See? This is why I'm a so called "climate doomer."
Because fixing the climate requires reducing anti-Black racism, and letting Black folk in the US vote, but the US just does not want to do that. There is no viable path to making progress on climate change without reducing anti-Black racism. None.
Because so many people will see headlines like this, and not even recognize the problem with it. China is doing the right thing! But we frame that as a negative.
@mekkaokereke The framing in the headline is something. 'overproducing' makes it seem like there is a set amount that should be created, and more than that is inherently 'too much', because the concept of more than the minimum is crazy.
It's priming people to certain mindsets right from the get go, via implication that there is an absolute set appropriate amount of 'green stuff's to worry about.
@Oggie@mekkaokereke As Deb Chachra put it in the podcast episode I just did with her, “Too cheap to meter is the dream! Oh no we produced too much solar energy and can’t make money off it is the best argument for public power I’ve ever heard!”
How Infrastructure Works with Deb Chachra - Climate, Energy, and the Future - War Stories Podcast https://youtu.be/c8riA6Mk5gU
The US has politicians that want to make the exact same subsidy decisions that China did. The silly part: It's not even an increase in subsidies, or a cost to the economy, or an increase in taxes. It's just a change in what we subsidize, and it boosts the economy, and taxes can stay the same, and in some cases, decrease.
The US has those politicians, and Black people try to vote for them. Try, but fail. 🤷🏿♂️
The most effective "climate protest," is registering Black people in the US to vote.
I'm not saying don't protest for the climate. I'll never tell people not to protest.
I'm just saying, it's silly to vote for the wrong politicians, dudes who literally own coal mines, and want coal to increase, but then kayak up to their yacht and beg them not to do that.
I'm just saying, voting for the wrong people, then throwing soup on paintings, is kinda silly.
80% of people already want faster progress on climate change. Protesting to push that to 90% isn't going to change anything.
There are fewer than 50 people standing firmly in the way of the entire world making faster progress on climate change. All of these 50 people are US citizens. All of them are politicians. They are the president, a few governors, but most of them are senators and representatives.
No one else matters. No one.
You cannot change the minds of these politicians. It's silly to think that you can. They. Don't. Care.
But you can change these politicians, to get different minds making decisions. 👍🏿
@mekkaokereke I'm going to have to politely disagree here. The people are billionaires.
Even if the people you mentioned were changed the biggest polluters in the world--every one of them billionaires, would still be polluting and controlling companies that are polluting.
If US laws changed, they'd just move.
And they're not all American.
There are Saudi and Chinese nationals every bit as guilty.
If these 50 people fell off the Earth tomorrow the planet would start to heal.
How billionaires and corporations are going to act, is entirely predictable. By changing the incentives and disincentives, you can change their behavior. But they are not going to do it by themselves, out of the goodness of their hearts. Corporations don't have hearts.
The switch from internal combustion engines to renewables, was unlikely to ever happen organically. It must be properly incentivized by central governments. China did this. We could do this too.
@mekkaokereke I disagree with how China did it but I agree with the sentiment. On the other hand, I don't think electric cars are going to help the environment much long term. Single owner-operated vehicles are massive polluters, period.
EVs tend to do their polluting at different phases of operation, but they are bad, albiet not as bad.
If we wanted our actions to impact the environment, a better solution is high-speed rail.
@mekkaokereke But even that's not going to address the major issues.
For example, the number three greenhouse polluter in the world today is the manufacturing of concrete. We presently generate cheap concrete that's a horrific gas producer AND we use rebar that erodes the concrete reducing its lifetime from nearly infinite to fifty years. Requiring MORE concrete. There are concretes that don't produce and using almost anything else for rebar would jack up costs immensely but its doable
@mekkaokereke we absolutely need progressive politicians to tackle this and they MUST be hostile to corporations and pro-labor. That doesn't take supremely progressive people, it just takes left of center people--which neither party is.
It also means in no unmitigated terms the obliteration of the billionaire class--preferably through taxes and international treaties that prevent them from running to safe havens.
Minor nit: I disagree with the term "hostile to corporations" because I don't believe that the progressive changes are harmful to corporations.
Eg, We got tired of trying to convince the NCAA that they would make more money if they gave their players more labor rights. So, we got the NIL laws passed. Viewership is up, graduation rates are up, revenue is up, and their best players are staying in college longer. If that's hostile someone please be hostile to me, personally!
@mekkaokereke they'd see it as hostile, lol. But point taken.
What I mean is we need leaders who are pro labor. I'm not usually a big zero sum game but corporations tend to be by nature.
So we need a pro labor government as opposed to what we've had for 45 presidents, which is explicitly anti labor. Biden is literally the only president that hasn't been anti labor.
It will fundamentally change the priority of corporations away from pure profit in the short run by any means necessary.
@cha5on the better ones? Frankly, I don't remember the name. I think I heard about it on NPR but it may have been elsewhere because I don't consistently listen to much of anything that's not a book.
Oh now we agree big time! Privately owned EVs are a half measure at best. They front load much of the lifetime C02 in manufacturing. They drive more car infrastructure, which means more concrete, which usually means more C02. Etc.
Public transportation is better. But then we talk about how China added more miles of rail than the US has total. 👍🏿
Then we talk about bikeability / walkability.
China is not doing enough either. They're just doing more than us.
@mekkaokereke I again disagree. The Chinese government is controlled by oligarchs and the CCP projects power through propaganda and outright lies. The further from Beijing and Shanghi you go the less power it has--but you have to be there to see it. &Chinese government doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment. They care about the long-term accumulation of power.
They're able to build the Electric Cars because the oligarchs demand it and they think it'll lead to longer term global power.
@mekkaokereke@philip_cardella China is definitely a block on the new 'billionaire world order' the non-China billionaires are attempting to create, that's for sure (they are not all USA billionaires). That's part of the TikToK saga: which side will own that mass communication tool. Look what the non-china billionaires did to twitter.
@timo21@mekkaokereke@philip_cardella "June 20 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said he wanted to build a "reliable security architecture" in the Asia-Pacific region during a state visit to Vietnam on Thursday, part of a trip to Asia seen as show of defiance to the West.
A day after signing a mutual defence agreement with North Korea, Putin received a 21-gun salute at a military ceremony in Vietnam, was embraced by two of its Communist leaders and lavishly praised by one of them"
@iamtheseedman@mekkaokereke@philip_cardella It's all for show, Putin's country hopping. A billionaire kabuki dance. Putin is in with the international cabal of billionaires. The billionaires think they are trans-national, so they side with Putin on opposing sanctions over human rights. Since Billionaires oppose human rights for all.
The current fascist moment is transnational, which is antithetical to interwar fascism. They care more about, for Putin and MAGA, white Christian domination than national identity. And billionaires love them.
*I suspect there are exceptions and Putin (and MAGA) is blinded by his own racism--I can't see him doing anything other than using NK, but I do think he'd fully embrace, say, a fascist France.
@timo21@iamtheseedman@mekkaokereke the billionaires love it because fascism is built on corpratist capitalism. This is a specific variety of capitalism where, like all things fascist there's a strict heirarchy, and total control over freedoms.
That's what the billionaires want because it lines their pockets, eliminates competition with other companies AND destroys labor power. The true fascists work with this but only ultimately want power and violence.
@timo21@iamtheseedman@mekkaokereke so there is sometimes a meaningful distinction between a corpratist oligarch and a true fascist. A true corpratist is hostile to labor and real competition but they're not necessarily enamored with violence and their birth based hierarchy the way fascists are. But they're happy to work with fascists--even fascists who actually hate them.
But both groups don't give one shit about things like the planet and the environment. Ever.
@philip_cardella@iamtheseedman@mekkaokereke well said. One reason the billionaires love MAGA is the confluence of Mega church Calvinism, billionaire Ayn Randism, and run of the mill racism: All three proclaim themselves as 'the chosen ones', and no one else. That's what human rights advocates are up against. Also, Putin is all set up for the 'Great White Hope' role.