[paulcole]

Doing stuff like this today is going to be 100x better than what people 3 generations from now will have to live through thanks to climate change.

The question is whether we’re willing to inconvenience ourselves today to protect future generations - and the answer is looking like no.

[basisword]

The answer is no for stupid solutions like tracking everybody’s meat consumption and a government limiting it. You will be swiftly told to fuck off (and rightly so). You need to get people on your side and contributing without massively changing their lifestyles, instead of alienating them. We need massive reductions in business contributions to climate change and we need investment in current clean energy solutions and investment in further research. The current younger generations already are less well off economically than the last. They shouldn’t have to make further sacrifices for future generations.

[jacooper]

Exactly, I don't know why we are focusing on meat while we all know that energy and business emissions are more important, it looks like its an intentional distraction from big oil, and to give Norway's government more spying powers.

[Beltalowda]

I don't necessarily disagree in principle, but I think what you're saying will be very hard or impossible.

Those "business contributions to climate change" exist because they're producing goods that consumers want; you can't significantly reduce that without also affecting consumer lifestyles, by reducing the options for the number of goods, or making them more expensive.

Further research in clean energy is all very nice, but that's what I've been hearing for 25 years, and if we look at what has actually been accomplished then I think it's a pretty big gamble to bet that "further research" will all make things work out.

The last 100 years or so have been quite exceptional in many ways; I think the expectation that younger generations will have it at least as good as the previous one is just not realistic.

[jacooper]

Once we exsuahst all options to reduce climate change with limited impact on the customer, things like renewable energy(people don't care where their energy comes from), replacing unnecessary plastics with paper, etc, we can then talk about things like limiting meat consumption.

But affecting peoples lifes without actually tackling industries and corporation that do way more harm is just stupid and basically serves Oil companies targets, they created the "carbon footprint" just to distract people from focusing on them.

[gruez]

>>Those "business contributions to climate change" exist because they're producing goods that consumers want; you can't significantly reduce that without also affecting consumer lifestyles, by reducing the options for the number of goods, or making them more expensive.

>without actually tackling industries and corporation that do way more harm is just stupid

I think you're missing the parent poster's point, which is that consumers ultimately pay for everything. "tackling industries and corporation" ultimately means affecting consumer's lifestyles.

[jacooper]

There is a difference between affecting the consumers life to change to renewable energy and affecting the consumers life to virtue signal by banning meat while ignoring corporations.

[avgcorrection]

Are consumers social planners?

Did consumers plan the massive road infrastructure in America? Did consumers make public transportation a fifth-rate form of transportation? Did consumers plan American Suburbia post-WWII? Did consumers decide that housing in central locations should be so expensive that they have to live a driving-distance from work (see: bad public transportation)? Did consumers decide that the goods that they consume have to take multiple trips around the world?

Why blame the output sink for so much?

[basisword]

>> The last 100 years or so have been quite exceptional in many ways; I think the expectation that younger generations will have it at least as good as the previous one is just not realistic.

Whether or not this is true (it very well could be although we won’t know for a while) I think the idea that younger generations will just accept that is unrealistic.

[Beltalowda]

You're probably right there! But the alternative ("keep doing our thing like 10 years from now doesn't exist") will be worse, so ... yeah. It's a bad situation :-(

[vkou]

> The answer is no for stupid solutions like tracking everybody’s meat consumption and a government limiting it.

When the era of plenty that we currently live in ends, I feel that a lot of people are going to be in for a rude awakening.

[ActorNightly]

You would be correct if the governments consisted of smart, very technical people, who weren't brainwashed by colleges into implicitly believing the current "feel good" narrative.

But in reality, the people in charge are a complete opposite of that.

[peyton]

It’s not a question of us inconveniencing ourselves today. It’s a question of us and all of our descendants inconveniencing themselves in perpetuity.

Which seems unlikely. The future is long.

[concordDance]

This kind of comment is one I only see from people who haven't actually read the IPCC's reports and don't actually have a feel for how bad it's going to be by 2100. Am I wrong?

[jen20]

Given that since 2020 we observed that (at least in the US) many were not even prepared to accept minor inconvenience to protect the _current_ generations, I’d say the answer is emphatically “hell no” rather than just looking like it.

[fullshark]

I have the opposite take. The lesson from COVID is like the lesson from the war on terror imo, the majority of people largely DID accept massive curtailing of individual freedom due to fear, and will do it again the next crisis that comes along. The climate change crisis is slow moving and 100% of the people don't accept it as happening but if it produces an actual short term crisis like a famine then the statists will be ready to use it to propose (or possibly just enforce without passing laws) massive intrusions on individual rights again and continue to search for similar crises to keep doing it.