[wtdata]

I know I will be downvoted for stating a fact but I agree with you.

The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past.

End result: a planet with even more emissions than today and a destroyed economy in the western world.

But somehow, this will save the planet according to people pushing this catastrophic scenario.

Sorry no, these people aren't pushing major climate action to save the planet, they are doing it because they think it's hip to push this idea that the Western way of life should be destroyed to give way to their political ideology.

[dang]

You've broken the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) by downvote-baiting and by taking the thread further into ideological warfare. We've already had to ask you more than once about this. If you keep breaking the guidelines we're going to have to ban you.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21083712.

Edit: actually, your recent history on HN consists of massive flamewar and abuse. That's extremely not ok, and I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

[AcerbicZero]

I think your issue is the similar to the problem I've been having, where the science of climate change seems to be ignored in favor of the politics of climate change, and questioning the later means you disbelieve the former. How strongly someone "believes" in climate change shouldn't be the metric by which we judge the value a person brings to the conversation, and the data/science should not take a backseat to political convenience.

I don't want perfect to get in the way of good when it comes to this issue, but this is a multifaceted, complicated topic, with far reaching implications, and it cannot be solved via an emotional battle royal of half formed politically oriented thoughts.

Semi-related, but I played a game forever ago called "Fate of the World", which attempted to put the player in charge of a global government to address climate change. It was almost viciously hard (The game designers may have been trying to make a point) but it was extremely interesting to see how you had to try and manage emissions from various regions, as well as political/social stability, ideally without destroying their economies (you need them to keep paying taxes to fund all this) all while trying to manage/reduce the damage caused by the shifting climates.

[commandlinefan]

The more I hear environmentalists talk, the more skeptical I get to be about climate change. The fact that they’ve been predicting doom and gloom since I was a kid in the 80’s makes me kind of doubt their predictive ability, but I figure that if they’re right and we don’t do anything, that would really suck, so I tune in just long enough to listen to what they say. After a few hours of “I’ll hate you forever and never forgive you if you don’t do what I say”, eventually they get around to actually saying what they want me to do: and it’s always the same. Vote liberal. Even if I bought into the climate change alarmism, I’d still doubt their sincerity when they tell me the only thing I can do is elect liberal politicians: the Democrats had a super majority in the U.S. government for years and used it to do exactly nothing about climate change. I see no confirmation in their actions that they really believe what they’re saying.

[sachdevap]

If you think that the government under Obama didn't do anything for improving quality of air and water in the US, you are just trying not to see the facts. And if you haven't noticed, there is a whole oil lobby that has been pushing money into the GOP machine trying to discredit climate change for decades. US is (for the better) a federal structure, and nothing happens by fiat forever.

Could the democrats have done better? Definitely. Are they better than the republicans in responding better to these issues? You have to be obtuse on purpose to believe otherwise.

[mercurysmessage]

Neither of you have legitimate arguments, and are both in fact strawmanning your "opposition". I'd suggest actually reading the IPCC report if you haven't yet, as it's all of our future.

[wtdata]

My arguments are the facts.

Climate action, measuring exactly this, has China as doing "OK" and India as doing "great" when their comulative projected ”increase" by 2030 will be similar than all present emissions by USA and EU.

This is the ideology being pushed at the moment.

https://climateactiontracker.org/

[sachdevap]

And have you seen the per capita emissions of each of these countries? India's emissions per capita aren't even a drop in the bucket. (Numbers in metric tonnes CO2)

1 China 6.4 2 United States 15.0 3 India 1.6

2.5 times China and almost 10 times India. Countries that are already rich enough to invest heavily in pushing renewable energy and nuclear energy need to aid countries trying to get people out of poverty. You can't do that by providing direct energy cause that is not how energy works. So you do it by allowing emissions to these countries while reducing your own to fall given that you already use so much more per capita.

You want to see hypocrisy? How about the US's hypocrisy in stopping solar subsidies to build local solar industries? This discussions is not about who is entitled to more emissions. It is about a pragmatic approach to reducing emissions. While you dish out "facts", also care to read about policy and arguments.

[beat]

This is why it's so important that wind and solar costs have plummeted to below the cost of coal. If it wasn't for the introduction of fracking, they'd be much cheaper than natural gas, too.

As developing nations build up the energy base, it'll be easier and cheaper to do it with renewables than with fossil fuels. That changes the equation tremendously.

[wtdata]

You are just validating my point with that "per capita" narrative.

The point is simple: you want to pretend your are saving the planet by allowing China and India to increase their emissions, more than USA and EU will ever be able to cut them (even if they cut it to zero).

Explain how that can possible save the planet please.

[sachdevap]

More incorrect statements labeled as "facts".

#1 🇨🇳 China 9,839 27.2%

#2 🇺🇸 United States 5,269 14.6%

#3 🇮🇳 India 2,467 6.8%

India's total emissions are a fraction of US and China's. You are guilty of the same hyperbole you claim to be fighting from the other side.

"Per capita" is not a narrative. It is a measure of how much room there is to reduce emissions while maintaining quality of life. It's not like you can just go to war with India and China and clear this up. You can't bring them to the negotiation table claiming moral superiority.

What you are suggesting is not a strategy for efficiently negotiating our way out of this deep hole, but rather a dictatorial approach which can only be enforced by a dictatorial regime across the world.

[mercurysmessage]

> The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past.

No, those are not factual. It's a strawman.

[wolco]

I wasn't aware, thank you for presenting a different view I wasn't exposed to.