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by NonContro 1779 days ago
The popular attitude to the pandemic is set by politicians and the media.

If those groups want urgent action on climate change, they will get it.

Those groups wanted lockdowns, and they got it (along with most of the $5.2trillion printed in the US alone since the pandemic began).

This not a new concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

The question is, why don't the elites want urgent action on climate change? Presumably the answer is that they're still making too much money under the status quo, or have not yet aligned themselves to exploit the transition to sustainable energy and transport.

3 comments

Because it's a choice between two apocalypses. One is slow motion and over the horizon, and "no ones fault" and the other would be voluntary.

I wrote about my thinking on this last year.

https://www.riknieu.com/no-one-believes-in-climate-change-no...

I bailed out half way, but despite the disclaimer, that post does sound like climate change denial.

"Dealing with it would be just as bad as not dealing with it" appears to be the core of your claim, and I don't think thats backed up by anything I'm aware of. It is a fairly common trope of people who would be widely described as climate change deniers though.

Even more so, dealing with it say 20 years ago would have been even more straightforward.

We couldnt do it because we couldbt co-ordinate, like the prisoners dilemma, not because the two outcomes were equally bad but by working towards out own best outcome we've headed towards the worst overall outcome.

I read your blog post. I agree with most of it. But...

> resource-depleted hellhole within a century or two

I wish I could be as optimistic as you are. We're seeing extreme, unpredictable weather _right now_. This could lead to reduced food production a few years from now.

With money, you can mitigate the consequences of climate change for yourself or even avoid them altogether; you can't do that with the coronavirus.
> you can't do that with the coronavirus.

Wealth sure managed to make it easier to reduce your risk of getting covid, as well as substantially reducing the quality-of-life sacrifice from lockdowns.

Look at how many wealthy people somehow managed to achieve entry/residency/citizenship to countries where Covid was well-contained.

The wealthier you were during the quarantine, the more likely you were to be able to access services that were denied to others. Gym is closed? No problem, I have a home gym anyway. Many elite athletes brought their trainers, cooks and physical therapists into their households (IIRC Russell Wilson said he had a staff of ~11 in his family's bubble, meaning he was paying those people to isolate with his family instead of being with theirs.

At a lower level of wealth, access to WFH-able jobs, more living space (including being able to avoid living with multi-generational and potentially vulnerable family members), delivery everything, tech and tutoring for your kids' educations, and private transportation options certainly made it easier to mitigate the lifestyle sacrifices of avoiding contagion.

Don't fix it if it ain't broken. The revenue stream, that is.