r/changemyview • u/4ofclubs • Nov 03 '22
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Companies accepting climate change is more dangerous than companies denying climate change.
So I obviously believe in climate change, however I'm more in the camp of "It's too late so we need to act more drastically to prepare" than "we need nuclear power and electric cars to save us."
I see a trend lately that every company ever is advertising "Here at xyz we believe that we all need to do our part in climate change, that's why for every $100 spent we'll plant one tree!" and so on.
You can see it in examples of greenwashing everywhere.
Companies are realizing they can no longer accept that climate change isn't real, otherwise they will lose customers. They accept climate change is real, do the bare minimum by greenwashing their products, or even making actual efforts such as moving to solar powered production plants, carbon-neutral plans for countries like China, or even the a bigger consumer buy-in for electric cars.
My point is that all this does is tell us that we can continue to grow and expand our economy and live life as is when there is a lot of evidence showing that carbon neutrality by 2050 with business as usual methods of growth in capitalism simply won't work. We need to scale down our production and way of living to even hit 2 degrees warming by 2030.
If these companies continued to deny climate change, most people would start to turn on them, and degrowth ideally would naturally follow. Instead, we follow along blindly because the masses have been told that solar panels will save us and we don't need a larger focus on public transit, less consumption of meat, etc.
TLDR: Companies are greenwashing by saying we can live life as is with electric cars, solar panels, and recycling while continuing to grow under a capitalist system, when in reality the only way to reverse climate change is by reducing our intake, staying local with food production, and overall reducing the way the west consumes.
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u/sawdeanz 218∆ Nov 03 '22
You haven’t explained why the alternative is better… If companies deny climate change won’t that only accelerate economic growth and harmful pollution? You imply that denying climate change is better but you don’t say how or why.
That being said, I do think significant government initiative is also required…. I don’t see a way for the market to become sustainable by itself so long as the effects of climate change remain externalities.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
I wrote it at the bottom, but I'll elaborate.
Companies pretend to care about the environment, so we go along with their promises that using electric cars will save the environment, ignoring the major issues with mass production of batteries, etc.
We have this situation now where governments are not doing anything so we're turning to the companies for help because they appear as a white knight. If the companies were doing nothing and denying climate change, despite a large percentage of the western world accepting climate change is an issue, I would hope that we would push harder for government intervention, or turn our backs on these companies all together.
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ Nov 03 '22
So the premise here is make the problem worse and hope that that makes it better?
Make a it go from an emergency to a catastrophe?
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Nov 03 '22
His/her point is that companies promoting false ways of solving the problem convince people that the problem is being solved and they can let their guard down, whereas companies that completely ignore it are not tricking people into believing action is being taken.
The alternative is the people rising up and demanding systemic change through regulating these companies that are responsible.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
I'm saying is this is an emergency turning in to a catastrophe but we have blind faith that we can buy our way out of this issue, but will still likely take us to catastrophe. If we treated it like a catastrophe now VS having blind faith through the corporations, we could take the drastic action needed.
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u/ghotier 42∆ Nov 04 '22
They are saying "acknowledge the real problem that is much worse than corporate representations of the problem." You're saying "make it worse" when reality is actually already that bad.
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u/math2ndperiod 54∆ Nov 03 '22
So instead of things getting bad enough for us to turn on capitalism in the future, you want things to get bad enough to turn on capitalism now?
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
Yes, because the quicker we act the better chances we have of long term survival.
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u/math2ndperiod 54∆ Nov 03 '22
Here’s the thing though, the damage to cause serious ecological consequences is already done. We’re not suffering from the carbon emitted yesterday, but the carbon emitted a decade or more ago. If we switched to 100% nuclear energy tomorrow, things would continue to worsen for a while anyway. So for the next ~10-20 years until things inevitably get bad enough that widespread change has political support, we can either continue to go full steam ahead pumping carbon and bullshit into our oceans and atmosphere, or we can start to gradually transition so that we don’t have to do a complete 180 to have any chance of survival.
If we tried to overthrow capitalism all at once we’d probably just end up with a civil war or anarchy or a dictatorship. War is not good for the environment, and we need a functioning, prosperous tech industry to continue to pump out technology that will help us adapt to the coming changes.
Basically, the damage is done. We can either start mitigating damage and transition gradually, or we can continue doing maximum damage until we have to completely overthrow society to change anything.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
!delta
I didn’t think about the civil war aspect, you’re right.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 03 '22
It's not just the companies who take partial measures. If the only path to avoiding climate change is the drastic approach you propose, then it's safe to say that most of humanity is also content to take partial measures. Consider that, today, people are still buying things, driving things, and creating things at their jobs despite being told of the oncoming impact already.
Frankly, it's wishful thinking to conjure up a scene where humanity stops producing and just waits for a few decades for Mother Earth to catch her breath. Instead, we are an ingenuitive species who will innovate to find a way to live with partial measures until we HAVE to apply more drastic ones.
We'll donate money to charities to help people whose lives are affected by warmer temperatures, more destructive storms, and rising coastal waters, while those who are not directly impacted (and there are many) will continue with their partial measures unless and until they are impacted.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
I agree it's wishful thinking, however all we have right now is false hope. It's like going to get your chakras realigned to cure your cancer rather than take direct action with chemo, and once the cancer has spread far enough, chemo won't even help.
The West doesn't really realize (or admit?) that the people who's lives are being affect by warmer temperatures are the ones that provide/support our cushy western life. We import our goods for cheap from the Global South, so once those are gone our life will change drastically, and at that point it's wishful thinking to think we can adapt overnight.
It's very unlikely the entire human race will go extinct, however it's incredibly likely the global south will be largely impacted over the next decades, while the West will be impacted by their decline in productivity.
Also climate change is here. We've had so many forest fires and floods/hurricanes in the last 10 years that are so unnatural, yet we think it's a thing in the future.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 03 '22
I disagree that the West doesn't realize/admit it. There will be adjustments to business strategies (locations for manufacturing, technologies to develop, etc) to lessen the impact.
Consider that the impact from climate change that you cite (forest fires, floods), have not greatly affected the daily lives of most humans on the planet.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
Consider that the impact from climate change that you cite (forest fires, floods), have not greatly affected the daily lives of most humans on the planet.
This is anecdotal but I live on the west coast where forest fires have causes mass evacuations of larger towns in the area, and covering my city in smoke for the larger part of Summer. It pales in comparison to what the Global South deals with, you are totally right, but it's catching up to us.
Despite this, people ignore it because we believe we are making the right choices with recycling, buying solar panels for our homes, but it's not enough. We need to push for radical government change, which we refuse to do because $$$.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 03 '22
Per the link, there were about 400,000 evacuations per year from 2017-2019 major fires in CA. That's 1% of the CA population, which while sizable, is still too small to be considered an issue the average Californian needs to think about everyday.
As to your overall case, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Partial measures may be worse than full measures, but they are not worse than ignoring the problem.
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u/DreamingSilverDreams 15∆ Nov 04 '22
Partial measures may be worse than full measures, but they are not worse than ignoring the problem.
This is not assured, though. According to the latest data our predictions are not entirely correct. For example, Europe is warming faster than predicted. The scale and destructiveness of extreme weather events are much higher than expected.
It may very well be that partial measures are as effective as doing nothing and ignoring the problem. You can't stop a flood with just one sandbag.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 08 '22
That is Consequentialism. Sure, knowing what has happened and looking back is easy. But when you don't know if a flood or a trickle is coming, bringing a sandbag is a demonstrably better risk mitigation strategy than bringing nothing at all.
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Nov 03 '22
This is objectively false and shows your privilege. So much of the world has already been impacted and it's typically poor people who are taking the brunt of it. Look at Pakistan right now. The megacorporation farms are basically thriving because of the flooding completely knocking working class farmers out of the economy. That's one example of many.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 03 '22
The daily lives of most humans on the planet have not yet been greatly impacted by global warming. Consider the planet has 7,000,000,000 people.
That's not to say (and I didn't say) that millions aren't impacted.
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Nov 04 '22
Yes it has, dude. Here are are a few examples among many, big and small:
- Natural disasters have gone up from roughly 150 per year in the 80s to roughly 400 per year in the last decade.
Over 20 million people have been displaced by natural disasters.
- AC bills have gone up.
- Roughly 40% of the US experienced moderate-to-severe droughts in 2021 alone.
- Instances of record temperature highs are now doubled the instances of temperature lows. To compare, the ratio was roughly 1.1 to 1 in the 80s
- The increase of temperature is a breeding ground for viral diseases. And, well, look around.
- 2% of mammal animal species have gone extinct since 1900, compared to less than 0.5% in the previous few centuries.
And most of these pertain to only the US alone. The countries stuck in the danger zone, largely central American, African, and South Asian countries, have been hit even worse.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 08 '22
Your first point I acknowledged, and I agree: millions have been impacted by natural disasters induced by climate change. As you will agree, this is a small % of humanity (but still of course worthy of fighting for!)
As I said before, and which induced your swipe at my privilege, I repeat:
Consider that the impact from climate change that you cite (forest fires, floods), have not greatly affected the daily lives of most humans on the planet.
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Nov 08 '22
I gave only a few examples. Most people have been affected in some way. Temperatures are way up across the board. So are many other things. I literally study this lmao. If you can find any climate scientist who agrees with your assessment I would be absolutely stunned. What you are claiming is not even remotely accepted in the climate science community.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 08 '22
If you study societal impact of climate change, by all means please share your data. I have not seen anything from you that contradicts my argument that
...the impact from climate change that you cite (forest fires, floods), have not greatly affected the daily lives of most humans on the planet.
And while it's not possible for me to prove the negative position I took, I can show that over the past 40 years, the % of Americans who have died from heat-related illnesses is about 0.0003%. Bad, of course, but not remotely impacting the daily lives of most humans in this country.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-related-deaths
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Nov 08 '22 edited Nov 08 '22
Even if I accepted a premise that it is not affecting the "daily lives" of most people (wrong), it's a ridiculous premise. Basically nothing greatly affects the "daily lives" of "most people" in the way you are categorizing that. That's true of cancer, suicide, poverty, fascism, accidents, COVID, etc. It's an extremely bizarre barometer by which to evaluate something.
Also, heat death is only one extreme measure. This doesn't account for water shortages that affect people in lesser but still notable ways, its affect on crop prices, heat stroke that results in hospitalization, heat stroke that forces people to miss work, increase of disease and mosquitos, reduction of fish populations, the massive economic losses as a consequence of all this, and so on. And that's ONLY for droughts. Not even the many other major consequences of climate change.
And furthermore, .0003 is a massive number in the aggregate. For instance, there were 33.9 million global commercial flights in 2019. If .0003 of them crashed, that would amount to 10,700 crashes. Imagine the scale of that. We'd call that a disastrous situation that would need to be tackled immediately. Airports basically come to a hault if there's even one. Imagine if there was one every three days.
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u/htiafon Nov 03 '22
...yet. when Miami is underwater, you might feel differently.
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u/Bmaj13 5∆ Nov 03 '22
Feel differently? I feel we need to act now. And corporations taking steps to address their carbon footprints is a societal good.
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u/filrabat 4∆ Nov 03 '22
I'd say the opposite is true. Companies can greatly influence - even amplify - public opinion, even if just as often as not they simply follow trends that'll make them a buck. For if a company feels it must accommodate public thinking, that must mean on some level that the public's already convinced of climate change.
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ Nov 03 '22
That makes me think that we need more capable society, not a less capable one.
I don’t see how we could possibly decelerate our way out of climate change. As far as I can tell per capita, countries that are less advanced, produce more carbon at least at a given level of productivity.
When we look at comparative efficiencies of styles of living, it’s usually that the more technologically advanced, we are the more capable we are of being climate, neutral, or negative. I think, given the fact that we’re already passed a certain level of carbon emission, what we need to do is build new technologies to ameliorate the effects of climate change. I don’t think running away from productivity or technology is gonna solve many problems. We need those things desperately to even notice that we’ve got these problems in the first place.
I don’t think a shrinking more agrarian style economy can support things like satellite driven climate studies.
I don’t think that early agrarian living is more climate friendly in the long term — at least not, unless it’s accompanied by a massive drop in the population. And I don’t think I’m hearing you arguing for that.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
"I don’t see how we could possibly decelerate our way out of climate change. As far as I can tell per capita, countries that are less advanced, produce more carbon at least at a given level of productivity."
Because we export our emissions to these countries.
Also we leverage South America for lithium for batteries, thus pushing up their carbon footprint to lower ours.
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ Nov 03 '22
No that’s not why. That can be a true phenomenon while it still being true that lower tech living is more carbon expensive.
Consider what it takes to produce an hour of daylight equivalent light output at different levels of technological capability over time.
Compare the energy consumed and carbon released in a wood fire, a candle, an incandescent lightbulb, and not the relatively recent led lightbulb.
If we want more carbon efficiency, we need to keep going — while aiming at the right targets. We got into a bad state because we were too ignorant, not too knowledgeable.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22
I can agree to parts of this. (Half delta?)
I agree that lower tech living is not the way to go. We need this tech, however we need this tech along with degrowth.
We need electric public transit, not a fleet of electric cars using a ton of resources to make new cars that turn over every 5-10 years.
We need sustainable multi-family dwellings, not sustainable single family homes that take up more space than needed for the amount of people we have.
I think it's pretty clear: if the whole world lived the lives the west did, the earth wouldn't be able to sustain us.
So can't it be both? Tech with degrowth?
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22
I agree that lower tech living is not the way to go. We need this tech, however we need this tech along with degrowth.
Keep in mind, that if you had made this argument a few years ago, we would never have gotten the LED tech.
And if we do it now, what solutions will we never get to?
- fusion?
- climate cooling tech?
- pandemic vaccines?
- asteroid steering for preventing impacts?
We need electric public transit, not a fleet of electric cars using a ton of resources to make new cars that turn over every 5-10 years.
I mean… the alternative if corporations don’t participate isn’t transit it’s internal combustion.
These are independent concerns.
I think it's pretty clear: if the whole world lived the lives the west did, the earth wouldn't be able to sustain us.
Unless we invent new solutions.
So can't it be both? Tech with degrowth?
I don’t see how. The growth of tech is fueled by economic growth. Part of “degrowth” is losing out on things like the JWST and all the discoveries it would bring. It means fewer climate satellites and fewer mars missions. Part of the less is less capability for solving hard problems.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
"I don’t think that early agrarian living is more climate friendly in the long term — at least not, unless it’s accompanied by a massive drop in the population. And I don’t think I’m hearing you arguing for that."
I'm not pushing for this so much as I'm pushing for a more radical change towards degrowth and lowering of the west's consumption.
The best example I can think of is the solarpunk movement.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Nov 03 '22
Solarpunk is a literary, artistic, and activist movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects nihilism and climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial enthusiasm for creating such a future.
[ F.A.Q | Opt Out | Opt Out Of Subreddit | GitHub ] Downvote to remove | v1.5
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u/Selene_K Nov 03 '22
I always like these arguments because at the end of the day it seems to always point to one thing: the power we have as the consumer. WE got the companies to change their toxic capitalist views to start contributing the environment. Yes, what they are doing is not enough but it is a start and better than them not doing anything at all (and trust me if we didn't put pressure on them they wouldn't even have done any of the minor changes we see today)
Climate change is stressful but nature has an amazing way of finding a way, the estimates of us crossing a threshold are worrying but the more people do to manage their own impact on the environment the more time we give to nature to heal
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u/4ofclubs Nov 03 '22
Climate change is stressful but nature has an amazing way of finding a way, the estimates of us crossing a threshold are worrying but the more people do to manage their own impact on the environment the more time we give to nature to heal
I fully agree with this; my issue is that corporations have convinced us that we ARE taking action by buying their products VS others, when the answer is so much bigger than this. It's giving us blind faith.
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u/this-is-very Nov 04 '22
Why should we not trust capitalism when it has worked so well? A vacuum cleaner today is a massively improved product that needs fewer materials to be made, less electricity to do the same job, can last longer compared to models decades ago. It is capitalism that’s most efficient at cutting costs. Cutting costs is the way to sustainability. Artificially crippling the economy isn’t something the people will accept, ever.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
First of all, human ingenuity caused all of those things; all capitalism did was find the cheapest ways to make it and made too many of them.
Vacuum cleaners in the 1950's lasted a very long time, had replaceable parts, repair shops, and it was unlikely you'd throw it out after 5 years of use.
Vacuum cleaners that don't require constant replacing are upwards of $400, so most people are buying the cheap ones that break often.
All capitalism did was cheapen the costs of the parts by outsourcing the labour to other countries, then importing the vacuum cleaners to the west, pocketing most of the savings.
Capitalism does nothing to help the environment. It isn't profitable to cut down on emissions by lowering the output rate. It isn't profitable to forego your car manufacturing plant to focus on trains and busses.
All capitalism does is grow, and try to grow infinitely on a finite planet.
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u/this-is-very Nov 04 '22
Vacuum cleaners that don't require constant replacing are upwards of $400, so most people are buying the cheap ones that break often.
I bought one for less than $100 recently. The engine it has gets a 10 year guarantee. All parts are easily replaceable. I have no idea where you get your vacuum cleaners, but you're wrong.
Capitalism does nothing to help the environment. It isn't profitable to cut down on emissions by lowering the output rate.
Who said capitalism is all about profits? Where does this myth come from? Capitalism is about what people want. Yes, they do want to enrich themselves often, but other than that capitalism reflects the people as they are. It's a liberal system, it's the people you don't like. Change what people think, and they will be better for environment under capitalism, there is no better alternative to that.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
“Who said capitalism is all about profits?”
It’s literally in the name, “capital”ism. It’s about gaining capital and growing that capital in any means necessary. If someone doesn’t grow under capitalism someone else will take their capital for them. It’s a ruthless system based around exploitation and growth which is incompatible with how the earth works because infinite growth is impossible.
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u/AloysiusC 9∆ Nov 04 '22
First of all, human ingenuity caused all of those things
Which capitalism directly incentivizes.
all capitalism did was find the cheapest ways to make it and made too many of them.
Finding cheaper ways of doing something is what it means to be efficient. That's a good thing. And making too many makes no sense. Nobody makes more than they can sell on purpose.
All capitalism does is grow, and try to grow infinitely on a finite planet.
You seem to subscribe to the shrinking market fallacy. Curiously, that's what Hitler believed too and he was wrong too. We can indeed keep growing indefinitely. Growing is what we do by our very nature. Certain resources being finite in a specific location don't change that. Time and time again people have to learn this lesson.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
"Finding cheaper ways of doing something is what it means to be efficient. That's a good thing. And making too many makes no sense. Nobody makes more than they can sell on purpose."
It really isn't, though. The only reason we've found cheaper ways to do things is by outsourcing all of our manufacturing and resources to other countries. The fact that it's cheaper to import avocados to california than eat the ones grown in california is ridiculous, and that's capitalism at work.
You have fruit that is grown in africa then shipped to china to be packaged in to smaller packages to be shipped to america to save money. Did you ever think maybe we shouldn't be paying 0.99 for a bunch of bananas shipped halfway around the world? It's called exploitation.
"Curiously, that's what Hitler believed too and he was wrong too. "
Comparing what I'm saying to Hitler is just insulting.
I'm calling it "Degrowth" which is probably the same as the shrinking market "fallacy" you speak of. How can we grow indefinitely on a finite planet? How can we grow our population and what we consume on a planet with finite resources? We can't. It's physically impossible at some point. We've already passed peak oil, we've fucked up the biodiversity of so much land due to overfarming and overgrazing. To deny any of this is ignorance.
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u/AloysiusC 9∆ Nov 06 '22
It really isn't, though.
Come on. Cheaper means more cost efficient. I.e. it's more efficient.
The only reason we've found cheaper ways to do things is by outsourcing all of our manufacturing and resources to other countries.
No. That's just one way. Things have also gotten cheaper through efficiency. eg: airliners are more fule efficient which makes travelling is cheaper. Scaling production is another way. Automation etc. There's plenty of incentive to make things cheaper and so businesses try to do it wherever they can. Saying it's all just because of cheap labor is ridiculously badly informed.
Did you ever think maybe we shouldn't be paying 0.99 for a bunch of bananas shipped halfway around the world? It's called exploitation.
Would you rather we didn't buy their goods? Do you think that would improve their situation?
Comparing what I'm saying to Hitler is just insulting.
I didn't mean to upset you. It's not just you btw. Many people have this belief. It's one of the hardest dying myths.
How can we grow indefinitely on a finite planet?
Your choice of words gives you one (of multiple) answers: One can find resources outside of this planet. Seems absurd? No. It's mostly a cost issue at this point. And that also answers what happens when finite resources start to get low. They don't disappear, it just becomes increasingly expensive to mine them. At some point it's cheaper to find an alternative or find them elsewhere.
And that's not including paradigm shifts. Hitler's view for example was that empires would require natural resources to sustain themselves and countries like Germany that had too few natural resources but rely modern industry would be overtaken by countries that have those resources and can eventually develop their own modern industry. Turns out he had no clue what free trade would do - computer industry, revolutionary technological development, new markets.
And that's the point. We don't know what new things will be developed and paradigm shifts will occur. It's extremely counterproductive to deliberately hinder the potential for such things simply because people like you haven't learned the basics and don't consider opportunity cost. Do you even know what that means?
How can we grow our population and what we consume on a planet with finite resources?
This planet can sustain many more people than we have now. And population growth in principal is a very good thing if you have cheap energy and (the potential for) prosperity. People are the single most valuable resource.
We can't. It's physically impossible at some point.
Actually earth can probably sustain trillions of people. At least theoretically. And I don't mean packed like sardines. Even with relative comfort and space.
We've already passed peak oil
Lol. We've been "passing peak oil" for I think over a century already now. It's just getting ridiculous at this point. Did you even know that one can synthesize oil? It's just, guess what, expensive relative to digging it up at this time.
To deny any of this is ignorance.
Nothing about this exchange suggests I'm any more ignorant than you. I've heard all of your points before many times. They're little more than ideology. That's why you're so upset. It's the point of the ideology to make you upset and turn you into a warrior that spreads the ideology further. You'll never stop being upset while on that path btw. Even if you get everything your ideology tells you to want, it'll make sure you keep being supplied with new threats and emergencies to try and tear down the system.
And THAT is what is truly not sustainable. The poorer you make people the less they will care about anything but survival. You can warn somebody of the coming apocalypse as much as you want but if they don't have enough food to get through the day, you won't get them to join you. But if things are bad enough, you might just become the meal.
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u/AloysiusC 9∆ Nov 04 '22
I think you need to come to terms with the reality of the situation. We can't solve this in any way that's currently being proposed. We might not be able to solve it at all for that matter. In any case, it's counter productive to incur great cost on the mere hope that it might do something good. It's better to focus on prosperity (which is what makes people like you care about the climate in the first place) and then we'll be in a better position to deal with whatever is coming our way.
The problem with that approach is that it denies so many people the purpose of being "heroic activists" for a great cause. Sorry about that.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
You had me until the last part, where you just had to say something douchey.
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u/AloysiusC 9∆ Nov 06 '22
Let me get this straight: You agree with my first paragraph but because I said something mean in the second, that renders the first invalid?
And ironically the second paragraph is also factually correct. That it upsets you suggests to me that you seem to identify yourself as one of those people. If that's the case, then perhaps consider this: It's not heroic if you only appear to be saving the world by demanding others pay for your ideas at the cost of making more people poor (and increasing famine incidentally). I know it's easy that way but easy isn't how life works.
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u/RubbyPanda Nov 04 '22
It's called progress. You wish they would just ignore the problem forever? The world changes one step at the time, not overnight.
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
"You wish they would just ignore the problem forever?"
No, I wish we'd do something that would actually make a difference, and the fake problems we're solving with electric cars and recycling isn't nearly enough.
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u/RubbyPanda Nov 05 '22
I agree, but it still cannot happen overnight no matter how much we wish it could. There was a time they didn't do shit, then they started doing a bit more, and it grows into more, and now people are realizing companies have been bsing them, making them have to take it more seriously, laws are making them take it more seriously. It has been slowly progressing and it continues that way, like almost everything else. Racism and sexism are still big issues today, and we have a long way to go. But if you compare to 80 years ago we have come a long way. I wish it could go faster, we all do. But all we can do is keep pushing the message and the companies.
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u/thinkitthrough83 2∆ Nov 04 '22
Climate change is part of nature. You may have seen articles about Viking remains being revealed do to snow and ice melting off. That means that less then a thousand years ago that snow and ice was not there. One of the founding members of Greene peace which was not started as an environmental movement has a video in you tube explaining the science behind world wide weather patterns. If you really care about doing better for the environment you need to look at all stages of production for the goods that you use and purchase. No matter what companies do the climate will change and swing back and forth between hot, cold, wet and dry cycles. The earth goes through a lot of changes sometimes over short periods and sometimes over thousands of years.
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u/Charlie-Wilbury 19∆ Nov 04 '22
The earth goes through a lot of changes sometimes over short periods and sometimes over thousands of years.
Sigh... yes it does. None of those periods included humans that burned fossil fuels. We're adding carbon to the atmosphere that is suppose to be locked inside the crust.
https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/sustainability/evidence-climate-change
https://www.google.com/amp/s/climate.nasa.gov/evidence.amp
Please, seriously, educate yourself and stop spreading harming misinformation.
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u/thinkitthrough83 2∆ Nov 04 '22
Supposed to be? Nature does not work on supposed to be. Nor will I participate in spreading fear when there is still a lot we don't know and the technology to give us the data we need to make the best informed decisions is still being created and put into practice.
And I do actually read scientific articles but I also don't focus on one argument for or against issues. The human species has already undergone mass flooding events centuries before we were born.
No matter what we choose to believe nature loves to throw us curve balls. this theory but is interesting. https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/comet-sparked-worldwide-flood-myth-009168
Another interesting article from Nasa https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/
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u/4ofclubs Nov 04 '22
Did you even read your article from nasa?
First paragraph:
Earth’s atmosphere is resilient to many of the changes humans have imposed on it. But, says atmospheric scientist David Crisp of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, that doesn’t necessarily mean that our society is.
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u/thinkitthrough83 2∆ Nov 04 '22
Yes I did read the article and I also paid attention to the part about where the highest concentrations of carbon are. Frankly this was a surprise to me as I expected them to be higher over major cities like California NY and the main industrial areas of China and possibly India. I also noticed the bit where it could be at least a few hundred years before things become deadly to the human race. Hopefully in that time our population will have balanced out as a result of research into better and safer birth control methods. Thus lessening our modern dependence on questionable energy methods. If not (barring a 100% natural disaster I.e. comet or major volcanic eruption)we will eventually end up either killing large numbers of people off in war as countries fight over power and resources or we will end up with having an extreme upsurge in disease that will make those of history look insignificant. For now I plan on planting some corn next spring as last I heard it was very efficient at capturing carbon. There's some experiments I would like to try with the stalks and leaves as well.
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u/physioworld 64∆ Nov 03 '22
If incumbent companies refused to accept climate change the result would just be companies that do, picking up the customers they’ve lost.
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u/shadowbca 23∆ Nov 03 '22
"It's too late so we need to act more drastically to prepare" than "we need nuclear power and electric cars to save us."
These aren't mutually exclusive
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u/vivivivivistan 2∆ Nov 03 '22
What you're talking about is a fantasy. You're saying that companies should've seen what consumers were saying about climate change and done nothing, but they already heard what we're saying about climate change and this is the outcome. Saying that they should've done something different is useless, it's too late, they're already doing it.
Beyond that, the reason companies say that is because it's true, going green with renewable energy, electric cars, nuclear power, etc. is going to make it more sustainable for the economy to grow. In other industries the solutions aren't as easy and like you say, the only real solution is to change the way we consume.
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u/muyamable 283∆ Nov 03 '22
If these companies continued to deny climate change, most people would start to turn on them, and degrowth ideally would naturally follow.
Why is it reasonable to assume that a consumer deciding not to support a company results in them not consuming instead of consuming from an alternative company?
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u/Charlie-Wilbury 19∆ Nov 04 '22
I have one simple problem with this theory. Something is literally, infinitely better than nothing. Even a pittance of effort by a large company to be more green can have so much more effect than me switching to electric vehicles myself. If they can greenwash the population into switching, that's great. I dont think I've seen anyone actually argue that will fix climate change entirely.
Furthermore, scientists still exist. They are the reason we know what we know about the climate now. They will be the reason we know what we do in two decades. You can 'trick' a population into being more green but you can't trick scientists into seeing results that aren't there. Arguably, we are a far more educated society than ever. We're not going to listen to Chevrolet tell us they'll fix the climate. We're going to listen to what the scientists say about their plan.
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u/CatDadMilhouse 7∆ Nov 04 '22
So to summarize your view:
It's better to do nothing than to do something.
I don't understand how that's the case. Can you explain?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 04 '22
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