this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what do you suggest that can actually be done, besides removed about it on Lemmy?

You talk a lot about moralizing without actually making a difference, but that's exactly what you're doing in your comment.

So hit us with it - what should we be doing instead? Other than removed about it on Lemmy, I mean?

[–] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

So what do you suggest that can actually be done, besides removed about it on Lemmy?

I somehow fucking knew this was coming, Everyone has the same response regardless of what you say.

I suggested targeting the most heavily polluting power plants for conversion to clean energy. This suggestion is:

  1. Practical from a cost standpoint
  2. Could be accomplished with current technology
  3. Easier to implement politically than "make all cars electric"
  4. Would have a bigger impact on the environment than "make all cars electric".

You: "Well if you don't have any ideas..."

I know my comment was long but you aren't really arguing with me, you're arguing with the shadows that live inside your head. This was true of your previous post, too. See:

And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It”…

(Which is still not and never has been my argument.)

For the record it's my belief that we could currently not only halt but fully reverse climate change (though it would take maybe 100 years) at our current technological level. I believe it's possible. However, i do not know of any way to do it that does not require major change to the political and economic systems of the West (the ones that brought us to this point, in other words: Capitalism). Back in the '70s it would have been way easier to address this but now we're on hard mode.

You talk a lot about moralizing without actually making a difference, but that’s exactly what you’re doing in your comment.

I'm critiquing a moralizing argument, it's somewhat inevitable that my critique will also adopt the form of a moral argument. Unless you want me to argue that all morals, all ideas of "good" and "bad", are phantasms that are propagated by the powerful as a form of social control or something. Which i also could do, but it seems a little abstract given the current conversation.

Even granting you that point there's still a difference:

My arguments are concerned about outcomes, about material conditions in people's lives, they include the concept of collective and corporate action.

Your arguments are superficial, concerned about appearances, do not acknowledge the context or history of how we came to where we are, and are primarily concerned with individual actions that wealthy Westerners can take without regard to the practicality of implementation across the rest of the world.

I'm going to throw out one more thing:

Even if cars were the biggest source of carbon dioxide, going to all electric cars is not the best solution. Building electric cars still has a significant environmental impact, including greenhouse gas emissions. Better still would be mass transit. Trains and buses are more environmentally friendly still and would allow us to make other changes to society that would further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, that option is not favored by our capitalist overlords...