[pyaamb]

the ignorance is a consequence of our societies system of incentives. everything keeps pointing back towards that each time theres an event like this. But if we aren't going to attach an economic price for emissions then it remains an externality and not a recognized reality to the economy. The current US administration is playing a leading role in keeping it that way. And voters keep voting for it. Incentives.

[Loquebantur]

The economic system itself is incompatible with the physical reality of a finite planet.

The ones steering society choose to crash and ruin everything rather than to jeopardize their positions in power.

That obvious failure in morals and ethics, basic principles of adult responsibility really, is made possible by a lack of rational reflection in the populace.

Objective truth has to take precedence over subjective desires when it comes to existential questions. Currently it does not.

[constantius]

I'd push back.on blaming the populace for this: the widespread belief in general polls is that the climate situation is dire and that drastic measures need to be taken.

However, the constraints that most people have to contend with do not allow them to be more radical in their calls for change. You saw it in the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests uprising in France, that was motivated not by the passion for IC engines but by the inability to weather the costs of taxation on older vehicles.

The real culprit is far and away corporations that benefit from activities that carry with them extreme effects on the climate, and who can influence both politics and media. The research (sorry for lack of link) that shows that political direction is largely controlled by moneyed interests is not ambiguous.

I do agree that the populace also deserves some of the blame however: regular renewals of electronic devices, and especially the continuing consumption of animal products, is a moral failure justified only by pleasure.

[Loquebantur]

You're right about the general sentiment acknowledging the seriousness only when you look at the center and left of society. The majority in the US however supports or tolerates the actual political decisions made, contradicting that level of importance.

When you paint people as being "disallowed" from more radical actions, the same question of true importance arises? The current trajectory leads to Armageddon, plain and simple.

My point here thus is about the proper scale on which people place the topic.

It's not a "lifestyle choice" to doom humanity's children to ruin.

Placing responsibility with the irresponsible is a cop-out.

[inigyou]

The culprit behind corporations is politicians who allow them to get away with what they do, and the culprit behind this nexus is game theory.

[pluralmonad]

Throwing everything animal under the bus is not warranted. CAFOs and grain heavy operations certainly. Regenerative ag using animals on pasture is an amazing carbon sink. I agree that the factories using petroleum grown grains as feed are terrible.

[constantius]

90% of farmed animals globally are in factory farms: https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-est...

I don't have data on the West specifically, but I'd be surprised if it's not 99%. "Free range" animals are largely a fiction.

Animals being used for pasture grazing, for the benefit of the climate, could be understandable, but I think enslavement and torture of 200+ billion animals annually is a moral failure that goes far beyond its effects on CO2 ppm.

[burnt-resistor]

Animal ag creates unnecessary risks of (viral) pandemics, antibiotic resistant bacteria, air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, deforestation (for silage and feeder crops), caloric inefficiency, and animal cruelty. There are plenty of alternative plant-based protein and nutrients sources that could be grown instead.

[azan_]

> The economic system itself is incompatible with the physical reality of a finite planet.

„Infinite growth is impossible on planet with finite resources” is nice buzzphrase, but upon closer inspection it makes literally zero sense. Fortunately people will never accept degrowthers’ postulates.

[uv-depression]

You're making a very strong claim ("literally zero sense"), but you've provided no argument as to why. I don't believe that the economy can become arbitrarily decoupled from physical goods, which is a hard requirement for infinite growth with finite resources.

[azan_]

Because 1) growth is not directly linked to resources and the richer country is the less growth depends on resource-intensive areas such as farming or industry; 2) it’s absurd to think we are at the stage of growth where resource availability becomes constraint - I’d say it’s on the contrary and we are at the stage where we become far less dependent on resources than are on scarcer side (e.g. thanks to solar uptake).

[uv-depression]

But the claim must be that physical goods can become an arbitrarily small portion of the economy. Nobody would dispute that they've become smaller. Do you believe that food can become arbitrarily cheap relative to total wealth? Or steel, or silicon? In other words, can the food you eat require an arbitrarily small portion of your income? And looking at nation-states only is an accounting trick; the economy is global.

You again say "it's absurd" and provide no argument. I think the case is not as clear cut as you would like it to be. Solar energy is not an infinite resource.

[azan_]

> But the claim must be that physical goods can become an arbitrarily small portion of the economy.

Yes, if you actually mean infinite growth it’s true. And that’s what I find absurd - why would you care about infinite growth? If you actually care about infinity, then even if you degrowth you will run out of resources because guess what - resources are finite, so the use of resources will have to also be arbitrarily small and asymptotically approach zero!

[NoGravitas]

It appears that they believe you can eat emails (according to the substitutability principle).

[ernst_klim]

> The economic system itself is incompatible with the physical reality of a finite planet

The economic reality is perfectly compatible with finite reality, because growth is not a function of resources.

An email is more economically valuable than a paper mail despite requiring much less resources (and leading to a much less CO2 emission)

[typicalset]

> growth is not a function of resources

This is a bold claim: I do not believe that if all remaining fossil fuels had vanished overnight that growth would remain identical.

[uv-depression]

To believe this, you must believe that the economy can become arbitrarily decoupled from any physical good. Do you believe that food can become an arbitrarily small proportion of the economy (and so arbitrarily cheap relative to income)? Steel? Purified silicon? Infrastructure like bridges?

I don't. Perpetual growth is incompatible with finite resources. Fortunately, human flourishing does not depend on infinite economic growth; there is, for example, enough food for everyone on the planet. Capitalism is just bad at allocating resources by any metric other than its own. (Yes yes, it's better that feudalism was. I think we can hold ourselves to a higher bar than that.)

[AlexandrB]

> Do you believe that food can become an arbitrarily small proportion of the economy

This is not necessary at all for economic growth to be infinite. Food prices can "inflate" and so stay at, let's say 20%, of the economy while the amount of physical food being produced remains flat year after year. That's sort of what's happening with housing, education, and healthcare already.

I think seeing prices go up like this makes people unhappy, but what really matters is what portion of a person's income this stuff occupies.

[uv-depression]

If physical goods remain a constant proportion of the economy without having more of them but get more expensive, all that's happening is inflation, not economic growth.

[__MatrixMan__]

We've built an economic system that latches on to scarce things and makes them less scarce. Now we need to make harmful activities scarce, and we can't.

We have to kill this thing before it kills us. There have to be better things to base an economy on (consent? reciprocity? Foresight?).

[the_real_cher]

Does any country care? Isnt China far worse thsn the US?

[defrost]

> Does any country care?

China ostensibly cares, their five year plans drawn up by committees of Engineers (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical) and Scientists are on an arc to minimise reliance on fossil fuels and transition to renewables (wind, solar), and nuclear.

There are strategic reasons for this, of course.

> Isnt China far worse thsn the US?

"It's complicated"

* Historically the US is responsible for a greater mass of the CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere.

* Currently, China is adding more per annum (and India is in the bleeding edge mix also, as is Australia) in absolute terms, but still less(?) in per capita terms (having a much much larger population).

* China is still using coal (although they are on the cusp of peaking their use) - that gets thrown at them a lot, the caveats are

-- China shut down a lot of badly polluting inefficient coal power plants.

-- China opened up a lot of more up to date less polluting but still coal power plants.

-- China is using these to power all manner of stuff including the build out of the largest renewable power components production line in the world.

-- Coal is set to be phased out "soon" (and it seems to be slowly going that way, see peaked comment above).

* A lot of China's CO2 emissions are a direct result of their mineral processing, production, and assembly of the rest of the world's consumption.

( eg: The case can be argued that the fall in US per capita CO2 emissions is a result of US consumption now being met by manufacturing that has moved from the US to China)

There are literal books and stacks of research papers arguing about each point mentioned above - and that's just skimming the surface.

[kortilla]

> although they are on the cusp of peaking their use

That’s a really nice way of saying “their usage is currently at an all time high and will go up further”.

They don’t get to take credit for a potential future action.

[dghlsakjg]

Their carbon emissions in 2025 were lower than 2024. The peak was years ago. Same is true of coal usage.

So no, their usage is not at an all time high. It is below the high and on trend to continue falling.

They can take credit for past and current actions that are part of a long term plan that includes future action.

[kortilla]

Their coal as a source is still on the way up in total tons burned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China

Carbon declining from car usage switching to electric and moving to more efficient fuel plants is the decrease you’re thinking of.

Coal is still growing there, but the upside is it’s growing slightly slower than renewables so at least as a percentage it’s declining.

Unfortunately that just means their demand increased YoY so they had to build both dirty and clean energy.

This view makes it obvious because coal is at the bottom of the stack: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China-electricity-pr...

[dghlsakjg]

Read your own source, it directly refutes what you are saying:

"In 2025, China's coal-fired power generation dropped by 1.9%, the first decrease since 2015, despite its energy demands has increased by 5% during that same year. According to Wood Mackenzie, the drop was attributed to a rapid increase in new non-fossil generation that has "finally outpaced demand growth", while coal plants had been operating at lower utilisation rates and being used more for grid flexibility and peak demand rather than baseload generation."

The graph you linked to conveniently ends right at peak coal consumption. If you go find the data for the last two years that are missing from that graph, coal consumption has been reduced.

You are all over this thread shitting on China unconditionally. We get it, you don't like China. But when your own sources disprove the point you are trying to make, it might be time to re-evaluate your position and probably the news sources that dictated that position to you. What was correct a decade ago, is very much false today, and the trend line is accelerating away from your feelings.

[triceratops]

I think you've made up your mind regardless of facts or data.

[kortilla]

I was the only one who provided any in this thread. You should read up on it!

[dghlsakjg]

China has a far lower per capita carbon emissions rate than the US. Has a growing share of energy produced by green technology. Is the world leader in manufacturing electric cars and using electric cars. Is the global leader in low cost solar panels and batteries among other green technology. Oh yeah, and a huge portion of their emissions go to making things that Americans consume. On top of all that, they have managed to stop growth in their carbon emissions and are on the cusp of reducing them.

I don’t know how China could possibly be considered worse except that they historically used coal, and are rapidly transitioning away.

[kortilla]

The problem is that the earth doesn’t care about a per capita denominator.

[dghlsakjg]

When the per capita number applies to a billion people it sure makes a huge difference, or would it not matter to the earth if china doubled their per capita carbon numbers to be more like America? I'm not a climate scientist but I would bet my entire net worth it matters quite a bit if China doubles their carbon output per capita.

[kortilla]

I don’t think you understand. It doesn’t matter if there exists a per capita that is higher. What warms the earth is total CO2. US emitting more per capita than China is not an excuse for China to emit more total and it’s definitely not an excuse to catch up on per capita.

The only framework that makes sense in is one that allows global warming as long as we all do it equally.

[mrkeen]

Right, so if someone was in the US and didn't think they should take action (because of China), then the obvious reply is that they should take action on the basis of being part of US+China, whose population is far greater than either US or China.

[triceratops]

Then it doesn't matter if the US reduces emissions or China does. They all count. The US has more money to spend on reducing emissions. Ergo it makes sense for the US to go first.

[kortilla]

There is no “go first”. You either care and aggressively cut and pressure the worst emitting countries in whatever way possible or you’re just accepting severe warming with one country taking a penalty.

[triceratops]

> You either care and aggressively cut and pressure the worst emitting countries in whatever way possible

Has the US done either of those things? Now that would've been a worthy use of tariffs.

[deaux]

Considering that it's thanks to China that even a 1% chance of avoiding this remains, I'd say so. Without their enormous investments in solar and batteries, it would be 0% rather than 1%.

[triceratops]

> Isnt China far worse thsn the US?

That's fossil fuel industry funded psyops.

[hnfong]

I always feel obliged to link to this when contextually appropriate:

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