345
The climate crisis is solvable, but human rights must trump profits
(www.nature.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
345 points (98.3% liked)
World News
38969 readers
1696 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Good luck with that. Have you ever met humans?
I'm not worried about humans, I'm worried about the rich
And yet, we managed to mostly abolish slavery and child labour in most countries.
It's not going to be easy, but it can be done.
Not to be defeatist, but...
We didn't abolish slavery... we just replaced it with wage slavery. Sure, the workers are free to leave - and try to survive with no other job opportunities and no money. In fact, for the employers, this is actually preferable to real slavery, because there are lower upfront costs for your slaves, they don't try to run away or rebel, you don't have to pay for their healthcare or long term care, and in many places government tax dollars will subsidize their living expenses. Employers have it WAY better with wage slaves than real slaves.
Child labour is still alive and well in many countries, and even there the ball is rolling on rolling THAT back in the US at least.
I admire your positivity, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Don't forget prison labor slavery, especially in the south. It was specifically added for that very reason.
And also actual old-fashioned slavery. I've read there are more slaves in the world today than there were in the 1700s. Even modern western countries aren't immune, it's just more invisible .Sex trafficking is a good chunk of this.
If you really think that wage slavery is comparable to being owned by a human, then you're delusional.
Yes, slavery and child labour still exists. But if you think living in the US or China or India in 2024 is just as bad as 1850, then you are also delusional.
Some countries like Afghanistan or North Korea might be objectively worse, but those are a minority.
Okay, I can see how you got that from my post. I was a bit hyperbolic in my original post, and I apologize.
I'm not REALLY making a moral equivalence argument or saying anything about comparing the horrors of slavery to work... I'm saying getting rid of slavery was easier to enact because there was an alternative system that happened to be ultimately profitable for the rich at the same time. Yes, wars have been fought to stop abolition, but at the end of the day, after slavery was abolished, the rich found a way to stay rich almost everywhere - abolition came at very little real change to the wealth structure of society. They had a supply of labor to exploit for profit during slavery, and they had one after. The fact is that the moral and financial interests both aligned on making abolition happen - it wasn't caused by pure strength of willpower. And yes, the system we have now is MUCH MUCH better than true slavery, but it's still a stretch to use the current system as a beacon of hope.
On climate change the moral and financial interests are NOT aligned in a clear way. There are always still going to be financial incentives to screw the climate for extra money. By comparison, if slavery were somehow legal again TODAY, it's not clear it would be profitable for anybody to actually do it. That difference will make climate goals harder to enact.
There will always be winners and losers with any change.
Plantation owners definitely lost a lot of wealth due to the abolition of slavery, while the industrial tycoons gained a lot of wealth.
Switching away from fossil fuels will similarly benefit those who invest in the energy sources and technologies of the future, while shrinking the fortune of those dependent on fossil fuels.
Already, some forms of fossil energy are losing new investment.
For example, the high profile Keystone XL pipeline was never built, even though Trump approved it, because investors doubted its profit potential. Biden revoking the permit was mostly symbolic.
Now, I do otherwise agree with this more nuanced take of yours. Morality needs to be aligned with financial incentives in order to achieve change. That's just how our current world works and I don't see that basic mechanism changing.
So it makes more sense to focus on making fossil fuels less profitable, e.g. through taxation.
I agree with your conclusion, but I don't agree that it's feasible. Any tax solutions will involve legislation by a government owned by those same interests. And even if you managed it in major economies, you'd just force the climate issues into places with fewer qualms about their fuel usage. I'd love to see this problem solved, but my faith in our ability to resolve it is far less than yours.
Once the alternatives become more profitable, they will move to legislate in their favour.
Here in Europe, we already have billions in subsidies for wind and solar energy.
Will it go smoothly, or fast enough?
No, I think 3 degrees warming is basically inevitable at this point.
But it will happen, about five decades later than it should have happened.
Guess we will see in the next two decades.
I hope for everyone's sake you're right, but if that does come to pass it will come as a surprise to me.
I agree, all the evils of yesteryear are still there and active, just either well-hidden or people simply don't care/pretend not to know (cfr football world championships in Qatar, ...).
We've made enormous progress technologically, but humans are still the exact same as 2000 or 5000 years ago. We've changed exceedingly little in that time, and the few things that have changed could be reverted very quickly if shove comes to push concerning climate collapse etc.
Have we? Or do we just call it something else and make sure not to look?
Slavery still exist in USA. 13th. In the south they still have kids working legally on farms.
Did we, when?
Thank you, I needed a bit of optimism. 😀
Optimism is the enemy of progress. It just feels like delusional thinking at some point, and breeds complacency
That is 100% a lie, optimism is necessary to try to make change, optimism is the driver of progress.
Pessimism causes apathy.
So it's the exact opposite of what you claim.
Agree to disagree. I think optimism is exactly why weve done nothing. Fear is a powerful motivator.
Humans are wonderful. Not always good, not always reasonable, but wonderful.
We are rich, nuanced, vibrant beings. A small portion of us are defectors but by and large we are community focused and willing to give when we feel we are not being taken advantage of.
Unless you think all your friends, yourself, and your family are garbage it is inconsistent to assume a random sampling of humans would not display the same prosocial traits you find in them.
The one thing we are incapable of doing though is handling power.
All these claims are simply taking a look at a different angle.
It's like saying "cars pollute" and you reply with "but have you seen the beautiful colours they come in and how much faster than mules they are"
You are not wrong but neither are the people claiming humans are, as a herd, fairly dumb and incredibly selfish
wtf? by what standard?
Humans frequently band together during disaster, humans care for their young and old, humans don't typically engage in cannibalism of the weak, humans rarely fight to the death or even serious injury, we live in cities of millions with astonishingly low rates of violence etc etc
where is this terrible selfish stupid behaviour? what standard are you comparing the species to? we're more violent than orangutans but they've never set up water sanitation so I think we can call ourselves smart and we're less violent than chimps or gorillas... are you comparing us to fictitious ideal beings or what?
if the climate change inaction (or worse, sabotage) did not convince you, I am certain the COVID behaviour should have
If they are directly affected sure... otherwise people may throw some money (which is usually promptly embezzled) and move on
Their own young, sure let's say that is the common majority. Their own old? a lot more questionable. Other people's LOL... can't tell you how many people complain about their taxes feeding other people's children. But this is not an argument against what I claimed... what I said was basically echoing what Tommy Lee Jones beautifully said in MIB, in a nutshell: a human (as an individual) can be AMAZING, but humans (as a herd) tend to default to he lowest common denominator and that sucks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCwFkOZoOY
what do you think capitalism is?
Ok, now you are joking... no matter how old you are, I know with 100% accuracy that you have never lived in a world where, somewhere, there was a military conflict and people were being slaughtered... I know because we have not had such a time since 1816 (and that may just have been an absence of records)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=kkCwFkOZoOY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
you need to spend less time online and more time talking to your neighbours.
Again you are missing the point.
I know many great individuals, it's the masses I fear
You won't know the masses by knowing a few people. You learn by studying history and looking at statistics
"The masses" are just individuals. You sound like a 20 year old who just discovered atheism and started reading the paper.
I'm actually quite older.... And as you get older you'll see how the masses do not act as their individual parts
There's no fucking antenna that pops out of people's heads and overrides their thoughts when considered in abstract. That's Murdoch rag level of boomer bullshit.
Idk what broken arse society you feel like you're from but humans everywhere work towards the collective all the time. You try to come up with some derranged "actually we don't support the vulnerable" because propaganda about costs is written about and yet even in the face of that people continue to not attack each other in the streets. Oh capitalism is cannabalism is it? fucking derranged take but even so you just conveniently ignore how that system is enforced by a tiny minority and billions of people struggle against it or try to tame it. Oh climate change inaction huh? yes sure if you judge us all by the fucked up leaders of states but what about all the protests? what about all the climate scientists? The journalists writing about? what about the fact that greenwashing is an effective marketing strategy?
Like I'm sorry that Shazza and Bazza on the street don't know how to tackle massive structural issues but it is absolutely a lobotomised take to think that means they're not decent creatures.
It's a well documented sociological phenomena.. maybe read a book before raging
I'm not raging I'm Australian.