Oh man, I have another idea: end capitalism. We already produce all we need, just got to dump the powerful few that put their power and profit over people's lives.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2022
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That's the only sane solution going forward.
With climate change, there's a good chance we will no longer be able to meet humanity's needs. Besides, better yields means that we could be converting land back to nature, much like with reduced meat consumption.
Climate change, another consequence of capitalism that capitalism is standing in the way of solving.
Communism is perfectly capable of ruining the environment. See: the Soviet Union sucking the Aral Sea dry.
This isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is. Mistakes and disasters will happen under any system because it's impossible to definitively predict what will happen when dealing with complex systems.
The difference however is that capitalism necessitates growth by its very nature, and encourages businesses to externalize their costs such as environmental destruction in order to maximize profits. Capitalism is fundamentally built on the idea of endless consumption, and has created lots of innovations like planned obsolescence to keep producing things as quickly as possible.
On the other hand, communism doesn't hinge on growth and constantly producing things in order for the economy to function. In fact, work is actually seen as a cost to the state. There is an incentive to produce goods that last and can be repaired.
Systemic pressures are very different between the two systems.
Just because a country is communist doesn't mean they will automatically be better for the environment. However a communist country is better equipped and more willing to take actions to solve these real problems.
Right, a political system alone can't guarantee that things will be better. What the system does is create selection pressures that drive behavior.
Mostly it will be bad because it will want the best for it's people...or dicktator rather than for the environment. In capitalism land, if you want to help the environment, you can. Also if you want to take people's money (hard worked hours of people's lives), then you must look out for the environment too. Obviously capitalism is a shitty people's thinking economy, but it's better than having the same asshole abuse you for your entire life and then some. Here's a list of people who need to be dropped into a 200ton rock pulverizer machine for the whole weekend: putin, dictators, drug lords, bankers, billionaires, kings, princesses, princes, queens, duchesses and dukes, aristocrats, guys from Montana, all religious figures, and whoever else doesn't work or take care of kids or did that a while a ago before their 60s. That's going to be some lazy ass mole right there.
On the other hand, communism doesn’t hinge on growth and constantly producing things in order for the economy to function.
Theoretically, sure. Realistically, see China.
You mean the same China that's currently the only major nation with an actual plan to transition off fossil fuels that's being implemented at scale as we speak?
- https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chinas-energy-transition-in-5-charts/
- https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-2060-climate-pledge-is-largely-consistent-with-1-5c-goal-study-finds
- https://www.greenbiz.com/article/these-are-strategies-behind-chinas-ambitious-clean-energy-transition
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/16/china-and-solutions-to-climate-change/
- https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/10/chinas-solar-powered-future
- China has more than 400,000 electric buses, about 99% of the world's total.
- https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/content/greening-peoples-republic-chinas-investment-conservation-0
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-climate-goals-hinge-on-440-billion-nuclear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s
- https://www.csis.org/east-green-chinas-global-leadership-renewable-energy
- https://apjjf.org/2022/18/Mathews-Huang.html
China's also doing most of reforestation in the world
Meanwhile US/EU overwhelmingly responsible for emissions despite outsourcing a bunch of their production to countries like China.
Meanwhile US/EU overwhelmingly responsible for emissions despite outsourcing a bunch of their production to countries like China.
Top 10 Countries with the Highest CO₂ Emissions in the World (Unit: million tons CO₂) - 2020 EDGAR:*
China - 11,680.42
United States - 4,535.30
India - 2,411.73
Russia - 1,674.23
Japan - 1,061.77
Iran - 690.24
Germany - 636.88
South Korea - 621.47
Saudi Arabia - 588.81
Indonesia - 568.27
Oooh what a gotcha! Now compare populations.
learn what per capita means so you stop embarrassing yourself
I've found this point amazingly hard to beat into people's noggins. Some will even say that per capita doesn't matter, and give some bullshit reason. The lack of logical thinking astounds me.
Meanwhile US/EU overwhelmingly responsible for emissions despite outsourcing a bunch of their production to countries like China.
learn what per capita means so you stop embarrassing yourself
Surprise, surprise:
Top 10 Countries with the Highest CO₂ Emissions Per Capita (Unit: million tons CO₂) - 2020 EDGAR:
Palau - 55.29
Qatar - 35.64
New Caledonia - 25.52
Trinidad & Tobago - 21.97
Bahrain - 21.60
Kuwait - 20.91
United Arab Emirates - 20.70
Brunei - 17.95
Saudi Arabia - 16.96
Oman - 16.90
You are welcome.
I like to source my claims instead of pulling them out of my ass, you're welcome:
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
Compare per capita, also adjust it with trade (i mean for whom exactly the production and therefore emissions happens) and finally look at the historical emissions.
What are historical emissions supposed to tell you about economic systems? Also, the per capita emissions for China aren't exactly stellar at around 8 tons/person/year. Yes, I know there are trade adjustments to do to better represent Chinese consumption.
What are historical emissions supposed to tell you about economic systems?
It shows who exactly is more responsible for the climate change overall, since the planet is not resetting itself every year.
But does that not tell you more about where China was economically in the past than anything to do with connections between its economic system and its emissions? After all, there are plenty of countries with similar per capita histories that are fully capitalist.
It tells me how much pollution particular states released in the past. We of course could divide this by the time/capita etc, and it would still not look bad for China, considering for how short they are industrialised country, but the point of historical emission is just simple showing who polluted more overall.
Sure, see above.
True! But only capitalism is destroying humanity's ability to survive on this planet. And profiting off the destruction. And incentivizing it to continue, to the detriment of everyone I know and love.
I thought ruzzia was beating the bejisus out of Ukraine and was threatening to go nuklier when Ukraine got a little help from it's friends. I thought ruzzia was a dictatorship.
Modern day Russia is indeed every bit a disgusting capitalist mess.
The fact that many Americans think that modern Russia is communist is a real testament to the effectiveness of US propaganda.
I might say it's a testament to American's ability to pay absolutely no attention to the world around them, and still have a huge ego trip thinking they know what's what. The first word that comes to mind when describing what capitalism did to Russia is "criminal." And I don't honestly believe the guilty parties will ever be held responsible for what they did.
yeah that's a good point as well