[LadyCailin]

I’m not suggesting smoking is fucking up the planet. But I am suggesting that in general, there are tons of policies in place that further contribute to climate change, which will also only affect younger people and on. Except those are even worse, because one cannot simply reverse climate change by passing a new bill.

So, I get your point, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But if we agree on that logic, then I care far more about stopping climate change, for the sake of future generations democratic welfare, than I do about allowing them to smoke.

Having said all that, I don’t know how NZ ranks in terms of climate policies, perhaps they are already the best in the world.

[OkayPhysicist]

That's a pretty strong false dichotomy. The government is in charge of a lot of things, they must do multiple things at once. Passing unrelated laws and passing laws relating to climate change are orthogonal.

If we vote to, say, ban the sale of new internal combustion automobiles, sure, it restricts future generations. But it also restricts the voting body, today, by restricting their ability to purchase new cars. The voters are weighing the necessity of fighting climate change against the restriction of their freedom to purchase an automobile. Perfectly fair. If we instead are voting on "lets ban the sale of automobiles to anyone born after 2000" or "lets ban the sale of automobiles starting in 2123", then the people voting on it are not, and never will be effected by the restriction that they voted to put in place. THAT is unjust.

[int_19h]

Out of curiosity, how repressive a government would you be willing to tolerate if it consistently used a significant part of its political power to stop climate change?