Heretical thoughts about science and society (2005)

Re:Heretical thoughts about science and society (2005) by acdha on Sunday June 09, 2024 @09:00PM (#40629016)

I think your last point is really important. Once you accept that climate scientists are right, you start to think about all of the ways your lifestyle depends on cheap carbon emissions and the things you’ll be doing less, not to mention all of the fun ecosystem and disease implications. It’s sooooooo much easier just to hope that the multi-billion dollar campaign saying business as usual will be fine is right, because otherwise you’re pretty much saying your children won’t have a world as good as you did.

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Re:Heretical thoughts about science and society (2005) by worik on Sunday June 09, 2024 @11:27PM (#40629851)

> you start to think about all of the ways your lifestyle depends on cheap carbon emissions

Been there

Done that.

Driving my car. That is it. I do need to get an electric car for taking the dog (and me) to the beech, then I am done.

* The vast majority of my food is local

* My clothes are natural fibres

* My electricity is > 80% from renewables.

The real problem is not lifestyle, it is systemic. I think it is bad form to blame people, who unlike me, have no way out of burning fossils. If we stop burning fossils, for most of us, our lives will get better, not worse.

Some very rich people will be less rich. That is the real problem

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Re:Heretical thoughts about science and society (2005) by acdha on Sunday June 09, 2024 @11:58PM (#40630007)

I wasn’t blaming people – it’s systemic (c.f. needing to buy a car) – but rather thinking about the inevitability of change. People like getting imported fruit in the middle of winter. We like taking airplane flights for weekend excursions. Tons of people want to retire to cheap houses next to the beach in Florida, coastal or barrier islands, etc.

Entire generations were sold on those being middle class ambitions, and we don’t have a viable path where that’s sustainable. That doesn’t mean we live in abject misery, but most of it is something which most adults were told was a sign of how much better we have it than our predecessors so it feels like failure.

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