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Big oil quietly walks back on climate pledges as global heat records tumble
(www.theguardian.com)
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(edit: had to split the post because of reaching max limit)
I challenge that very much: how can you hope to solve a problem that you chose deliberately to look at from a narrow angle and not in its entirety?
Where is this evidence again? If we are still talking about climate change here, and not diverting into a political crusade, we can just look at the emissions causing the warming, their main cause, and find that they map to an exponential increase of human activities since the industrial revolution. Exponentially more people live, consume resources (food, shelter, heating, goods), and reproduce. This is life in its most quintessential aspect, the very same you would observe in a Petri dish. Are bacteria consuming nutrients till they cause their own extinction forming a capitalist structure, too?
No, YOU have to back the exceptional claim that this has anything to do with capitalism. The fact that the ruling class opposes change is pretty much what defines it: elites wants to preserve their status. You and I have a problem with conservatism, not capitalism, unless you consider that every member of the current elite defends capitalist ideals, which is fairly easy to disprove by just looking at the religious elite or nobility around the world.
First, I will laugh at the association of "China" with "anti-imperialist country". Then, as it happens, almost all developed economies have been drastically reducing their carbon footprint for the better part of the last century, with the EU leading the way and having a carbon footprint per capita now significantly lower than that of China (which keeps increasing). I'm not sure what China is leading actually (other than in your information bubble, apparently) by having installed more new fossil energy production in the recent years than renewable. In terms of ratio of clean vs fossil energy in its energy mix, China is not even in the upper median of the world, and in this decade we can expect China to surpass the EU in terms of cumulative emissions which is inexcusable in this day and age. This was not even the point of this discussion, but I'm happy to have rectified this at least.
by not wasting time talking about things that are unrelated. If you're bleeding you first stop the flow, not try to find how to create steel skin. By focusing so much on abstract concepts and your liberal view of history, you're avoiding talking about this specific issue. Funnily enough though you still insist in pretending you're interested in it at all.
here. And here. Also all the other ones. "what evidence???".
Look at this ~~photo~~ fucking graph. Now this one. One is up by like 6 times while the other one is almost a 100, so they're not proportional. "where's evidence?"
Bacteria, famous for having governments, research institutions and social organisations. They also have opinions on the concept of private property and knowledge of their limited resources.
Wait you don't? Then disprove it, please, since it's so easy.
When was the last China-backed regime change? Then compare it with the last talks of doing a regime change in China itself. And then look into all the partnerships that China has through the BRICS and show how they were actually imperialist all along. Take your time.
First link with USA added, second link is broken but I fixed it and also doesn't say that they've "installed more coal than renewable" and in fact contradicts the notion of them developing thermal more than renewable.
Third one I have no idea how you got "median" of the mix out of it or what you mean by that. It's even per capita. Change from relative to absolute and click the "play button and you'll see how quickly China has caught up on green energy production within just the last 20 years while the others stagnated. Also note how much energy Europe and the USA consume per capita compared to the world median.
Fourth one at least is interesting, but I think the tragedy here is how a rapidly developing country under a trade war is being blamed for not having access to the resources it needs to develop further. It sure would be lovely if the Capitalist developed countries exported their technology to help China develop its green energy further, but instead they have been blocking critical tech exports there. I guess we need to ignore that because it's political.
Either way, it's also very important to be careful when jumping between different metrics such as total, per capita and per KWh. Trying to consider all of those in a black or white manner will lead you to awkward and subtle mistakes and syllogisms. Here's a very well researched article that goes in depth on how the CPC is leading the way into actually producing more carbon-efficient energy. This twitter thread also has a lot of reading material on how China has been on a gigantic green energy growth spurt for the last 30 years both in internal production and also in importing infrastructure. Solar, Wind, Hydro. All those sources are political and not made by the IPCC, so be careful there.
It's okay to think they're not doing enough, but to pretend that the EU (which is very dependent on their polluter friend the USA) is somehow beating them at this despite their very minor improvements over the past 20 years is just disingenuous. If you remember energy production 20 years ago you'll notice that it has barely changed in capitalist countries, while anti-capitalist countries really care about it. This comes from the intuitive fact that the power serves the common proletarian, who are the most affected by climate change, rather than the stockholders.
This was actually the point of the discussion, and I'm happy you finally addressed it so I could rectify it. Now reply to me by ignoring all the listed sources, while moving the discussion to other nonsense abstract notions of bacteria and ancient civilisation, like you seem to enjoy doing.
The only way that you could hope to gain traction in your stated mission to abolish capitalism is by convincing others that whatever comes next will stand the test of time, and so I am legitimately curious. I don't think we can afford buying into pretty but empty promises.
I really don't understand what's causing your vivid reaction here and you said nothing to help me understand it. But okay.
So I take away that you are a science denialist. If so, I don't see the point of continuing further, because this could be all fake news as well. And if not, then I'll ask what you gain from removing the scientific step from the decision process. And I would re-iterate my offer to provide evidence that the IPCC is biased as you claim.
You missed the forest for the tree, didn't you? At the very least you deflected my question. In the present world order, how do those pertain to capitalism, and in the new world order that you propose, how are they addressed?
I know this is sarcasm and I have no idea where you are going with your dead people's law, but at least in the case of the social questions above, science, and the IPCC in particular could provide some partial answers (e.g. how long/how big the sacrifice, how to adjust to many aspects of every-day's life), which will absolutely help weather the incoming storm. I really don't see the need to denigrate.
Who exactly are my bourgeois overlords? And how are they compelling me to over-consume exactly? Perhaps it's not obvious but you and I must be very close on the political spectrum, and I could be your best ally when it comes to proposing a more sustainable lifestyle for the future. My problem is that your discourse is not nearly as polished as you make it to be, and shooting the messenger without addressing the core of the issue will not give you legitimacy and support. I live in a mostly socialist highly-educated country where our political landscape is diverse and organized in coalitions who must compromise. Unlike some stereotypes, we were not "brainwashed" during the cold war into believing that the world must exist in an extreme form of either communism or capitalism. Capitalism isn't something that I see practically affect my life because without specifics (which this thread is lacking en masse), this is just an abstract construct. Market laws (offer vs supply) do, but this is trade, this doesn't equate capitalism, and I think I already made that point clear.
I don't think you did. All I (mis)read is that abolishing capitalism to be a condition for addressing climate change, and I've been begging to know more about how it will play out in practice.
I can only offer my biased and limited opinion, sorry. Part of which you already got in my paragraph about the "easy culprits" (people being scared of change, etc) which still stands. I believe there are many large issues, the fact that most people are in denial about it is a significant one: no matter what we do now, we will collectively take a huge cut in our quality and comfort of life for the centuries to come; pensions, property titles, diplomas, insurances, … will become meaningless and that's a tough one to swallow. Most people are just incapable to imagine such a world, and won't react until too late. Then comes the fact that most countries have experienced the late stage of their demographic shift: you get a large population of elderly and politicians representing them who won't get to live through the hardship of climate change, and who have little to no incentive to do anything about it. Then comes the fact that this is a global phenomenon that affects all countries unequally but requires all of them to agree, commit, and execute toward a common goal. We have no global instance with the legitimacy to oversee and arbitrate in this context, and I doubt there will ever be one. This post is long-enough but I think you got the gist.
First staunch flow, then treat infection, then do a course on first aid. If you do it the other way around you just die, though you at least get to be smug about it.
Vivid is a strange synonym for "sarcastic." If you actually think anything can be done in an organised social society while ignoring opinions by looking only at "science," I'm pretty sure you have no idea how anything, be it societal actions, be it actual research, gets done in practice. Have you ever heard the phrase "expert's opinion," or do you think data is some kind of holy word from god that speaks in tongues by itself?
Nope. You pretend don't want to deal with social questions that are impossible to measure, yet most of your questions you want answers for are exactly those. Which follows with:
Showing that you have no idea how social sciences work. You yourself listed dead people's laws, which is why I pointed it out as absurd to measure scientifically. It's on you to actually provide some data-only opinion-less analysis that measures the impact of social concepts such as these, but spoilers, you won't find anything of value. They are unmeasurable and so are based on our human understanding which comes from studying and understanding many different perspectives and interpretations. There is no single "correct factual way" in social studies for the vast majority of cases, which is why I mocked your naïveté there. Good luck "factually" finding answers to your questions of interest in your future job at the IPCC.
Leave your computer device, pick your car, go to the supermarket, but some plastic with food in it, go back to your apartment, pay your rent, buy new electronic devices, maybe contract Hello Fresh because you don't have time to shop groceries or watch yet another multimillion Marvel production from your ever-increasing backlog. Then come back and tell me which of those things are absolutely necessary for you. Specially considering the human and ecological cost to all of those things that you probably ignore daily.
Best ally seems incredibly unlikely, what do you even do to help? Vote?
I'd like you to actually define socialism because we have a bunch of libs thinking the NHS is socialism running around. Also not sure what "highly-educated" has to do with anything. Weird flex.
lol
Did on the other one. Either way if you want me to get a USA government body to analyse the carbon benefit of toppling the USA, you're gonna have to help me crowdfund it. I and others have shown here how capitalism is preventing us from democratically fighting climate change. Unless you know of some way to bypass those hurdles within capitalism (please don't say "vote harder"), it naturally follows that abolishing capitalism is at least the only alternative we know.
Have a read from scientific material. This might help you stop blaming civilians with no power.
For that you'd need to have linked literally any research for me to deny it. You have only named the IPCC randomly without providing any specific article, and I have not denied the truth of the only one you actually provided (the ancient China one). If you think science is only looking at pretty graphs in OWID and pretending that's the whole picture, you might be a bit out of your league here, and that is why you're so set on your positions while being so vague and abstract about the issue at hand. I say this as an actual researcher, though not of physics or meteorology.
Every research institution has a bias, research is made by humans and they have limited resources to allocate to every avenue of research. Even simple stuff like choosing one metric over another is a source of bias that needs to always be taken into account in any serious research. I don't think it's that important to prove that "the IPCC is biased" knowing that, and again you have not even provided a direct source from the IPCC for that to be relevant. Research has to take account of a multitude of sources and be very aware of what is and is not actually being studied, as well as paying attention to whether experiments are shown to be reproducible. You might notice that the IPCC provides recommendations as well as data, and since the data collection methods, the analysis already always contain some biases, the recommendations themselves will have even more as they are based on (very informed) opinion. Being biased isn't a bad thing, it is natural, but failing to account for it is the problem. Not sure why liberals and laypeople keep getting this wrong.
But I guess I'll humour you. 1, 2, 3, 4. Those are very well known cases of meddling.
Edit: btw, if you don't want to split posts (please don't because they're annoying for me to reply to), then don't quote yourself from two replies ago. I can just go check it, as I repeatedly do, and you're just wasting space.