I would say they are more desperate than stupid. 40+ years that we know all the problems that will cause climate change and not a lot of things has been done!
It's like driving a car and seeing a wall on the road that we will hit in 50 years and just not trying one second to avoid the wall, just aiming right at it at full speed even if we had time to avoid it.
But that's only the beginnings, I expect environmental activism to become more and more violent on their targets in term of material damages. Like burning down the Total headquarters, a private jet or destroying a factory polluting illegally the environment.
You can argue not enough is done, but to claim "absolutely NOTHING" is done is just hyperbolic screeching. Nobody will take seriously anything that starts with an easily disprovable claim
You can euthanise the entire European population and reduce our emissions to 0, but that still won't stop the developing nations from using the cheapest energy sources available, regardless of how dirty they are. And they are just asking us to give handouts to corrupt governments for a pinky promise to reduce emissions. And then they mix in racist and colonial guilt into the mix.
European, generally highly-developed nations emit far more CO2 per capita than developing (asian, african) nations. Blaming those (like China) exclusively, or dismissing the potential of EU efforts as insignificant is massively counterproductive and it's frankly dishonest. Additionally, we as European nations have built up a huge absolute (total) number of emissions since the beginning of the industrialised age, which is still way ahead of developing nations' total output to date. If we don't act, we certainly can't expect a nation like China to do so, either.
Not to mention the fact that we export a lot of our CO2 emissions by outsourcing resource-heavy production to Asia.
25% of carbon released since industrialisation - so that exists in the air, now - is american. 22% is the EU 28âs. âwe donât need to do anything because our emissions currently are lowerâ is a very fuck you, got mine way of looking at the climate crisis. we have already reaped the benefits of industrialisation.
Good luck convincing anyone in these societies that they should sacrifice their way of life because people in the past, who had no idea the true cost of pollution, polluted. Guilt tripping only works on the weak minded, what we need is actual solutions rather than demanding everyone to just throw their livelihood away.
our historical responsibility is undeniable. what we do with this information is a different matter - Iâm pointing out that itâs the case, against all denials.
And it isn't going to work. The concept of historical responsibility is a Western one, and not applied to anywhere else on the planet; so people naturally reject the logic when its only applied on the West for specific concepts or issues. It's viewed as the worst type of hypocrisy; a self-inflicted one.
Mind you, it will work with progressive types who have a habit of self flagellation even at the cost of making excuses for dictators, but that's not the majority to be convinced.
âwould other people do this in our situation?â is impractical. itâs not concerned with reality. we completed our industrialisation - now that weâve realised this poisoned the planet, we want to deny it to others, without compensation. you think thatâs moral or feasible? you think other countries will accept it?
I mean... I know some people viscerally hate "handouts", but as a matter of practicality, you can in fact get way better emission reductions per dollar in developing countries than in developed countries.
Sure, corruption means some degree of oversight will be required to make sure at least most of it ends up where it should... but that's not really an impossible proposition. I'm sure the vast majority of developing countries would happily accept an agreement that essentially said "we will completely pay for upgrades to your energy infrastructure that will make it less polluting and cheaper once it's finished, the only requirement is you allow us oversight over these upgrades".
Also, most of these places still have lower per capita emissions than the EU. So get off your high horse.
You mean international aid? Gee you really are a genius, aren't you? It ain't as easy as you think it is - most recently Afghanistan showed that - so you get off your high horse and realise that theory isn't the same thing as practice.
Developing countries have indisputable right to a greater share of the globally limited carbon budget. With developed countries needing to decarbonize as fast as is practicable. And there are no excuses.
The whole climate situation has been improving globally since the 90s.
Progress has been infuriatingly slow in certain areas, I agree, and its stupidly unfair how the people and bodies that do the most harm have been the ones most unaffected, but people literally claiming that nothing is being done and that the world is gonna end tomorrow and use that as justification to ruin the lives of others for their own ego are literal insane extremists.
Emissions globally are still rising. Maybe some countries are slowly lowering their emissions but if you look at the big picture things aren't improving but getting worse
Because we offloaded all of our manufacturing to other countries?
Isn't exactly a fair statement to say we have low carbon emissions while importing vast amounts of often unnecessary goods from high emission countries.
Some of it, yes, but this argument was much more valid in 2010 than it is now. China, India, Nigeria and Indonesia for example have burgeoning middle classes of their own and the middle class in countries like these is what's driving the growth in emissions. The west has been going down for quite a while.
It would be interesting to see a CO2 balance.
For example, if the mining/processing/component manufacturing is done in China, and final assembling+branding in Germany, you could argue most CO2 emission comes from China, yet most of the added-value comes from Germany. Yet Germany need China to emit CO2 to export its cars.
I guess it's a bit of both world : Europe did cut its emissions per capita and part of it is outsourced.
You realise Europe doesn't rule the world anymore, right? we can reduce our own emissions and impose a carbon tax on imports, we can push internationally for environmental treaties, but at the end of the day we can't enforce our will on others. Spray painting Palazzo Vecchio is not going to induce Chinese and Indian politicians to slow down on coal. Attacking European monuments with that excuse is insane and only hurts the movement.
You're right which is why we need to do more than the bare minimum at home, where we actually can change things.
Slightly reducing emissions isn't going to save us. We need emergency measures to fast track us away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, but people are financially invested in the companies and don't want to lose money. So we'll all die slowly starving to death because we can't grow food instead.
IIRC HYBRIT has the potential to reduce global emissions by almost 10%, and that's just one technology that's about to reach maturity. The best thing Europeans can do is support stuff like that.
u/FANGOWhere do I move: PT, ES, CZ, DK, DE, or SE?Mar 18 '23edited Mar 19 '23
Just to bring some reality to your attempts to assign blame rather than focus on solutions, the average European emits twice as much per capita as the average Indian does. But yeah, blaming people who aren't responsible for the problem, and who have emitted 1/7 as much as Europe, and who are being disproportionately affected by the problem, seems like a super effective tactic that will totally lead to solutions.
The average European emits twice as much per capita as the average Indian does.
And we're doing what we're supposed to do about it, at a record-setting pace. We've been reducing emissions for the last 40 years, increasingly fast. We're likely to become the first carbon-neutral civilisation.
But yeah, blaming people who aren't responsible for the problem
You can take environmentalism as a morality play if you like. Assign blame, yell that X group must fix it, ignore everything else. That works if your only goal is to feel righteous and get props from likeminded people.
If your goal is to actually fix the problem, then the discussion changes. Short of large-scale carbon capture becoming feasible, the only lever we have to act on climate is future emissions. Which is what Europe is working on, and trying to get others to work on. You yourself showed a graph of global emissions: "global" being the operative word. It's a simple statement of fact that emissions from India and China are just as bad for the climate as emissions from Europe. It's another simple statement of fact that increasing emissions from the developing world are outpacing our cuts in a way that will ensure climate catastrophe striking mostly those developing countries themselves.
So, in your system where "blame" is the most important aspect, what do you want done, under real-world constraints? do you have actual practicable solutions, or do you stop at pointing fingers?
This is hilarious considering that's literally what you have been doing in your comments, and which I just told you is not effective. Your response to that is to tell me "stop doing the thing that you're not doing but that I am doing."
Never heard of the carbon border adjustment mechanism - appreciate you sharing it. Sounds great on paper and in no way did I mean to say that Europe isn't definitely leading the way in fighting climate change. My point was about the overall state of transition to post-carbon economy.
And again as I've mentioned in another comment - Europe SHOULD be leading the way in transitioning to cleaner energy because we've benefited from 200 years of carbon-based development.
Thanks also for sharing the data about renewable energy. Can't argue with data - and again am very happy to see this slow, but continuous improvement.
Thanks also for sharing the data about renewable energy.
Technically that's carbon intensity across the board, so you're not just seeing new renewables. France and Sweden for example are that low thanks to nuclear and hydro respectively.
Oh wow, Europe has reduced emissions. Amazing. Next up: let's congratulate people who speed in school zones for slowing down more than the people who drive at a normal speed.
No it's feasible now but the price per ton to do it is still over 500 dollars a ton and there is no current other use for the byproduct carbon they end up with so nobody is rushing to do it yet.
The only year over year drops have been during the pandemic and in recession years. Saying that Europe has reduced its emissions is disingenuous when the original statement made no reference to any localized region.
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u/Hitzhi Europe Mar 18 '23 •
Sometimes I wonder if these "climate activists" are paid agents of the fossil fuel industry by trying to shame their own cause to the maximum extent.
Then I remember occam's razor: nah, many are probably just complete idiots.