[edc117]

I think kids act like this because society has created this problem, and continues to ignore it because it's financially expedient. There's a great deal of frustration about their impotency to affect environmental change - hell, any change that would result in less money for the wealthy. Pessimism and hyperbole is a natural outcome.

[VincentEvans]

I recall how just recently we were reading reports on rapid improvement in emissions due to reduced commuting in the wake of COVID. The air was getting cleaner. Animal populations were recovering around places where the usual human activity was subdued.

But now we are herding people back into the offices after 2-3 years of alleged spectacular productivity gains while working remote - because being in the office is “more productive”, and any talk about the emissions and environmental impact is getting completely lost in the noise of the celebration to this “return to normal”.

Apple, Amazon, and the rest tout their marginal green initiatives while signaling that those who fail to make the energy guzzling and pollution spewing daily commute from however far to the office - will need to find new jobs.

Kids on reddit are usually not yet broken and jaded enough to swallow ladle-fulls of hypocrisy like the rest of us “adults with responsibilities and 401Ks” can.

[SamPatt]

>any change that would result in less money for the wealthy

The majority of CO2 emissions aren't from wealthy nations but developing nations - this might not be true in per capita terms, but the atmosphere doesn't care about per capita terms.

A molecule is a molecule, and if you want fewer of them in the atmosphere, then you can't blame the wealthy - there simply aren't that many of them. It's the regular people who would need to cut back, and that's especially unfair when it's being asked of people whose economies never fully developed in the first place.

[clutchdude]

That is true if you assume the wealthy do not exert an outsized influence on public opinion and policy.

[SamPatt]

My perception of the elites in western society is that most could not be more clear about the existence and threat of climate change.

It's popular to mock them for using private planes or using their yachts, but that sort of activity is dwarfed - by orders of magnitude - by cement production in China, or steel from India.

What can wealthy westerners do about that?

[clutchdude]

My point is that, whether they do so intentionally or not, wealthy folks(not just western mind you) exert influence and shape policy. This includes financial as well as political capital garnered.

Case in point:

https://www.newswise.com/articles/richest-10-of-americans-em...

> “In this way,” says Starr, “we could really incentivize the Americans who are driving and profiting the most from climate change to decarbonize their industries and investments. It’s divestment through self-interest, rather than altruism. Imagine how quickly corporate executives, board members and large shareholders would decarbonize their industries if we made it in their financial interest to do so. The tax revenue gained could help the nation invest substantially in decarbonization efforts.”

[digging]

And your conclusion is... that there's nothing we can or should do?

Mine is that the wealthy should risk their money in order to invest in more sustainable economies for those less developed nations. That would solve the problem, right? Wonder why they won't do it...

> any change that would result in less money for the wealthy

[SamPatt]

>the wealthy should risk their money in order to invest in more sustainable economies for those less developed nations. That would solve the problem, right?

No. This seems incoherent to me - you are blaming the wealthy for inaction due to their greed, then claiming those same greedy people would be able to solve the problem if they invested in developing economies.

It seems far more likely that they would just use those investments as new avenues for control / extraction, as we've seen for centuries. Or are you expecting those greedy wealthy people to just start being altruistic?

I'm not claiming to have a solution. It's very tricky and I doubt a neat solution exists, unless we stumble unto some incredible new technology. It's about tradeoffs instead, and then that becomes a political question. The answer isn't "blame the rich."

[digging]

No, I don't expect them to do what's good for humanity without being forced. The answer isn't blame the rich, it's force the rich.