Environmental Collapse: when and how bad?

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I think a big distinction, at least here in the US, between right and left wing, is that the former seems to gravitate to varying degrees around individual responsibility and liberty, and the latter gravitates to various degrees around collectivism and individual sacrifices of personal liberty in the greater good of the collective.

Climate change could be a good litmus test here, as it is the ultimate (i.e. global qua spatial, multi-generational qua temporal) collective good that requires individual sacrifices involving consumption decisions.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
individual sacrifices involving consumption decisions.
Also corporate financial sacrifices involving renewable resources which may be less conducive to short term bottom line optimization. Again making sacrifices at an individual level, whether that individual is a person or a firm/business.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
the latter gravitates to various degrees around collectivism and individual sacrifices of personal liberty in the greater good of the collective.
I think this is the classical distinction but a non factor today. I dont think democrats are more collectivist, and the disagreement between right and left is a belief in how discomfort should be distributed
 

sus

Well-known member
Looks like a (literal) textbook example of the "bad-faith neutrality" that @Clinamenic mentioned just now. I also think it's pertinent to your claim that there's no difference between Democratic and Republican voters in terms of average levels of scientific knowledge on climate change, which is flat out untrue: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/
That isn't what he meant by "bad faith neutrality." He meant shit like pretending liberal perspectives are just objective facts:
But there does seem to be a tendency among Democratic/left-wing partisan talking points to posture as nothing more than an empirical standpoint without any value judgements that would disqualify it as such, which is of course nonsense.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I think this is the classical distinction but a non factor today. I dont think democrats are more collectivist, and the disagreement between right and left is a belief in how discomfort should be distributed
Its also easier to call for deeper individual sacrifices for collective good when the sacrifices in question would be made by billionaires, i.e. not upper-middle class democrats calling for them.
 

sus

Well-known member
I think a big distinction, at least here in the US, between right and left wing, is that the former seems to gravitate to varying degrees around individual responsibility and liberty, and the latter gravitates to various degrees around collectivism and individual sacrifices of personal liberty in the greater good of the collective.

Climate change could be a good litmus test here, as it is the ultimate (i.e. global qua spatial, multi-generational qua temporal) collective good that requires individual sacrifices involving consumption decisions.
Yep, the belief in "what is" is always driven by a belief in "what ought to be." If you don't like the implications for action/behavior change, then you claim "it ain't so." If you do like the implications, you say 'tis. Which is why, when science contradicts liberal "oughts," they're equally ignorant and anti-science. And why you see people on the left who aren't so much concerned with solving climate change (which involves an openness to any possible solution, if you believe the situation is dire) but rather, see climate change as an impetus for overthrowing capitalism, and will reject any solution that isn't that.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I think this is the classical distinction but a non factor today. I dont think democrats are more collectivist, and the disagreement between right and left is a belief in how discomfort should be distributed
I do think calling for a more capable government (more regulatory organs and capabilities) seems to be more of a Democratic interest than a Republican one.
 
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linebaugh

Well-known member
I dont think most people have all that strong thoughts on climate change- I think the average dem or rep believes its either a big deal or not- so I kinda lean with Tea here, but I dont think its because they are better with the 'objective sciences.'
 

sus

Well-known member
How so? It shows that Rep voters are much more likely to think climate change has nothing to do with human activity.
Yes, it shows that on one single issue, compressed into a binary "is/isn't," Republicans differ from the scientific consensus more than Democrats.

My claim has always been that Democrats' apocalyptica around climate change is as unscientific and ungrounded as Republicans' denialism. I've said this literally like four times in the past two pages of the thread. It's a completely different claim than the narrow one you're advancing.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yep, the belief in "what is" is always driven by a belief in "what ought to be." If you don't like the implications for action/behavior change, then you claim "it ain't so." If you do like the implications, you say 'tis. Which is why, when science contradicts liberal "oughts," they're equally ignorant and anti-science. And why you see people on the left who aren't so much concerned with solving climate change (which involves an openness to any possible solution, if you believe the situation is dire) but rather, see climate change as an impetus for overthrowing capitalism, and will reject any solution that isn't that.
Yeah viewing climate change response as a vector for antiicapitaism is nonsense, as far as I gather. It will more than likely amount to an industrial reshuffling of the deck, which any good capitalist would have been privy to for multiple years by now.
 
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sus

Well-known member
I think this is the classical distinction but a non factor today. I dont think democrats are more collectivist, and the disagreement between right and left is a belief in how discomfort should be distributed
Yes it is interesting, the blame and responsibility is deferred to corporations and away from individuals, at least in leftist circles. (Liberal circles seem more about personal action as a solution, of which lefties are skeptical.) I think it's somewhat true that individual consumption choices have a small role to play in climate change, but—who are corporations manufacturing for? Whose purchases structure their behavioral incentives? Corporations "just are" the sum of their customers' desires.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I dont think most people have all that strong thoughts on climate change- I think the average dem or rep believes its either a big deal or not- so I kinda lean with Tea here, but I dont think its because they are better with the 'objective sciences.'
I think I agree with you here. I don't have any stats in mind, but even Republican congresspeople are warming (no pun intended) up to accepting it. Lindsay Graham, now ranking member of the senate budget committee under Sanders, voiced what seems to me to be a general indication of Republican opinion, that climate change is real but somewhat exaggerated by liberal alarmists.

Not that I necessarily agree. I tend to think the alarmism is warranted, but I'd also like to retain some degree of distance/critical thought.
 

sus

Well-known member
I do think calling for a more capable government (more regulatory organs and capabilities) seems to be more of a Democratic interest than a Republican one.
It's also important to point out that a major disagreement between many Ds and Rs is how competent/capable the government actually is. Sure, some conservatives are anti-gov for ideological reasons. But many just see it as a logistical question: is a private or public system better at meeting human desire. If you see the government as an incompetent waste of money, it seems strange to keep throwing ever-more funding at it, even if you agree there's a problem (like climate change) in need of solving—b/c you don't even believe they can solve it.
 

sus

Well-known member
Lindsay Graham, now ranking member of the senate budget committee under Sanders, voiced what seems to me to be a general indication of Republican opinion, that climate change is real but somewhat exaggerated by liberal alarmists.
Yeah this is my impression as well.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Do we agree with this dichotomy: that severe climate change alarmism is either scientifically warranted, or it is manufactured to some degree by industrial interests who stand to gain from a green transition.

Assuming this is a valid, practical dichotomy, I would take the former position as of now.
 
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