[jyounker]

"But global warming is a hoax. And even if it wasn't it's not our fault. People couldn't be the cause. And even if it is our fault there's nothing we could do about it."

We have broken our world for the greed of a few. History will not be kind to us.

[ralph84]

Humanity is a blip in Earth's history. We'll be a historical curiosity to whatever comes next just like the dinosaurs are to us.

[bamboozled]

I think people just say this to make themselves feel better about the dire situation we're in. Whatever works, but it's not quite true in my opinion. The dinosaurs weren't just a "blip" to us.

[jyounker]

If you're talking about deep time, sure, but I'm referring to actual human historical timescales of a few tens to a few hundreds of years.

[mathgeek]

History will forget effectively all of us, so that’s comforting.

[WesolyKubeczek]

I hope some record of us stays so whoever comes next would be able to learn from our stupidity.

Yeah, and eternal shame is all we deserve.

[babymetal]

I started reading history hoping to learn how to avoid the mistakes of the past, and instead came to the conclusion that history inexorably repeats itself, over a cycle just long enough for the current generation to forget the last event. (I'm trying to indicate similar kinds of mistakes in judgment, the details are always different of course.)

[mathgeek]

> I started reading history hoping to learn how to avoid the mistakes of the past

It's a noble pursuit, but the key part for you is that you _wanted_ to avoid those mistakes and put forth an effort to learn how to. The necessity, in order to truly avoid them, is that enough individuals collectively desire and pursue that. It's why (good) public education is so important for the long term health of societies.

[flowerthoughts]

And who knows, maybe the dinosaurs were burping so much they were also starting a global warming.

[arjie]

True that it’s a few in a global sense but it’s almost every user of this website surely, the vast majority of whom will continue to “break the world” so to speak which makes this less a lament and more a boast.

[Hnrobert42]

No. It's really a small few. It's largely Republican politicians, especially Trump, protecting coal and petrochemical companies.

[elcritch]

See I could agree with the first part. But then you add We have broken our world for the greed of a few. After that I sort of understand why so many folks reject the former – they're rejecting the empty moralizing.

If you truly believe climate change is real then also admit that "We all have broken the world", except perhaps some uncontacted peoples in the Amazon.

Anyone who has ridden in an automobile, a train, a plane, a powered boat has contributed. Anyone who has used or purchased goods transported with any of the above has as well. Anyone who's eaten crops grown with large amounts of industrial fertilizers has contributed (e.g. most of the world).

The oil companies just produce what everyone in the world wants and wants cheap.

[probably_wrong]

Not everyone's footprint is the same, though.

If I cut down my plane flight in half that means I'll take a plane every two years, meaning I'll also see my family half as much. You'd also have to include that, since I travel economy, you'd divide my contribution by ~350.

If Taylor Swift cuts her plane travel by half she'd "only" make 51 trips a year [1] on a plane that carries 12 and would still make more money in a year than what I'll see in my lifetime.

IMO, saying that both of us are contributing equally as much to global warming is just unfair.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours...

[elcritch]

I didn't say we're all equally culpable. We're not. Yet en masse we're all guilty to some degree.

There's only what 10's of thousands Taylor Swifts in the world. Yet there's billions of everyone else. The majority of greenhouse gasses likely come from the aggregate of everyone.

[II2II]

It doesn't always work that way.

A personal example: I don't drive. I use public transit a couple of times a year. I am in private cars maybe once every two year. I haven't flown in about 15 years. Clearly this is a contrived example. My energy use patterns are much more typical when using other metrics. That said, it is also the flip side of being a Taylor Swift of the world. There is a point in the developed world where the millions are using much more energy than the thousands.

I said developed world because there are also parts of the world that simply don't have access to my gratuitous level of energy use. To say that they are guilty of contributing based upon the technicality that they are directly or indirectly using a disproportionately small amount of energy is beyond insulting. It is also a blatant way to paper over our responsibility.

[elcritch]

> Globally, the poorest 50% emit roughly 4.4 billion tons to 4.7 billion tons equivalent annually, accounting for about 11% to 12% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

The “less-developed” bottom half of the world population still produces about a tenth of the annual co2 production annually.

That means instead of potential climate catastrophe in 10 years it’d take 100 years if the top half disappeared tomorrow. Obviously an overly simplistic argument but its meant to show that the problem would just be slower but not gone if we got rid of the “wealthy”.

Now I don’t believe they’re equally as culpable. Yet I also firmly believe the vast majority would choose the same as us in developed world have if they could.

Ultimately that’s more of my point. What’s happening isn’t due to some evil plot by the ultra wealthy. It’s the result of human nature.

Some unscrupulous ultra wealthy might hasten it by a few years or a decade, but the core problem is human nature and an abundance of fossil fuels.

The “wealthy” are also the most likely to prevent catastrophe by developing renewables, etc.

[ryandrake]

But OP said exactly that: "We (meaning all of us) have broken our world for the greed of a few."

[gpvos]

> I didn't say we're all equally culpable.

That didn't come quite through. You seemed to be taking a rather extreme position, while replying to someone who just pointed out the systemic issues, which of course don't absolve anyone of their own responsibility.

[0x1ceb00da]

> If Taylor Swift cuts her plane travel by half she'd "only" make 51 trips a year [1] on a plane that carries 12 and would still make more money in a year than what I'll see in my lifetime.

Taylor swift travels so much because the people want to see her in person.

[abdullahkhalids]

There are only about 1.6 billion cars in the world. Only about 20% of the world population has access to a personal car. Less than that have ever ridden a plane, and less than 10% fly with any regularity.

A super majority of greenhouse gases emitted are due to the lives of the top 20-30% of the population (of which unfortunately I am a part). The remaining people's contributions are small. 80:20 rule in full glory.

Worst of all, the 80% are the most impacted by climate change as TFA illustrates.

[dheera]

The biggest hope at this point honestly is that fewer people are having kids and we're on track to halve the world population in another couple generations. Greenhouse emissions cut by half.

[abdullahkhalids]

The per capita emissions of USA/Canada/Gulf countries have to be cut by a factor of 8-10 to reach sustainable levels. The per capita emissions of EU/China/SEA have to cut by 4 to reach sustainable levels. All within the next 25 years if we want to avoid crossing tipping points.

Halving the population in 50 years is not a realistic plan.

[_carbyau_]

> Halving the population in 50 years is not a realistic plan.

Here are some projections to support that statement. Supposedly 2084 is peak population.

https://population.gov.au/sites/population.gov.au/files/2025...

I haven't read up on all the assumptions made for those projections. If something unassumed pops up that makes things substantially worse then the population peak would come earlier I guess. But that's a gamble.

[genxy]

Not all participants are equal.

You are conflating participation from equality, yes everyone participates in the system, it takes a lot of privileged to be able to disassociate ones self from the system itself. The power dynamic within the system favors the wealthy, whom have decided that this is the path we are going down.

[ncruces]

Writing about "the wealthy" on a site like HN is always interesting.

Who do you mean?

The vast majority of HN commenters are 10%ers and very many are 1%ers.

But there's always someone richer to complain about.

[brewdad]

In a global context, pretty much anyone on this site is a 10%er. Most of us are 1%ers.

[ryandrake]

HN loves to nit-pick about what "the wealthy" actually means, but in most contexts, when someone complains "the wealthy" did this or "the wealthy" did that, what they mean are a very, very tiny number of people who are not on HN, not in anyone on HN's family, and not intimately known by anyone on HN.

When someone says "the wealthy" are getting rich to everyone's detriment, they are almost never talking about the doctor who lives three doors down the street from you who drives a nice new 911 or the guy who owns 20 laundromats in your city. I think we all know who we're talking about.

[JumpCrisscross]

Broadly speaking, when anyone says the rich or the wealthy, they mean people richer than themselves. I’ve seen everyone from line workers to multimillionaires do it.

[otherme123]

Reminds me of a casual conversation with a 1%, maybe a 0.1%: "we [meaning he and his wife] are not wealthy. All of our friends own a yatch, but we don't".

[littlexsparkee]

Are they guiding policy and making decisions at corporations or just living within the existing framework? He's talking about the people shaping the world and future.

[tracerbulletx]

Not all people have equal culpability. It's absurd to be like, well you havent successfully waged an eco-terroristic war to overturn the system so you're just as bad as someone actively leading a lobby group to cast doubt on the science, or bribing politicians not to act on it, or even just as someone who votes in favor of people who resist action. In fact it's just another tactic of denialism to say "if you can't personally solve this problem just give up and caring is ineffective so you shouldn't care"

[jyounker]

Fossil fuel companies have spent the the last forty years in an organized campaign to prevent the US (and by extension, the world) from taking action against global warming.

There's a great book on the subject called "Merchants of Doubt" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.

[gpvos]

It's moralizing, yes, but far from empty. The rich and powerful companies, near-forced to be amoral by our economic system, and run by the greedy by natural selection, have resources to influence policy, public opinion and information availability that others don't have.

[Kiterman]

If it weren't for oil companies going out of their way to sabotage alternative fuels through politicians, misinformation, and a myriad of other abuses I'd be more inclined to believe you. Not everyone is equally culpable in this, there are many who have been trying to get rid of oil as the main fuel source for a long time.

[stavros]

Hell, even Greenpeace had a huge campaign against nuclear, ensuring we burn coal for decades more than we should have.

[andai]

I worked at a warehouse last year. Managers always breathing down my neck to work faster. Constant stress for 9 hours straight. (Okay, we got a lunch break at least. There are worse jobs!)

It got me wondering. Alright, what's his problem. Well, his manager is breathing down his neck too. It's literally his job to make my day as stressful as possible. Okay, why? You trace that chain and where does it end up? Fat capitalist?

Well, something something mutual funds. Okay, that's beyond me.

But what else? Well, where's that pressure coming from? It's the customer. If the company stopped whipping us, and let us work at a normal pace, they'd need 40% more employees to cover the work. Delivery costs would increase proportionally, and suddenly grandma would stop buying from us. She'd go to the company that whips their employees. The whole place would go under.

Something something, Moloch is my nan?

[xg15]

No profit margins or shareholders at all of course...

[andai]

Well, it's just a slice of the picture. It's just the one nobody likes to talk about.

A different slice: went to the supermarket the other day, late on a Sunday. There were two workers in the whole supermarket, both elderly women in their 70s.

Economy sucks here so pensions are bad, they chose to keep working.

But obviously they didn't chose to work on Sunday night. They didn't have a choice there.

If they owned the place, they would have closed at a normal hour.

One of them let out an exasperated sigh when I walked in. More work for her, but not more profit.

I overheard one say to the other, "and then at the end of the month you go to the bank and collect 800 Euros."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2pFTx_8VE

[baq]

two things can be true at the same time. oil and coal before it pulled billions of people out of extreme poverty, but the debt taken on in terms of CO2 will come due. if the gulf stream stops, we're all in for a ride - or worse, our grandchildren.

I'm personally in the 'drill and burn as fast as possible in a mad rush to fusion power' camp so we get a way to fix this shit rather than the 'stop civilization from doing its thing overnight' camp. alas, neither is happening.

[actionfromafar]

But then why not "mad rush to build battery banks everywhere" instead of "mad rush to fusion power"?

It can't very well be any more expensive.

Batteries give returns right now, fusion only in the future. Maybe.

[baq]

Oh we definitely need batteries, too, regardless of fusion ever coming online or not.

[conception]

There’s a popular comic for this take - https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

[sltkr]

That comic is popular only because it absolves people of personal responsibility, not because it makes a great point.

[gpvos]

In what way does it do that? It in fact strongly urges people to take responsibility and stop being hypocritical.

[sltkr]

You're not taking the comic at face value are you? The orange shirt guy is supposed to be the loser who is just trying to "gotcha" the people in the other panels.

The comic isn't even _always_ wrong; sometimes people are using gotchas or accusations of hypocrisy to dismiss otherwise valid concerns. Importantly, just because someone is a hypocrite, that doesn't mean they're wrong.

But in practice, the comic is often used by as a get-out-of-hypocrisy-free card by people who never want to to take any personal action to practice what they preach. Example:

Alice: I loooove my new iPhone 2026 Supermax XXL, it's at least 0.163% shinier than last years model! Oh but I heard that seven Chinese workers died in the Apple factory and that is soooo sad! I wish that could be avoided somehow. Oh well!

Bob: I agree, working conditions in Apple factories are deplorable. If you want to do something about it, you can consider buying a Fairphone instead, or simply delaying upgrading as long as possible. You don't really need to buy a new phone every year, you know!

Alice: What? You expect me to walk around with last year's model like a poor person? I would literally die of embarrassment. And of course I _would_ totally buy the Fairphone if only it came in rose gold with sequin bedazzling which is an absolute necessity to match my purse.

Bob: Okay but these seem like really petty reasons to keep buying Apple products. I find it difficult to take your complaints about working conditions in Apple factories seriously when you're not willing to make any sacrifices or lifestyle changes yourself to improve the situation.

Alice: Oh, I see. You're one of those "gotcha" guys. [Link to comic] Here, this tells me you're just a smartass, and I can do whatever I like while complaining about whatever I want. After all, I'm _just_ like the medieval peasant who wants to improve society somewhat.

[gpvos]

The number of straw men in your post is dazzling.

[wagwang]

The last part is just true. Once technology, military, and energy intersect, there's pretty much nothing you can do but slowly march over the cliff. If it's not climate its nuclear winter.

[JumpCrisscross]

What are you quoting?

[gpvos]

It's a summary of what you hear climate change deniers say all the time. Using quotes in this way is fair and common, to indicate that it's not your own opinion.

[Supermancho]

I assume, a tailored version of the narcissists' prayer.

https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer

[kelnos]

I assume an imaginary but very real and typical climate change denier.

[JumpCrisscross]

> an imaginary but very real

Idk, quoting straw men isn’t a good-faith way of arguing.

[Supermancho]

Ironic, since the quote is not an argument. It's a summary of some rationale given to avoid action.

[gpvos]

Not a straw man at all; sadly, a very common set of arguments.

[munificent]

I certainly agree that the powerful elites bear a disproportionate share of the guilt for the harm they have caused.

But I also believe that much of what's going on in the world isn't solely their fault and is also in many ways an emergent behavior. We are all like ants in an ant mill. Each of us is doing the things that locally make sense for us (even taking into account our desires to take care of the earth!), but our interactions with the economy and the market build a sort of giant super-organism out of us all whose behavior is to fuck up the climate.

[defrost]

> We are all like ants in an ant mill. Each of us is doing the things that locally make sense for us

Easily lead by chemtrails, yes - but it is a fact that some individuals have disproportionately more influence over "local zeitgeist" than others.

As a brief recap; the atmosphere become a greater and greater insulating blanket as a direct result of human use of fossil fuels was solid science as far back as 1967 [0] and the larger more influential nations of the world accepted that finding and discussed actions in the 1970s [1].

Since that time there's been a near non stop flood of FUD about the inevitable effect of rising CO2 that has been pushed out by the likes of the Koch brothers (now just one), Christopher Monckton, and many others directly benefitting from fossil fuel industry.

People in middle North America rolling coal and spitting on public transport projects have had their worldview been shaped by media crafted by think tanks with a mandate to obscure cold(?) reality and that lifestyle has set as aspirational to the world.

[0] Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity - Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences Volume 24 Issue 3 (1967) https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/24/3/1520-04...

[1] eg: United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm, Sweden, June 1972.

[munificent]

> it is a fact that some individuals have disproportionately more influence over "local zeitgeist" than others.

Yes, that was the first sentence of my comment.

> As a brief recap; the atmosphere become a greater and greater insulating blanket as a direct result of human use of fossil fuels was solid science as far back as 1967 [0] and the larger more influential nations of the world accepted that finding and discussed actions in the 1970s [1].

Yes, and I'm well aware of all of that and am firmly on the side of believing in climate change.

And yet, I still go to a grocery store and buy produce that was grown using fertilizer made from petroleum products, shipped across oceans on ships burning fossil fuels, then driven to the store in trucks burning fossil fuels, wrapped in plastic bags.

So even while I am aware of the problems, my own behavior as a tiny cog in the machine furthers the problems of climate change. I can bring reusable bags to the store (I do), drive a fuel-efficient vehicle (I try to), and shop at farmer's markets to reduce transit usage (sometimes), but that only chips away at the problem. My entire lifestyle is predicated on massive use of petroleum products and processes that worsen climate change. I walk on concrete side walks, have electricity in my home, go to a doctor's office that uses plastics pervasively.

I am part of the system that leads to climate change, as are you. Writing and reading this comment is spending electricity that is likely partially fueled by fossil fuels.

[defrost]

> And yet, I still go to a grocery store and buy produce that was grown using fertilizer made from petroleum products, shipped across oceans on ships burning fossil fuels, then driven to the store in trucks burning fossil fuels, wrapped in plastic bags.

For what it's worth, I'm part of a rural community far far away from middle North America and eat and consume much as my parents and grandparents did (my father, born 1935) when they were young and during those times (WWI, WWII, Covid years) when we were isolated from much of the world.

My personal consumption habits are pretty damn lean - my professional consumption patterns have been large, although easily arguably subject to being amortised across tens of millions, and have led to kind of global resource mapping and geodetic data that this current generation should be using to address excessive fossil fuel consumption.

[jdkoeck]

Does the « greed of the few » include the masses who use air travel across the world, who use cars, who rely on energy infrastructure? I guess the answer is somehow no, because this is populist drivel of the worst kind. Did not expect that here.

[bamboozled]

The fact that oil companies lobby to kill renewables and nuclear etc and then politicians reciprocated is what they are referring too. Those are "the few".

I never wanted my electricity to come from coal but it has been mostly forced upon me.

Basically there is more money in polluting tech than the alternatives that were available to us for the last 100 years or more.

Air travel would be inconsequential if the rest of the world operating on nuclear, solar and wind.

Over the last two decades I’ve attended climate rallies etc. I think it has had an impact. But due to the corruption we’re in trouble.

[qingcharles]

"Drill, baby, drill!"