[gignico]

We all should feel sad and angry. That said, this was never about saving money. This is about keeping scientists under tight control by the government, in order to suppress research on climate change and other controversial topics. If the government can cut your grant at any time without notice or appeal you will think twice before publishing results that go against their ideology, or even before publishing a criticism on Twitter. This is true especially if you are not tenured, which accounts for the majority of the academic world.

[IsTom]

I just want to vent: climate change is not a controversial topic, it's an inconvenient topic for people making a lot of money.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

The controversy is over whether we should learn more about it and take appropriate actions, or ignore it. This fundamental disagreement makes it a controversial topic.

Reminds me of the when all the catholic priests were molesting kids and being moved around instead of outed and prosecuted. This was also a controversial topic too for the same reasons. Some people wanted to take action, while other (more powerful) people wanted to ignore it.

[defrost]

In the US, sure.

In Australia we established a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, looked at all the schools and institutions regardless of creed (and, it turned out, the Christian Brothers were the clear worst of the worst - although few came away unscathed) and then put a senior Vatican Cardinal on trial.

TBH it's been a lot harder to get the worst carbon offenders under close scrutiny in a very public eye.

[jordanb]

Check out the timing. The sex abuse scandal broke in the US in the late 90s/early 2000s and the fight went on here for many years before it spread to the rest of the church.

The church in Rome was blowing it off as an American problem for many years.

That Australian commission was established in 2012. The battle had already been going on for well over a decade in the US.

If you want to see how things were going early on you can look at things like Sinéad O'Connor stuff from 1992:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O'Connor_on_Saturd...

[defrost]

The Australian Commission wasn't the first effort in a known problem ongoing since first landing, it was the peak response in Australia after many decades of battle ... has there been a national effort of a similar scope in the US ?

[SiempreViernes]

As a leading exporter of coal Australia isn't really a good example of a serious climate actor.

[defrost]

Australia's a good example of a country that sells out its resources for a pittance NSR in exchange.

We can talk about Indian coal companies (Thermal), global steel demand (Metallurgical), US natural gas extractors, etc.

Still, at least we have the vast areas untouched by modern man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9IkUUgaww

[HDBaseT]

Australia has the highest number of solar panels per capita in the world. Australia has extremely high uptake on EV's given the cheap solar.

Australia is about as serious as you get in terms of climate action without being unreasonable. We need power, you can't switch off coal overnight. We also need the country to remain afloat, we cannot turn off all natural resource exports either.

[HWR_14]

Is that better than the US response? By the time the Royal Commission started, the total amount the Catholic Church in the US had paid out was approaching a billion dollars (back when a billion dollars could buy you instagram). Dioceses have continued to pay since then and many had to file for bankruptcy protection in the US.

That seems like a more severe response than a single cardinal getting arrested.

[defrost]

The comment I responded to seemed to imply that the US was hung between two paths and took no action.

I'm pleased to hear a response was made and hope Eddy_Viscosity2 sees your comment.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

There were consequences, but only eventually as the depravity of what was happening became ever more apparent as the list of victims willing to speak out grew.

But in all the places this was happening, it was an open secret that it was happening for years before any meaningful response occurred. The first victims to speak out were not believed and even punished for how dare they accuse the holy priests of such behavior.

Will we see a similar tipping point for climate change where people on mass begin facing the issue head on? It hasn't happened yet.

[kakacik]

I see no controversy there, yes we should take some very strong action since we literally crap where we live and we only have 1 self-contained room for it all, the debate (not controversy) should be about which steps are most efficient, while not ruining the economy albeit some acceptable setback is probably unavoidable.

So no to dumb fuckery EU did with biofuels (for which vast rainforests in ie Borneo had to be cut down forever), no destruction of local automotive industry while rest of the world couldn't care less. And Yes to many other, saner activities, of which some are done, in some places.

[wredcoll]

You're being downvoted, probably for being abrasive, but I agree with your overall point.

When I was younger and more naive, this > "the debate (not controversy) should be about which steps are most efficient") i

is what I thought (american) politics meant. When people talked about things being political or arguments related thereto, this is what I imagined happening.

Then I grew older and saw it was mostly people whining about gays getting married or who was allowed to have an abortion or what activities minorities were allowed to participate in.

Very depressing, frankly.

[kakacik]

Thank you, I don't care about some meaningless points here. Its often tough to be a critically thinking person in a crowd of folks who coast life deep in comfort zone who want quick convenient 'truths' and frequent dopamine kicks and couldn't care less about some higher or deeper concepts.

[glitchc]

It's important to note that the US has the largest number of Protestants (across all denominations) among all countries.

[brookst]

It’s true. In the US reality itself has become controversial. Maybe the oligarchs’ lies are just as valid as objective reality? Who can say!

[DFHippie]

Everyone wants someone else to deal with it. It's like we have a live grenade and rather than defusing it or disposing of it we keep passing it around hoping it explodes on someone else.

[yongjik]

Maybe off-topic, but sadly, climate change is an inconvenient topic for everyone. There's one thing that the poor, angry, ready-to-eat-the-rich masses hate more than the world warming up, and that's higher gas prices. Polices to reduce fossil fuel usage by making them expensive are strikingly unpopular across the world, regardless of how much they say they hate fossil fuel CEOs.

[Theodores]

Not really, it is different in America, where everyone is utterly car dependent. Raise US fuel prices from barely nothing to barely nothing plus a tenth of a cent and TikTok explodes with Americans sat in cars, junk food in hand, saying some utter nonsense about how crraazy the new gas prices are.

Meanwhile, in Europe, where petrol prices have always been vastly higher than what any American has ever paid, if the price goes up, then meh. Same deal in Asia, it is not as if Japan has riots due to the price of 'gas'.

There is a funny side to this, sometimes untold atrocities are committed, maybe with a decapitation strike here, a double-tap on a school there, maybe with a few mosques for palate cleansing purposes, for nobody in America to care about that, just their gas prices.

Zoning comes into it too. Where I am, in the UK, there are many minimum wage jobs where the staff will be walking, getting the bus or getting the train to work. Apart from anything, many businesses just do not have car parking spaces for customers, never mind staff.

The class of journalists are heavily car dependent though, so, for them, gas prices are going to be huge news, because it affects them. They just have to go to a garage forecourt, interview a few 'talking heads' about how atrocious the prices are, and they have their story.

I write this having not been to a petrol station in thirty years, and currently living in a block of twelve flats (apartments) where nobody has a car. We do have a fantastic selection of hedgehogs, foxes, rabbits, squirrels and birds though, all alive due to the magic of practically no cars.

But none of us are going to make the news for saying 'meh, keep Hormuz closed, good riddance to it!', whilst feeding monkey nuts to named squirrels (on TikTok). If we were slurping on McDepression Meals, moaning about gas prices from a massive truck that cost $50K, then we would get 'heard'.

[JohnMakin]

Have you considered the fact the majority of the US is not designed for public transit, or it doesn’t exist at all? Most cities aren’t even walkable let alone practical for bike transit due to long distance commutes and lack of infrastructure?“hurrr americans are just addicted to cars” is a really reductive take.

[Theodores]

Actually, American roads are excellent for cycling. Same for public transport.

After Vietnam, many accessibility features for folks in wheelchairs were mandated, this also favours the bicycle.

Grades in America are excellent for cycling. If you a mere mortal, going over an Alp in Europe will take all day and leave you pretty much unable to do much the following day. Meanwhile, in the USA, you can cycle over the major mountain ranges with considerable ease, when compared to the Alps.

Grid patterns are also most welcome on a bicycle. I know suburban McMansion land doesn't have grids, and getting lost in those places is cycling hell because the houses all look the same, however, Big Auto made these absurd developments possible, along with some white flight from cities where the black man dared to move to.

As for long distance commutes, what a waste. And for what? Many service sector jobs just don't warrant people driving two hours each way just to earn a crust. It all comes at a cost to community.

Although there is cradle to grave car dependency in the USA, one true fact about American people is that they are the best when it comes to hospitality. This matters on a bicycle and, sadly, in Europe, there just isn't the same hospitality.

All considered, warts and all, America is excellent for cycling, at least in the nine Westernmost states. The roads generally come with a handy 'edge' which serves as a cycle lane and the people are fab.

Bring back the streetcar, the broadway railways and Main Street. Kick the corporations to the kerb and the job is a good one. The richest country in the world got to the moon many decades ago. The roads already exist, the space for railways exists, what doesn't exist is the mindset, which has been reduced to cradle-to-grave car dependency.

[JohnMakin]

> Actually, American roads are excellent for cycling. Same for public transport.

where?

[watersb]

> Have you considered the fact the majority of the US is not designed for public transit, or it doesn’t exist at all?

There exist societies that have made different choices.

The car dependency isn't an act of God.

[JohnMakin]

Yes, societies have made different choices over the course of 100+ years. How do you suggest a city like say, LA is fixed? What is a commuter from dayton ohio to cincinnati supposed to do?

The gp comment made it sound like something americans just choose, when the reality of the situation is it is a necessary part of life. The people participating in it didn’t make this choice. Literally everyone wants something better and no one wants to be beholden to $6 gas prices.

[gignico]

Indeed! Not scientifically controversial at all, but politically controversial, unfortunately.

[foxglacier]

Yes, the controversy is political because it's about controlling people. There's never a right answer to political problems because they're at the edge of deciding what the objectives should even be and how the good and bad outcomes should be distributed among people. Didn't you ever look at history and think "those silly people 100s or 1000s of years ago made a mistake and ruined everything"? Those people were no different from you - they believed their political beliefs were the right ones. There will be beliefs you hold which future historians will look at as mistakes too.

[mothballed]

So scientists are getting a reality check. Even scientists have customers, in their case the government. In the private sector a customer can change their mind, even often for a retarded reason, and suddenly decide to stop employing your services. Turns out that happens in government to. We're all employed at the convenience and service of our customers, if they change their mind, ultimately that's their decision that can be made at any moment at which point the most practical next move (assuming the customer is unwilling to change their mind) is to either find another customer or offer a different service.

Probably a good opportunity for them to stop and reflect that they're not from a special caste or class, and gravity / global warming / all the rest effect them and the plebs all the same and that includes their exposure to the labor market. Their pleas that it is somehow special when it happens to them falls on deaf ears considering the government funded or employed scientists who have any expertise or position to comment on economics (like Milton Friedman) would preach with their loudest voice from the ivory tower that the plebs duke it out in Darwinistic free-market competition.

[Windchaser]

I think this misses the mark. The outrage or sadness is not primarily over "I'm going to lose my job", but the harsh reality that much of your country is not that interested in scientific reality and realizing that your country actually is solidly on the decline.

If I had to choose, I'd rather I lost my job for some reason, but my country is passionate about science and curiosity and understanding, compared to living in a country where I kept my job but the culture was inimical to science.

[mothballed]

Scientific interest didn't magically change the day Trump took office. What did was the economic realities of scientists in the USA. The character of the wheeping and gnashing of teeth from the scientific community took on a new flavor once the bread source appeared in peril.

[smallmancontrov]

The anti-science right was a lot easier to ignore when they weren't actually ripping apart the US scientific apparatus, yes. How is that remotely demonstrative of a conspiracy?

[Windchaser]

> Scientific interest didn't magically change the day Trump took office. What did was the economic realities of scientists in the USA. The character of the wheeping and gnashing of teeth from the scientific community took on a new flavor once the bread source appeared in peril.

Sure, but again, this misses the point. Regardless of how conservatives talk about science, if Congress keeps on broadly funding research, then scientists can fairly focus on actions over words. It's only when Congress cuts funding that we're forced to reckon with the fact that most Americans don't actually prioritize science.

So: yes, it's the funding cuts that cause the frustration and sadness. But not because this results in a personal job loss, but because this shows how our country is going downhill.

Speaking personally, two of my siblings took government buyouts, but still then moved out of the country. You can be ok with your own personal job loss (particularly when it comes with a fat check), but unhappy with the direction the country is going.

It's kinda weird that you keep making this about the impact to personal finances, rather than the impact to principles. Wouldn't you feel frustration and disappointment if your homeland was acting contrary to your principles?

[wredcoll]

What a wonderful example of why we need more scientific education in this country, not less.

[garte]

It is often hard to put an economic value on research in general. That makes the whole "labor market" highly different from the rest of the world.

[ambicapter]

GP is saying everyone should bend the knee to the power of the dollar, not that they care about a nuanced understanding of the world.

[QuantumGood]

It's a propaganda talking point. "Controversy" is generally as much a manufactured product as possible, because it assists propaganda goals.

[scrollop]

And these same people likely fund "reports" and "news" with misinformation to make it confusing for the average person.

[999900000999]

In theory it can also be beneficial to historical cold countries like Russia and Canada.

It’s entirely possible Russia will find itself with a pacific warm water port.

Perhaps tons of tundra frost will become fertile farm land.

Of course this is at the costs of billions of climate refugees having to migrate as well as a bunch of other side effects

[pvaldes]

> It’s entirely possible Russia will find itself with a pacific warm water port.

You are 100% right. Yes, some people could believe that huge mistake.

Global effects will still catch them. The atmosphere and the oceans are global systems that don't care about frontiers. Warm oceans in Russia means extra hot waters in the equator belt, that means Hurricanes on steroids. This nice Russian port in Putingrade could be destroyed each year by the extreme weather. And nobody could navigate safely in huge stormy areas of the oceans.

> Perhaps tons of tundra frost will become fertile farm land.

Perhaps we will find that the peat soil starts releasing methane at a level never seen before. And that we enter in an unstoppable cycle of global extinction, just after dismantling science for fun. Weee!. This planet has resorted to that nasty trick a few times before.

Once it starts and self-feeds there is not enough money in the planet to bribe the ecosystems. They will fall until the next stable level of energy available. A level that may grant, or may not grant, minimum conditions for plant survival. Humans can't live without plants.

But a few rich choosen ones will go to Mars, party all night and it will feel like a Tattoine's adolescent dream!

Being rich only works if there are a much bigger amount of people that fix your needs and breeds your food. Money in Mars can't buy you a tuna sandwich when all tunas went extinct. Mars will became a very disappointing place in no time. A place that hates us with passion, with probabilities of survival abysmally lower than the earth. This people will be done the first time that the life-supporting machines will fall. Something that would never happen in the Earth.

The earth? will be fine. Go fast-forward several million years in the future and some organism will be seen traveling in machines fueled with petrol made of human corpses.

[throw-the-towel]

AFAIK the peat is already releasing gas very quickly.

[drnick1]

> I just want to vent: climate change is not a controversial topic, it's an inconvenient topic for people making a lot of money.

If you’d like to do your part against climate change, you can start by walking everywhere today, avoiding heating and cooling your home, and never flying a plane again. These are changes I’m not willing to make, so the issue isn’t just inconvenient for the wealthy—it’s inconvenient for everyone. It’s easy to shift the problem onto others without doing anything about it yourself.

[wredcoll]

What a pointless comment.

"Climate Change" isn't caused by flying a plane, it's caused by flying thousands of planes every day. This is a real distinction because the individuals you are talking to do not have any meaningful way to affect the 40,000+ flights per day. Just as a random example.

If your next response is going to be "well if everyone stops taking flights that would affect them all", then yes, congratulations, you've discovered what laws are and how democracies work.

[esarbe]

That's a ludicrous proposal.

A whole planets' society's structural problems cannot be solved by an individuals action. Your own attitude explains the 'why'.

This is a systemic issue that needs systemic fixing.

[anigbrowl]

Username checks out. I do live that sort of lifestyle and I think your agument is bogus. Different people engage in different amounts of carbon-producing consumerism, but it's notable that different developed countries have quite different carbon outputs, indicating that it's possible to achieve the goal of lowering the collective carbon footprint without immiserating the population.

[wat10000]

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

There's a reason it's called a "problem." Doing the thing on your own is not a solution to it.

[pstuart]

Sure we can all do our part as best possible, but this requires systemic change.

Required reading: https://orionmagazine.org/article/forget-shorter-showers/

[xp84]

Indeed. File under "bitter pills to swallow."

It's so easy to sit in an air-conditioned house, with our 2-day delivered Amazon stuff, and just make pronouncements like degrowth, etc.

Meanwhile about 99% of the humans who live in places that haven't fully industrialized are either working feverishly to industrialize like us, or are trying to find a way to move to an industrialized country because of how incredibly hard it is to live where they are.

I also suspect that our most committed enviro-leftists genuinely believe that their lifestyle is already fully aligned to their values -- they don't even own a car, take transit everywhere! They pay an extra $25 for carbon offsets when they fly, and they "recycle everything"! They live in a blue state that mandates high levels of "clean energy" in the power grid.

They do not ask themselves where the factories are built that make the wind turbines or solar panels, what powers their buses and trains and makes the cement that the streets are paved with. What powers the diesel trucks that bring their organic produce and manufactured soy products to Whole Foods for them.

All this isn't to even comment on where climate change actually is on the 2 axes of "Non-issue ----> existential threat" and "Completely avoidable if we start now ----> Entirely outside human control." I'm just saying that I suspect nearly every Western climate change activist would be filled with regret if we started making every societal decision to truly optimize for climate concerns to the exclusion of all other priorities.

[bcrosby95]

> if we started making every societal decision to truly optimize for climate concerns to the exclusion of all other priorities.

Effectively no one is arguing for this. You're ranting about a ghost.

[xp84]

No I'm not, because no matter what we do there is always a Climate Change Guy saying it's not enough and we're all gonna die if we don't do better.

[esarbe]

That's a straw man argument.

Voluntarily opting out of a high-CO2 lifestyle will do exactly nothing. Demanding that anyone recognizing the threat of climate change and demanding a different approach "first change their lifestyles" or using their lifestyles as an indicator of commitment is ludicrous. This is a global systemic issue that cannot be fixed by individual action. Game theory tells you why.

Besides that; all the nice and shiny things you mention - the busses and trains and the cement - can be produced and operated at fraction of their current CO2 cost. Wind mills and PV panels offset their CO2 cost by magnitudes if they are replacing fossil fuel industries.

There's a middle ground between "lets burn it all to the ground" and "let's go back to the savanna".

[drnick1]

> This is a global systemic issue that cannot be fixed by individual action. Game theory tells you why.

Nothing will change (and nothing has fundamentally changed since the climate scaremongering started), because people in the West do not want to change their lifestyles, and people elsewhere aspire to a Western lifestyle. There is nothing you can do about this. I am not not going to eat less meat or drive my car less than I find convenient to please some leftist eco-warrior.

[esarbe]

There have been many systemic changes since we started to understand the physical mechanism behind climate change and the dire consequences of unmitigated climate change.

Within 20 years Europe has shifted to almost 50% renewables in their electricity production, the US is at 25% and China at 30% (and rapidly growing). Demand has been cut massively through energy efficiency laws. CO2 emissions have been reduced enough that the IPC now sees the RCP8.5 scenario as unrealistic.

We've already changed quite a lot. And this despite you not cutting back on meat or on driving. Think about it.

> There is nothing you can do about this. I am not not going to eat less meat or drive my car less than I find convenient to please some leftist eco-warrior.

You don't do "it" to please some leftist eco-warrior, but because "it" is a unsustainable lifestyle. Whatever shape "it" actually takes.

[wredcoll]

> I also suspect that our most committed enviro-leftists genuinely believe that their lifestyle is already fully aligned to their values -- they don't even own a car, take transit everywhere! They pay an extra $25 for carbon offsets when they fly, and they "recycle everything"! They live in a blue state that mandates high levels of "clean energy" in the power grid.

You did it, you torched the strawman.

[xp84]

So you're saying that no Western leftists espouse degrowth policies that, if carried out, would lower their living standards while enjoying the luxuries our nonzero-carbon world provide them?

[remixff2400]

This is just a poor strawman/false dilemma: you don't have to be 100% or 0% for something to be effective or true. You're not addressing the actual claim (_why_ climate change is controversial, and particularly why the current structure makes it particularly controversial to corporations, etc.), you're just making a non-sequitur that everyone is affected by it.

It's like someone saying "tax fraud by billionaires is a massive issue" and responding "well, did you declare every single dollar on your tax forms hmm?": they're both issues, but the former is obviously a much more impactful, structural and relevant one. You're trying to nullify their argument by attacking the "purity" of the person, but that doesn't negate the truth of their point. This is like a greatest-hits of common logical/debate fallacies (strawman, false dilemma, non-sequitur).

[KolibriFly]

Even if you leave intent aside, the effect is the same: it teaches researchers that funding is conditional on staying within an invisible and shifting political boundary