankenstein method: pass out and let our creation wander away to fend for itself.
ComposerNate said @ 8:14am GMT on 7th May
I am unable to imagine a realistic scenario where 100% demand stopped immediately today, which bends the scenario into theoretical fantasy for which I've given little consideration. Perhaps for a comic book plot? It may depend on why 100% demand stopped entirely at once, which may be due to 100% population somehow suddenly facing total moral disgust, in which case there would be a backlash against animal agriculture and that billion dollar industry would then be held responsible for making reparations and caring for the mothers they raped and children they separated and caged though have not yet slaughtered. Each country would probably handle the problem in their own way. The only comparison I can make is the various ways we handle the aftermath of wars. Given that a cow only lives 20 years when allowed, usually slaughtered in 5, and that's the longest living of stock animals, it's barely a generational problem to solve.

As it is, demand is gradually tapering, all fast food chains now offering plant-based alternatives to their junk food. Tyson's just this week announced introduction of a vegan line, which is huge.

Imagining stock animals would go extinct is as fantastic an idea, a healthy population anywhere less than 1% of current, something which could be decided maybe a decade after we somehow suddenly stop raping them. There were no cows or chickens as they are now even a century ago. Of a planet of animals currently alive now and dwindling toward extinction largely due to animal agriculture, the perseverance of stock animals is absolutely the least to be considered.

As for pets, I'm sure many species would thrive better without so many cats. We'd figure out the rest of the pet situation as it comes, it not my decision to make and I will not be forced an opinion or propose a solution for a problem I do not expect within my lifetime.
Fish said @ 5:38am GMT on 29th Mar [Score:-5 Boring]
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