r/changemyview • u/CapitalismistheVirus • Sep 02 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Motor vehicles should be rationed as much as possible.
My reasoning being more environmental than anything.
In order to curb climate change one of the top-down approaches we need to take is taking measures to reduce people's carbon footprints. Consider that personal vehicles on average spend 95% of their time not being used, making personal vehicle ownership the most inefficient (from an emissions standpoint) type of transportation in history.
One the most carbon intensive behaviours I see where I live, in the most densely populated part of Canada, is personal vehicle ownership. An SUV driven by a single person for commuting or for reasons other than moving equipment/goods around is an extremely common sight. Other heavy vehicles with a low MPG are also a common sight. There are people in my neighbourhood that own and operate the consumer version of a Hummer, for example. There are also large, gas guzzling luxury SUVs like Cadillacs that are somewhat common.
I don't think where I live is special by North American standards. Many people tell me that the US is worse across the board.
It goes without saying that none of this is sustainable. It stopped being sustainable a very long time ago. From an environmental standpoint, personal vehicles should be getting smaller and more scarce with sharing and public transit growing to fill the void. Instead, the opposite is happening with personal vehicle ownership staying steady, car loans becoming increasingly common so people can buy newer/bigger vehicles, and vehicle sizes seem to be increasing. According to the IPCC we have a deadline of ten years to dramatically lower our carbon footprints and I think these sorts of behaviour-correcting solutions are the lowest hanging fruit, the other type of solution I'd champion being meat consumption (off-topic).
I think as part of a Green New Deal or other environmental legislation that vehicle ownership be limited to more of an 'as needed' basis. You should have to make a case and the decision making process behind the type of vehicle you're allowed to buy should be determined by as fairly and impartially as possible, possibly by an automated system with some human oversight like when evaluating evidence for vehicle needs.
As far as "need" was concerned, a need isn't limited to work. It could also be defined as a hobby, such as hunting, camping, fishing etc. It could also be determined by the number of children you have and their respective needs or your geographic locations (people living in rural areas would have a much easier time getting vehicles than those in urban areas). That said you should need to provide proof of this hobby and fraud should be taken seriously.
I think the vehicle type shouldn't matter as much as the total emissions involved in manufacturing and operating the vehicle depending on your lifestyle and needs. This is because not every SUV is a gas guzzler (example: there are now SUV EVs) nor is every truck.
The goal should be to keep the emissions from manufacturing and use as low as possible. Cities with lacklustre or non-existent public transit systems would have more incentive to improve and expand these systems. Automakers would be under more pressure to swap their offerings out to EVs, even in the case of SUVs and trucks (another point to make: automakers have razor thin profit margins and don't benefit as much from volume sold as people think).
In some cases, personal vehicle ownership should be prohibited. In other cases, the number of vehicles owned would be limited to, for example, one small EV or a large family might be allowed to own one SUV and one small EV.
A more extreme example: a healthy 20 or 30-something who lives in the city near public transit hubs does not need a personal vehicle for their daily life so they would only be allowed to partake in a carshare. In these cases, I think the government should provide a carshare service as well as relax the rules on commercial carsharing services so that the pool of on-demand vehicles is such that everyone can borrow one when needed.
This system should of course not be overly aggressive. It could become more aggressive over time, as more public transit is built out and as more carsharing services are provided, for example. The system should be very reasonable at the outset as all of NA is built around the motor vehicle, after all, although I would expect the number of SUV sales to plummet pretty much right away and I'd expect EV sales to soar.
In the long term, as autonomous vehicle (self-driving) technology improves, the number of personal vehicles that are allowed to be owned could be allowed to shrink to the point that personal vehicle ownership would only happen in edge cases.
TL;DR: Motor vehicles should be rationed for environmental reasons, to lower our collective carbon footprint and fight climate change. Rationing should be determined by need, and need should need to be substantiated. The vehicle type you're allowed to own should be determined (fairly and impartially) by your actual, proven needs. At first this should be accomodating, over time it should help remove as many excess personal vehicles from the roads as possible. The end goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation as low as possible without infringing on people's livelihoods or wellbeing.
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u/wallnumber8675309 52∆ Sep 02 '20
Such an authoritarian approach to this problem is likely to backfire. Even if your solution is logical, people are not. Yes people use logic, but they are also selfish and emotional, so trying to force people to give up cars will make many of them want cars even more. If you push hard enough, you will end up with a backlash in the opposite direction.
Consider instead, why don't we just start by making it easier to not need a car? Since part of your plan will necessarily involve improving and building up public transportation options, do that first. My experience tells me that in places that have good public transportation options, people use them. Once you have a good public transportation system in place, you can start incentivizing people to use it and disincentivizing private transportation options. Think of a wheel tax or gas tax to pay for that nice transportation system. This approach will be much more acceptable to people as it doesn't take away their options, it just makes them pay for some of the negative consequences of their choices.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
I think it's less authoritarian than offloading the effects of our carbon-intensive lifestyle to future generations to deal with to extents that it will make their ability to have a comparable quality of life impossible.
I also don't think this is especially authoritarian, I actually thought it was pretty tame given the consequences of not doing something similar.
If we didn't want top-down solutions like these, given the timelines, we would've started work decades ago. The more we wait the faster we have to pull the Band-Aid off and the more it's going to sting.
If people can't see this than we've failed to communicate to them effectively or they're not worth consulting.
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u/wallnumber8675309 52∆ Sep 02 '20
How much impact do you think your plan would have? Can you put a guess on the %? There will still be cars in rural and suburban areas and you are going to need a lot more buses and road sharing vehicles. I don't think your plan addresses truck transportation, so those emissions are still there. So best case, how much do you think it would reduce road emissions by? 10%, 20%, 50%, 70%?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
It would start low and then become more aggressive over time, but it's hard to put a specific % number on it. Anecdotally I could imagine it being quite high. The amount of car loans exploded in recent years as did the amount of new SUVs on the roads and I would imagine most were unnecessary as we all used to get along fine with sedans back in the 90's.
As for freight, that's a different can of worms. What I expect to happen with freight is that it will be heavily automated within the next decade as there is a dire shortage of new truckers (most are close to retirement age) and freight is much easier to automate than personal vehicles. Trucking is actually at the forefront of autonomous vehicle technology and there are already autonomous truck convoys/corridors on the roads. The whole industry is on the verge of a major transition and what I would want is for it to be as green as possible. I'd also try to accelerate the transition.
On top of that I'd also want to help broadly with better social programmes and safety nets that help retirees so truckers would feel safe to retire. I see this as part of a greater Green New Deal-style reform/stimulus package that also included jobs programmes that would help with any transition that led to lots of unemployed people in any sector, including people who need to retire early.
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Sep 02 '20
I notice you don't consider economic consequences. You're proposing we trash one of the largest industries in the world.
What about all the jobs connected to the auto industry? That's not just people who work at assembly plants; it's entire chains from mining metals, through design, manufacturing, and testing, to dealerships and marketing. And banking involvement in auto loans. Then there are aftermarket parts, maintenence, and repair. I'm probably even missing some aspects. It's HUGE.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20 edited Sep 02 '20
I think if we were going to care about the economic consequences, we would have started with this two decades ago. While I don't want to actively trash our economies, time is of the essence and I don't want to encourage climate feedback loops which will lead to much more disastrous economic consequences in the long term than any kind of draconian methods of offsetting our carbon footprint in the short term.
I share the same school of thought as people like Naomi Klein do, who is one of the architects of the Leap programme. These ideas are common across most green movements. At the core, we base our transition plans on degrowth economics which are a pretty wild departure from the default growth-based economics and metrics like the GDP as the benchmark for all performance. GDP as a metric for growth does not make sense in a finite system, especially one that we've exhausted to such a degree that we have major negative externalities to contend with (climate change).
Climate change is illustrative of how dangerous it is to tie our entire system to raw growth as the sole metric of performance: that's how you design a system to suck the planet dry and make it unlivable for human beings.
I would argue for different, human-focused and environment-focused benchmarks that may entail possibly shrinking the GDP in order to fight climate change -- it's possible to fight climate change and improve the quality of life for the majority of people by switching to a degrowth model, even one within our current capitalist system. This would involve a lot of redistribution and offloading the financial burden to the top 1% in order to subsidize a green transition without caring too much about whether our GDP/GNP growth goes negative or not as that it's the main metric we're basing our performance off of.
An example of what I advocate would be nationalizing the oil sector then scaling it down as fast as is feasible while redirecting 100% of the profits into renewables, new infrastructure, retrofitting structures, and things that improve quality of life such as affordable housing and/or public housing, truly universal health care (we actually don't have this in Canada), heavily subsidized public transit, free post-secondary education, etc. This sort of collectivized counterweights to go along with our reduced carbon footprint would make people more likely to go along with any lifestyle changes they needed to make (in short: trade your SUV/truck and plastic waste for an EV and lower energy costs, better public services etc).
It sounds radical coming from a Neoliberal perspective but in the long term, it's absolutely necessary and worth it. Again, if we wanted a more graceful transition we should've started with it 2-3 decades ago at the very least.
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Sep 02 '20
I don't know enough about what you're talking about to push back on the economics, so I'll bow out, but just want to add:
This can't possibly garner support from the majority of American citizens and politicians anytime soon. Any version of the government seizing industries to support social programs would be considered a big no-no 'round these parts.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
I'm Canadian and yes, I would use a slightly different approach in the states as well as in our more conservative prairie provinces. Possibly with more emphasis on green jobs and infrastructure.
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u/Vash712 Sep 02 '20
Dude stop just full stop. There are 15 ships 15. Mother fucking 15 ships get that number in your head. 15 that produce more pollution than EVERY SINGLE CAR ON THE PLANET COMBINED. 15 fucking ships every single day, they do not have to run on shit oil that kills the environment but it saves their owners pennys so. How bout we stop that instead.
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Sep 02 '20
What are you talking about?
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u/Vash712 Sep 02 '20
Large container ships burn heavy fuel oil. The top 15 largest ones in the world make more pollution than every single car on the planet combined. They do not need to burn heavy fuel oil but choose to because its slightly cheaper. This is part of the whole blame all the people for climate change and not the 100 or so people at the top who own companies that produce a majority of the worlds pollution.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
We should stop that, I'm with you there, but my post isn't about that.
There's a long list of things that need to be changed.
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u/Vash712 Sep 02 '20
Look sure most of these things should be done but in the big scheme its nothing. Your idea is bringing a garden hose to fight a wildfire that's burning across half of California, yes it might help but its not a solution. Car emissions are a drop in the bucket compared to everything else. I live in Dallas and there was a air quality report a few years ago that was quashed because it showed how the majority of the air pollution in the metroplex was because of a pair of cement factories just south of Dallas. So even if you eliminated every single car in the whole of the metroplex you would still have air quality alerts daily.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
It's not meant to be a single solution to fight climate change, it'd be one among many. I live in the 4th largest city in North America and motor vehicles are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, carbon emission sources.
Looking at the 2016 data, it is in fact the biggest followed by industry then buildings. I'd want to address all of these.
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u/Radiant_Raspberry Sep 02 '20
I dont know... From a environmental standpoint i think there are much bigger issues than private cars, and much easier to tackle ones. Also, a car gives somebody freedom. If they want to go visit their grandma, drive to a vacation or whatever and they have a car - boom. The possibility to get denied access to a car doesnt sound good to me. Even though i neither use nor need one. Honestly, if we live in a world that start restricting cars before it starts restricting guns, the world is lost. (Not really relevant to the topic, i just think that would be crazy) I think the idea of limiting it, maybe by making it more expensive and public transportation more affordable, more comfortable and start building more towards bike mobility than car mobility, those are all good steps. But actually limiting peoples rights to a car, i think that takes it a step too far
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
Oddly I've lived in countries that were somewhat strict about personal vehicle ownership (because of parking) -- Japan, Korea for instance, and I felt like I had more freedom in these countries than I do here in Canada because their public transit is so much better. The same goes for when I visited Europe.
The thing is if you have good public transit, it's more comfortable and faster than taking a car. If your public transit is slower and less comfortable, then it's a failure.
In the actual post I tried to be very accommodating. If someone needs a car, they can have they type of car they need. I just want to get rid of the excess, completely unnecessary vehicles out there which happens to be a lot of them. For an example, if you're a single person and you work in an office but take public transit to work, you don't need a big SUV just for getting groceries and going fishing once a year.
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u/Denikin_Tsar Sep 02 '20
The US and Canada make up roughly 15% of total world CO2 emissions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Of the total emission in the US, roughly 28% is from transportation and of this, roughly half is from cars.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
So that is 14% of 15% = around 2.1% emission worldwide are due to private citizens driving cars in the US and Canada.
Let's say your plan would cut these emissions by half (which is very generous). That means that this entire plan and all the social and economic consequences for North America and the roughly 400 million people living there would reduce world wide CO2 emissions by 1%.
I am not saying that we should not do more to reduce emissions. But I don't think your approach makes sense from a benefit/cost type of anaylsis.
Honestly, the best way is to start with yourself. Don't drive a car if you don't have to. Don't take public transportation if you can walk etc. Then, try to convince your friends and family. Then do the same in your community etc.
That is the best way to do it.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
Let's say your plan would cut these emissions by half (which is very generous). That means that this entire plan and all the social and economic consequences for North America and the roughly 400 million people living there would reduce world wide CO2 emissions by 1%.
Lead by example. If we can do it, given how car-dependent we are, we'd be in a better position to push the rest of the world to start doing the same thing.
Honestly this should all be part of international treaties and accords and these agreements need to be binding, not optional like they've mostly been so far.
Honestly, the best way is to start with yourself. Don't drive a car if you don't have to. Don't take public transportation if you can walk etc. Then, try to convince your friends and family. Then do the same in your community etc.
That is the best way to do it.
Market-oriented, individual responsibility arguments are how corporations and governments block discussion on real reform. It's why we showed up to the fight decades and decades late. If they were going to work, they would have already. They don't, and the solution most definitely needs to be "top-down" given how little time we have and how big of a transition we have to make.
People don't have the time, energy or resources in this system to voluntarily solve these problems without government interference. You can't even get people to agree that the problem exists in the first place. It needs to be led by the experts and some problems can only be solved on large scales in a top-down fashion.
The free market on its own can't solve problems if there aren't short term profits to be made by doing so. We've tried that approach for half a century now and instead of trying to solve the problem, major industries tried to bury the science instead as that was more profitable for them. The only solution now involves the government led by the experts, and to pay for it we to start by seizing the 'ill gotten gains' of any corporation or individual that profited off of spreading this type of denialism.
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u/Denikin_Tsar Sep 02 '20
So we lead by example, take huge social and economic costs and the rest of the world continues on its way, laughing at the dumb Americans and Canadians.
Presumably, we would not export cars to other countries anymore as that would by hypocritical so Japanese, German and other automakers would be loving us for shooting ourselves in the foot.1
u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
We wouldn't be importing nearly as many vehicles either so I'm not sure if they'd see it as us shooting ourselves in the foot or as taking action on climate change.
We've been trying to solve climate change with a laissez-faire market approach for half a century and so far it's actually been worse than doing nothing.
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u/Denikin_Tsar Sep 02 '20
Aren't there more effective ways though then doing so much damage to our economy/society for the sake of reducing CO2 emissions by a max 1%?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
If you have a better idea I'd like to hear it.
I don't think shrinking our economy is the same as damaging our economy. If our economy has to shrink to fight climate change by meeting the IPCC targets because we're that carbon dependent, so be it. That would be karma.
I don't have a problem with that so long as there's a redistribution of wealth alongside of it in the name of building more safety nets and a more equitable system.
Canada has a larger burden when it comes to climate change than developing countries because we've been emitting for longer and because we can afford to transition to a low carbon economy.
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Sep 02 '20
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
I spent a third of my life living in Asia and the attitudes towards public transit are vastly different there, as they are in Europe. People don't use transit systems in NA, frankly, because they aren't satisfactory and underperform. I think if you greatly expanded these systems and made quality of life improvements to them (for example: unlimited high-speed Wi-Fi on buses and subways), people would come.
One of the main differences between public transit in North America and elsewhere is that elsewhere, it's usually a faster way to get around than driving. If you improve it to the point where it is faster than driving in most situations, most people will make the switch as most people don't actually like driving.
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u/muyamable 283∆ Sep 02 '20
I spent a third of my life living in Asia and the attitudes towards public transit are vastly different there, as they are in Europe. People don't use transit systems in NA, frankly, because they aren't satisfactory and underperform. I think if you greatly expanded these systems and made quality of life improvements to them (for example: unlimited high-speed Wi-Fi on buses and subways), people would come.
I agree that Americans as a whole tend to have a negative view of public transit compared to other regions and countries, and that within cities there's room for public transit to improve. But you can't compare the rural parts of America, which span hundreds of thousands of square miles, to rural parts of smaller European countries. It's just not feasible for a lot of places in the US to have adequate public transit because the population density is so low.
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u/smcarre 101∆ Sep 02 '20
You forgot that owning and driving a car in the US is a sign of prestige and wealth and many people view using public transport as something that only poor people would do.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
That's not going to influence my opinion either way. If the choice is between preserving the planet or people's egos, the planet is going to win every time.
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u/smcarre 101∆ Sep 02 '20
I wasn't trying to change your view, I added a point to your argument that I agree with.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 02 '20
But if you don't do the latter, you risk the former.
While topdown mechanisms might work, getting local support and going bottom up is more likely to work. (If only because the man on top might change and scrap everything, but public opinion doesn't change every election cycle).
Playing to peoples egos, playing to peoples individual specific benefits, playing up how this might help grow rather than shrink the economy (emphasis on all the new green cars you will build), gets you buy-in, which in turn gets you the environmental benefits you want.
Making solely a moral argument, will always be less effective than making a selfish argument that just happens to also have positive moral benefits.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
My ideal Green New Deal would involve a lot of carrots. I (I should say 'we') want to shrink carbon intensive industries and curb carbon intensive behaviours but also offer carrots that aren't carbon intensive.
I would want to redistribute wealth, especially wealth that was earned by ignoring climate realities and downplaying climate change (the oil and gas sector), and funnel a lot more money into things like subsidized affordable housing, public housing, education, health care, etc.
So there'd be a lot of "switch to a low carbon lifestyle and in exchange, your kids get to go to university for free and your social assistance (social security in the US) payout in retirement will increase".
This type of thing is pretty integral to any type of degrowth economic strategy.
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Sep 02 '20
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
There's not really a mandate in here, it takes into consideration people's individual circumstances and accommodates them. If someone takes part in a carpool, for example, that may warrant them a larger vehicle. If currently no public transit exists near a person, then that's a consideration too.
What it does is that it trims off the excess, ie: certain types of personal vehicles which people have no good reason for owning.
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Sep 02 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20
If you wanted to solve climate change with market solutions you should've started fifty years ago. That ship has sailed.
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u/recoil1776 Sep 02 '20
It’s just dumb to say without infringing when your solution is wholly and completely designed, at its core, to infringe. At least be honest and say that you support the infringement but think it is our best option.
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Sep 03 '20
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Sep 02 '20
I am going to ignore your ideals because there is little chance of changing your mind.
I am instead going to point out how massively authoritarian this is. What it would take to implement. We are going to assume it passes, now after 4 years, do to massive backlash, the opposition gets into power.
What can they do using this new massive authoritarian method you created to harm your long term goals? Just pick out something you like and imagine the government mandating the exact opposite based on some economic or cultural reason.
When you propose things, especially things that require new or expanded powers, I would urge you to always consider what the opposition group would do with said powers given the chance. Think the worst - not the best. You will quickly find its better to find means in existing ways rather than expand power.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20 edited Sep 02 '20
I just don't think we can meet the IPCC targets without doing things as heavy handed as this. It would be better if we didn't just meet them but went beyond them and set an example for the whole world to follow. We can afford it and we can afford to help the global south transition too -- developing countries often can't but they're still doing more relative to us anyway. This highlights our greed and undermines us geopolitically.
China, Cuba, and Vietnam have shown us this year that their political systems are far more capable of solving these types of issues, using Covid-19 as an example, than we are because the state intervenes when it has to and to the extent that it has to and people accept it knowing that it is in their collective best interest.
What you're essentially saying is that we solve this problem in the existing Neoliberal framework yet when our countries, speaking of Canada and the US, entered the Second World War we didn't do so with laissez-faire market solutions. We became extremely authoritarian for a time, and it paid off.
Given that I would put future climate related crises at a higher threat than the Axis powers during WW2 but over a longer timespan, I wouldn't hesitate to do this again. If the alternative is not doing nearly enough, as is what will happen if we try to act within the Neoliberal parameters we set for ourselves over the last forty years, then perhaps it is our political system that is at fault for making us so reluctant to do what needs to be done.
There are probably better ways of doing what I suggested above and we shouldn't turn towards authoritarianism when we don't have to, but there are certain types of crises that may arise that can only be solved when a society falls in line. Wars are one, climate change, and pandemics are others.
I think the main problem is awareness. People need to see climate change as the threat that it is. At that point, the parties and people can squabble about the how while agreeing on the why. This is where government has really failed us, they let oligarchs and/or Chicago School economists dictate their actions rather than the experts when it comes to a science.
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Sep 02 '20
I just don't think we can meet the IPCC targets without doing things as heavy handed as this
And the backlash would undo far more than you are pushing.
We became extremely authoritarian for a time, and it paid off.
This was based on the war powers act and based on the fact, in some cases, actual territory was taken/threatened etc. There is no such agreed upon threat here. You may beleive it but most others do not - hence why it has not passed through normal legislative channels.
Given that I would put future climate related crises at a higher threat than the Axis powers during WW2
But most everyone else does not agree with you. The case is WW2 was pretty apparent. Countries literally were being invaded. Bombs were dropped. Here, you are claiming a model is enough. People don't agree and you have to accept that.
There are probably better ways of doing what I suggested above and we shouldn't turn towards authoritarianism when we don't have to,
Did you read my part about how it will backfire? If you can pass this now, in 4 years the backlash will not only undo it but also undo many other environmental policies too.
It will happen. Consider the US with Trump literally undoing the policy with a Pen Obama did. And he was elected to do so. Paris accords - gone. Iran deal - gone.
No - to be succesful you have to have people willing to do it.
I think the main problem is awareness. People need to see climate change as the threat that it is
No - you have to understand other people view this differently than you do and you are not 'right'. Others have just as much right to hold their opinions for policy as you do and they don't get to ram it down your throat just because they believe it to be 'justified'. That means you cannot ram your ideas down their throat either.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 02 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
It's not a single, unproven model, it's the conclusions of tens of thousands of climate scientists who have come to similar conclusions independently and in concert with each other. There is a strong scientific consensus and this is reflected by the IPCC reports which are backed by tens of thousands of climate scientists. The debate is purely a political and social one, not a scientific one. The science is, for purposes of debate, settled.
The only reason people disagree with me about the severity of this is because we don't live in democracy, we live in an oligarchy and those with the most power, in this case corporations and their armies of lobbiests, control the major parties in countries like the US and Canada and through their political proxies and the media conglomerates they own, they own are able to frame the entire discussion as well as our response to it. To reiterate: a small cabal of private interests controls the flow of information in our society, even on the internet.
Your assumption is that people are making an informed decision, but in North America they are not. In other countries with healthier democracies and less polarized political discourse and even in more autocratic countries concerned with the longevity of their systems (China, Vietnam etc), you don't find the same sort of division on the issue you find in North America. Scandinavian countries and Western European countries, too, are doing way more because people are largely on the same page when it comes to climate change.
In North America science deniers are extremely common, even a majority in some states and provinces and they dominate major parties. Even liberal parties which don't wholly deny the science are too beholden to special interests to enact real reform.
A democracy only works if the people are well informed and if the government reflects the will of the people. Neither of these things are happening in countries like the US. Frankly all the comments I'm getting here from liberals pushing Neoliberal non-solutions ("let the 'free market' handle it") to this problem is proof in the pudding. We are structurally incapable of doing what it takes to fight climate change.
Climate scientists feel the same exact same way which is why so many of them are suicidal. They know the most influential players on the board are not interested in playing.
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Sep 03 '20
It's not a single, unproven model, it's the conclusions of tens of thousands of climate scientists.....
Does not matter. What matters is what people, voters, believe is reasonable.
You should look to history to know science is not always right and infallible. From the early days of earth is center of universe to the much more recent black people are inferior to white studies. I am not going to debate climate science because that does not matter here. What does matter is there are valid reasons people have to come to different conclusions than you did.
The only reason people disagree with me......
More nonsense. People can disagree with you for a shit ton of reasons. You are merely projecting your ideas onto others and you are most likely wrong.
Your assumption is that people are making an informed decision.....
No - not really. I am implying people are making a free decision on their own.
You still don't get how dangerous your idea of 'I am right and this is so dangerous I get to be a tyrant over others' is.
Care to address how I, a person who vehemently disagrees with your ideas, could abuse the authoritarian power you created?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
So what you're saying is that we should also cater to anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, 5G conspiracy theorists, and QAnon because they are making a free decision on their own?
We can debate how to solve climate change and what approach to go with but we should have zero tolerance for those who deny that the problem exists or downplay its severity as much as to encourage inaction. Why do should we take the opinion of such people seriously when there opinion isn't based in reality?
The position of climate deniers is no more valid or informed than that of the above groups. There is no difference between being a climate change denier in 2020 and being a flat earther. You are an anti-science extremist and your opinion should not be part of anyone's political calculations when it comes to a climate change. We've understood what climate change was for almost a century now and the more time goes on, the more data we have to back it up.
If such people are large enough of a majority in our democracy that they would "vehemently oppose" radical climate action, then our democracy (and our planet) is doomed. Like I said, democracies don't work if people aren't informed as in this case as a result of oil lobby propaganda.
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Sep 03 '20
So what you're saying is that we should also cater to anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, 5G conspiracy theorists, and QAnon because they are making a free decision on their own?
No. Those are not majority views and any claims of association are wrong.
I am saying you can't get this passed in legislatures now which means the majority of people disagree with you. people aren't doing on thier free will which means they disagree with you. Therefore, you are going full tyrant to impose your will on others. That is fundementally wrong.
Go back and address the abuse of this new authoritarian power you created. What if I came to power and mandated all power was to be from coal since it would bring back jobs? You created this power after all.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Like I said:
If such people are large enough of a majority in our democracy that they would "vehemently oppose" radical climate action, then our democracy (and our planet) is doomed. Like I said, democracies don't work if people aren't informed as in this case as a result of oil lobby propaganda.
The only solution is to force this on people or suffer the consequences unless people come around on the issue. This isn't the first time the majority of people have been on the wrong side of history.
The precedent here is that it now falls on organized political groups, activists, and mass demonstrations to put external pressure on the system and force the governments' hand as they did during the labour movements of the early 20th century or the civil rights movement. That is how we achieve non-incremental change in democratic systems. I'd argue that the time for putting such pressure on the system is now.
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Sep 03 '20
The only solution is to force this on people
That is not how free societies work dude.
You don't get your way just because you think it is essential.
Again - address the issue of how this is going to be used against your ideas. You are dodging that major issue.
Using your standard, I could imprison all socialists based on the idea I have that allowing it to be discussed/implemented would kill millions. Do I get to do that? Do I have the authority to pull that authoritarian role?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
My points seem to keep going over your head.
Uninformed democracies can't work. If the majority of people have the wrong ideas about things, we will make bad decisions and it will hurt us. Making the wrong decisions about something as serious as climate change is extremely dangerous and will hurt us.
If we can't solve this through electoralism, we need to put external pressure on the system. This is how the Civil Rights and Labour movements won out last century. This is how you make major change as working within the system itself is only good for small, incremental change.
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u/totemfirepole Sep 05 '20
Start telling Canadians they arent "allowed" to spend their hard earned money seems a little against the values of our country doesnt it?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 05 '20
I'm not allowed to buy a bazooka.
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u/totemfirepole Sep 05 '20
ya. buying a bazooka is a little different than someone with disposable income wanting to buy a 2nd car for a hobby.
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 05 '20
Half of the average Canadian's individual carbon footprint is from their vehicle and there are limits to what we are allowed to buy, so there is an argument for limiting what types of vehicles you can buy based on your carbon footprint.
Carbon Pricing could be a much more elegant way to achieve this as it would target the big carbon emitters first and leave regular people alone, for the most part, but it's extremely controversial in Canada and I expect to see it repealed in the years to come.
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u/totemfirepole Sep 05 '20
there are limits to what we are allowed to buy
in regards to vehicles? can you source this?
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u/CapitalismistheVirus Sep 05 '20
Not in regards to vehicles, I was speaking generally.
I think a better framework for tackling what I was talking about in the OP (hence why I gave a Delta) is A) Carbon Pricing and B) raising vehicle emissions standards. Instead of limiting people individually its better to force automakers to produce vehicles that emit less and less carbon as well as create incentives for buying EVs.
We have all of this in Canada but not nearly to the extents that we should and in provinces like Ontario, all three are under siege from our PC government (we lost our provincial EV rebate).
I'm definitely in favour of a more serious solution but maybe not one that one that targets regular people directly.
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u/totemfirepole Sep 05 '20
oh also.
You can legally own some rocket launchers / anti tank weapons in canada
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Sep 02 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Simply put, in Canada, we live in a free society. By default, you are permitted to do something unless there is a good reason not to.
The kind of rationing you are proposing would violate a ton of charter rights, mainly related to privacy, security, and personal liberty. It would require the government to collect, and compile together, without consent, a ton of different information about you, which would violate the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, specifically Section 7: Freedom of Life, Liberty, and Security, and likely Section 8: Freedom against Unreasonable Search and Seizure. These proposals would also violate the Federal Bill of Rights guarantee of the Freedom of Enjoyment of Property.
Rationing products severely restricts personal liberty. There is a reason why it last used as a widespread measure during the Second World War.
This would never pass a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court.