Frequent fliers are a problem for the planet. Should they pay more? A global tax on frequent fliers could go a long way toward fixing aviation’s climate problem https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/10/frequent-flyer-tax-aviation/
With family in Asia I do take long trips and would be fine with paying. A little more to go address climate change. As is with increasing insurance rates more spending on building resiliency and recovery we all already are playing more for climate change.
The climate ‘crisis’ isn’t what it used to be https://judithcurry.com/2022/11/02/the-climate-crisis-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/
Disagree. I find that take kind of silly, hyperbolic, and unscientific. Beneath you. Not that the world doesn't contain control freaks of every economic stripe, but given the scientific megaplex on the table, that's a take take born of lazy right-wing paranoia. Climate change is a physical reality and fairly baked in now, just based on tons of measurements, basic physical chemistry, and the overwhelming majority of model projections. I've watched the skeptics move the goalposts steadily over 30+ years -- I truly have. 1. "It's not happening! Give me a break. As if we could influence the whole atmosphere!" 2. "Scientists aren't in agreement that it's happening at all! We might be cooling!" 3. "Scientists mostly agree, okay, but they are in a vast conspiracy to keep their grants!" (my personal favorite, LOL.) 4. "There'a a pause! Look at this rescaled graph I made!" 5. "Well okay... okay, yeah, it's warming pretty clearly now, but there are other causes. Like, the sun! This is just a natural cycle, happening much faster than normal, sure, but for a non-human reason." 6. "Okay, okay, fine. Humans are probably causing what we're seeing, but it's too expensive to move from fossil fuels. Look at you chumps talking about cow farts. Hahaha! ... ha." Finally, most of us have arrived at that honest place. Yes, we're causing it, but how expensive would it be to change, versus how expensive will it be to deal with what's coming? And who will be hit hardest? Will we collectively care or just say "good luck" to one another? Humans are mightily struggling to cope with a response as a species. We/they probably cannot achieve any substantial effort incorporating hundreds of governments and billions of people, but I personally golf clap the attempt. At least we advanced far enough to have a pseudo-conversation. Poignant, like when the hero in a movie is overmatched but gives it their best shot. Sean Connery in The Untouchables. Oppose grand actions to mitigate climate change, ATW? You are likely 99.5% in luck. China and India aren't even paying attention to the joint meetings now, from what I can tell. You can just rejoice. Enjoy a long, aimless SUV drive, fire up a diesel generator for no reason, smoke a cigar, and avoid these nearly completely useless threads. I largely have done so. (But I'm having a little D&D couple of days.) In sum: you won! Just don't buy property too close to shorelines if you want your kids to inherit it. Convince friends in Australia to leave. Invest in real estate near Duluth. Cheers.
I agree with @B-Bob, but he's far too polite. Have you lost your mind? Where on earth do you dredge up this lunacy? Seriously. Where do you read this utter nonsense? Is it a disease you've contracted from moving with your family to Florida and it's toxic brew of extreme politics, led by Ron DeSantis? I am at a loss to understand how you could truly believe this. This, and so much else that you've exhibited here the last few months. It's both disturbing and disappointing.
I'm not saying that climate change is not happening, what I am saying is that it is being used to transport other agendas, specifically authoritarian socialism. I see first-hand in Germany what is happening when ideology trumps common sense. For us to address climate change, we need inventions and better technology - not socialist playbooks and de-industrialization. It won't work because only global solutions will work. Germany totally de-industrializing and trying to lecture other countries what they should be doing will not work.
Cheap, reliable, transportable, storable, energy-dense fossil fuels are by far the best way to adapt and thrive in a changing climate.
This is used by to criticize anything that the Right doesnt agree with it. Climate change is pretense to install Socialism. COVID 19 restrictions is to install Socialism. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is Socialism. Gay marriage is Instilling Socialism …
I agree with everything you say about climate change here, but this response is also a non sequitur to the point being made. "X is used to do Y" is not a denial of X. Just as we might say "hot weather is used to sell swim suits and air conditioners" and "cold weather is used to sell parkas and ski boots," the statement "climate change is used to sell authoritarian policies" (or "climate change can be used to sell authoritarian policies") is simply correct, both as a matter of logic and of sociology. This political observation is a point that has long been acknowledged in modern environmental policy history, for example is discussions of ecofascism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofascism . So again, while I agree with everything you say in your response about the empirical reality of climate change itself, that has little to do with the claim that climate change is being used to accomplish political ends. The claim that climate change is being used to accomplish political ends needs to be examined and criticized as a separate issue.
It has always been true that outside threats (real, perceived or pretended) have been used in history for authoritarian power grabs. So yes, climate change and Covid have been used and are being used to further authoritarian agendas. This cannot even be in doubt. You saw it with Covid in places like Canada and New Zealand, in states like New York, California. And of course the worst offenders are the ones in China, who are arguably responsible for Covid having been unleashed on humanity in the first place. And with climate change, you can see that ecofascists like parts of the German Green Party have clearly been using the threat of climate change to advance their previously failed socialist dreams. I can't find anything in English, but there is a German communist lady disguised as a journalist called Ulrike Hermann who wrote a book "the end of capitalism" and who is openly fantasizing about abolishing any kind of private property ownership and private rights, based on "the need to fight climate change". She is a Stalinist. With Covid, these kinds of people have seen and tested how easily civil rights can be abolished based on a (perceived) threat justifying this. They are now looking at applying this playbook to the (real or perceived) threat of "climate change", in order to make their Stalinist wet dreams come true. Medicare and gay marriage have nothing to do with all of this. Maybe there are some fringe right people who think so, but that would be nonsense. These are policy decisions where one can have different opinions, but these are not things used by socialists to fundamentally change society and abolish individual liberties. Covid and climate change are. So, logically, even if a threat is real and exists, the more you blow it up to be an apocalyptic scenario, the more you can justify your own power grab that's based on its existence. And that's what we are seeing with "climate change". Yes, scientifically, it exists, and it needs to be addressed. But the ones who are interested in using it to grab power and install authoritarian measures are trying to suppress any kind of discussion on how it should best be addressed. They paint those who say that authoritarian socialism and de-industrialization are not the answer as "climate deniers", they try to deny these people any legitimacy from the outset. Even if these people come with legitimately better approaches, they are shouted down. There are clear parallels here in the discussions around Covid where scientists with viewpoints differing from those who wanted authoritarian measures were ostracized, punished, silenced. The same is happening in the climate change debate.
The problem I have with this argument is not the logic of it, but rather that it leads climate change deniers or minimizers (for personal ideological or financial reasons) to cast any serious solutions under discussion as “authoritarian”. Also, I could flip it around and say the denial or minimization of the risks of climate change is used to justify unsustainable economic activity that is highly profitable to “elites” while also generally destructive to the environment in which current and future generations will have to live.
Sorry, this is in German...but this lady is quite influential in the Green movement in Germany. She says - no flights, no cars (including e-cars), no banks, no fairs, no graphic designers, nothing. De-growth. The government will assign work - but with a lot less income - to build wind parks and to work in "ecological farming". Only the government will decide. You may think this lady is totally fringe, but this is at the core of the ideology of many of the radicals of the "climate change movement". And of course, they are massive hypocrites. Many of them fly around, etc. It's like the Stalinists who had the luxury cars. Like Kim in North Korea. These people are dangerous. And the Green party is in government in Germany at the moment. They are actively destroying Germany's economy.
You have to look at every argument and every policy recommendation on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, there truly are authoritarian policy goals being articulated. Those deserve to be examined and criticized. But not all policy recommendations are authoritarian--some are quite reasonable, pragmatic, realistic, and desirable.
You have often shown that your understanding of civil liberties vs. authoritarianism is very rudimentary, although you are intelligent.
That’s fine. I’m all for pragmatic solutions. It’s also a judgment call how much risk one is willing to accept to the “individual freedom” of untold number of current and future people who won’t have the means to relocate to greener pastures as things worsen.
