Is there really much evidence of this? Usually when I am told this, the person telling me is either depending in a bunch of assumed conclusions or anecdotal cartoonish misallocation of capital by central planners. But our current ostensibly capitalist system gave 50% of the wealth to 0.5% of the people (give or take). Like I work at a Fortune 500 company so I’m not instinctively anticapitalist, but something doesn’t hang here.
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Is that climate science for paleoconservatives?
One sort of tangent - alot of people in contemporary society are both workers and capitalist which muddies up this kind of stuff. Example - I of course mostly get income from my paycheck as an oppressed worker, but I also own lots of stocks of publicly traded companies where I benefit from the labour of others. Isn’t there effectively a spectrum of how much someone is a capital exploiter vs the exploited?
Well I guess. I can’t imagine what purpose such a spectrum might serve.
It seems an important part of understanding the current American economy, and drawing a path to superior socio economic system. Something like half of Americans own stocks, so its hard to rally widespread support using absolutist terminology like “anyone who owns capital is a Capitalist” and portraying the Capitalists is pure villians. I think its more important to focus in on relative concentration of wealth. It’s probably more important that capital is highly concentrated than it is that anyone at all owns capital.
It’s the same as anti-racism (literally). Racism and capitalism aren’t flaws in certain people’s “secret inner heart”. Instead, they are systemic relationships between people. Modern capitalism’s three main pillars are the wage system, rent, loans at interest. These are relationships between people.
Where this relates to ecologically collapse, including climate change, is that the pillars of capitalism are fundamentally, in their very essence, unsustainable. It’s not a matter of getting from point A to point B… it’s a matter of you can’t get there from here.
The above is what needs “rally widespread support”. Is that hard? Sure. Does it need to be done anyways? Of course.
So the plantations were OK, they just got too big? Anyways, no, this isn’t the root problem. The root problem is absentee ownership and profit extraction.
Now… I’m going to make an analogy to space aliens. If you can’t deal with analogies, I apologize in advance, and feel free to skip this part entirely.
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If some space aliens, using quisling human agents, secretly bought up a significantly large buncha rainforest that extracting profit from it would push our ecosystem over the edge… would we as humans on planet earth be in a sustainable state? Obviously no… I would hope.
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What if the aliens restricted ownership to only a 0.0001% share of our rainforests per capita. Does that change anything? Obviously no again… I would hope.
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What if they aren’t aliens at all, but people like the Koch bro. And you, to a comparatively insignificant and completely powerless extent. Does anything change this time? Obviously no, once more… I would hope.
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Imo the problem is that there are lots of incentives to allocate capital to areas where it shouldnt be because there are regulations that prevent bad outcomes. We saw that with Greece where the EU stepped in and saved the banks. You see that in several energy sectors because the externalities arent prized in. It doesnt work because there are several different rule books out there and the mightiest impose their rulebook on the weaker ones.
On other news: Ever heard of the mosaic expedition? https://mosaic-expedition.org/
I only heard about yesterday when it was coming to an end. It was one of the biggest research expeditions in the Arctic to find out how it works and how climate change impacts it. 20 countries participated with lots of researchers. It seems cooperation is still possible. Question is how much the results will be accepted by those in power.
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Thanks these are all good points.
For clarity, when I am talking about getting from A to B in this conversation, I mean that if you want people to abandon capitalism for something better then you will have a harder time if Step 1 is “acknowledge all ownership of capital is evil exploitation” than if Step 1 is “acknowledge that our current system has put the power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many”. Theses statements may lead naturally to one another but one pushes people away and one draws people in.
How to sell a concept to the public, like a hamburger, is a second order consideration.
What professional mad-men often do is run different, sometimes contradictory, ad campaigns targeted towards different demographics. For one demographic, say teens who see themselves as rebellious, they might run a campaign which ties the burger to extrema activities that might function to “push away” most other demographics. For other demographics, these professional mad-men might run a campaign which ties the burger to wholesome nostalgia, that might function to “draw in” most every demographic.
Bottom line: advertising is a second order consideration. In the context of advertising, and in general, it’s usually a “porque no los dos” situation. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good etc/etc.
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Earth has had 44 straight Septembers where it has been warmer than the 20th century average and 429 straight months without a cooler than normal month, according to NOAA. The hottest seven Septembers on record have been the last seven.
That means “that no millennial or even parts of Gen-X has lived through a cooler than normal September,”
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My city’s date for 90% chance of first frost was yesterday (50% chance is October 5). We haven’t had one yet. Here’s the forecast for the coming week:
It’s already snowed multiple times in MN and I played golf when it was 32F yesterday, I’d love to get some of this record breaking heat
Read more sad news today: Brazil has stopped fighting the current fires in the Amazonas because the budget hasnt been released.
For a period of one hour on Sunday 11th October, South Australia’s entire energy demand was met by solar power. 77% consumer rooftop panels and 23% solar farms. It’s thought to be a world first for a jurisdiction the size of SA.
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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article246717356.html
Great egrets in the Everglades are losing their sexual motivation because they are exposed to mercury through the fish they eat, a University of Florida study using more than 20 years of data has found.
Researchers observed that mercury contamination led to a 50% reduction in attempts by the birds to breed, showing that the heavy metal is affecting their reproduction process much earlier than previously thought. As most studies have focused on offspring-related metrics such as hatchling success, the recent findings indicate that the full effects of mercury exposure among wading birds may be “systematically underestimated,” the study said.
“This study suggests that there are a lot of birds that are just sitting out the breeding season; it’s not that they are starting and not successfully finishing; they aren’t even attempting to breed,” said Peter Frederick, one of the study’s co-authors and a professor at the university’s department of wildlife ecology and conservation. “We’ve probably been underestimating the effects of mercury on reproduction, not just among great egrets but other animals as well.”
Mercury pollution is especially bad because the vast majority of it in Florida comes from atmospheric deposition from non-local sources, so you can’t just shut down a paper mill upstream or whatever to stop the situation.
Burning coal hurting more birds.
Maybe we should burn cats.
Time capsule placed in ice in the Arctic was expected to be found when ice melts in 30 to 50 years. It took 2 years. WAAF
One letter in English, dated 4 August 2018, said: “Everything around is covered by ice. We think that by the time this letter will be found there is no more ice in Arctic unfortunately.”
McClory tracked down one of the letter’s authors, a Russian Instagram blogger in St Petersburg known as Sveta. In a Zoom call, Sveta said the crew and passengers had thought the cylinder might be discovered in 30 or 50 years and expressed shock it was found so quickly, McClory said.
This makes me even more committed to buying 2nd hand.