The US is spending bilions on nuclear.
I think the counter argument is something like if by far the main culprit of the 20th century (the US) and still the #2 culprit today refuses to tackle its carbon emissions, then why would any reasonable leader of China, India, or anywhere else implement carbon reducing policies?
It lacks the very most basic fairness and justice.
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Lol at my letter to Xi mattering. Did you mean that? You are correct that I donât have as much global impact as Xi, but my letter to him would accomplish less than my consumer choices.
I have choices in the type and quantity of power I consume as well as the type of shopping bag. And using fewer bags also means less power consumption.
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Itâs like I said earlier, even if you think personal decisions donât matter directly, the coal rolling simplicitus is advocating for is sending signals that make the political change impossible. Changes in personal behavior are a precursor to political changes.
And changes in the US will affect other countries.
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7% of emissions is not insignificant even if the rest of the substack Iâm not going to read through the semi-transparent modal is accurate.
So a few things. The idea that any individual humans personal consumption choices matter is clearly a propoganda campaign mounted by big pollution. If you donât already agree with that statement itâs only because you havenât been paying attention to the internal memoâs from the fossil fuel lobby that have been coming out lately.
That being said one of the big horrors of the way weâve dealt with these issues in a macro sense is that we have allowed certain products to be artificially cheap, which has driven them to see much wider use than they ever would have. Great examples of this are things like plastic packaging (so cheap itâs disposable!) and plastic straws.
The solution to these types of problems that capitalism will fix itself the second itâs incentivized to do so by cost is just to tax them. We need to be taxing carbon at 75+ a ton and distributing the revenue as a per capita UBI. Suddenly every grocery store will expect you to bring your own bags and drinks and takeout places will expect you to bring your own containers. The plastic convenience shit will be available as a 5 dollar up charge. Most people will want to save the five bucks.
The price of every single thing in the economy needs to be repriced to include its carbon expenditure as a $ cost. Locally produced will surge drastically because of transportation costs. There will be a ton of substitution going on, but high value (which means maximally processed as close to the raw materials as possible) freight will still be able to go wherever it needs to go.
I donât see any other solution working. In the real world people donât do things for the right reasons.
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Yeah, the plan is they are going to get a bunch of people to recycle and then the recycling people are going to be like âHey, I did enough. I recycle. Now I can vote for Republicans.â
I would vote for this if it were on the ballot, but I already recycle, so, Iâll just vote no.
Your thinking this is accomplishing less than you not using plastic straws would.
If someone wants to just say thereâs literally nothing anyone can do then just say that because all these ideas about what Xi should do or what America should do arenât doing anything. They are just thoughts in your head. And if you want to say youâll just do whatever because your impact means exactly zero, then you are coal rolling. You are doing what you want and your posting about it is pressing the gas pedal and making a big cloud of smoke to broadcast that opinion.
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Youâre getting less and less coherent as this thread goes on.
You really think a $75 carbon tax and dividend is less consequential than foregoing plastic straws?
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Come on. I said his thoughts about a $75 carbon tax and dividend are less consequential than his foregoing plastic straws. His thoughts. Thoughts. Thoughts.
He has no power to implement that plan.
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Youâre not very good at reading and understanding things and then responding coherently are you?
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Do you really think thatâs what I said?
âYour thinking thisâ
Do you recognize that âYour thinking thisâ means something different than âThe solution you are talking aboutâ? Do you see those are different words and change the meaning of the sentence? Is this coherent enough for you?
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The carbon tax and dividend ends the straws or raises the price of the business using those straws by a meaningful amount. When the Starbucks corporation sees a surge in the cost of plastic packaging of 500% thereâs going to be a gold rush to be the first massive green packaging conglomerate.
Expecting people to be better hasnât ever worked. The people now at a fundamental level are just as innately shitty as they ever were. Theyâre getting slightly less traumatized with each passing generation and thatâs resulting in them being slightly less awful in practice, but they are still innately incredibly selfish creatures.
So if you want to change the world you need to harness individual humans selfishness to push them to do what you want them to do. Humans arenât just evil or anything, but once you realize that most peopleâs conscience is a defense attorney desperately trying to find a way to justify whatever is best for them (and whatâs best for them is measured in doses of various brain chemicals) in the immediate term the whole world makes a lot more sense. Thatâs considered normal. If you canât relate to that youâre probably some version of neurodivergent. Sorry I donât make the rules.
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Iâm just gonna say it, paper straws suck ass. I really wish theyâd come up with a better one.
How do you imagine the good policies you want come into effect if people are so bad? You expect leaders to force these plans over the objections of people? Do you think the leaders are not humans or something? Why arenât they just going to do whatâs easiest and just makes them the most money in the short run?
Why would businesses want to stop using plastic straws if they are cheap and their customers like them? Why would politicians force businesses to stop using plastic straws if neither the businesses nor their customers want them to? Itâs all well and good for you to say âit would be great if some beneficent dictator instituted these policiesâ, but thatâs the magical thinking here. People changing behaviors and what they care about is the only actual solution (not that itâs going to happen, but it is the only possibility).
(And Iâm just using plastic straws as an example because thatâs what was mentioned, not suggesting it is a particularly important issue. I would think that would be obvious, but shrug.)
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Paper straws are awful. If I am given the choice between paper straw and no straw I will always take no straw.
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Itâs a metal/glass straw. They need to make the equipment to clean them easily standard in peopleâs kitchens. This is all stuff that happens within 18 months of a carbon tax because money.
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Paper straws are fine. If you have young kids paper straws are far superior to no straws and they serve the intended purpose (allow the young kids to drink their drinks without spilling). Adults donât need straws because weâre, you know, adults, so if you donât need to use a paper straw and want to just drink straight from the cup, great.
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straws were really nice for me in an environment like a moving boat, where a covered container with a straw is far superior and less spill-prone. I used to get a starbucks water cup + straw and just re-use that for weeks at a time. Then they went to the paper straws and I couldnât even get mine to last more than an hour and gave up
I think itâs pretty obvious that a straw or a plastic shopping bag are very small things even compared to an individualâs total environmental footprint and that everyone understands that these things are used in this conversation as easy examples for the purpose of discussion, butâŚshrug.