As far as I'm concerned, humanity's most fundamental responsibility is to lower its emissions, as much and as permanently as possible.
I am sick and tired of seeing the focus of this task muddied by instead focusing on who's responsible, mixing social justice with climate science, etc. I could not agree more with the spirit of this stuff, but however well-intentioned it may well be, it only serves to distract and fracture and slow us down.
Yes, 10 corporations are responsible for 75% of emissions (or whatever the meme statistic is); yes, celebrities flying short distances on private planes is egregious; yes, your own personal carbon footprint pales in comparison. And yes, it feels nice to abdicate personal responsibility and say "those corporations/rich people should be responsible." Great, now what?
To all of that I say: all of the above. We need everything from sweeping legislation to individual action, and everything in between, with as little bickering or blame-shifting as possible.
There is no "humanity" in the matter of geopolitics and self-interest, and there is no escape from political conflict. There are competing groups and individuals, and there are competing power centers, governments, nations etc. Geopolitical reality and human history point to inevitable outcome that to be strong and dominant you use the resources available to you, and if others don't, you will be stronger than them.
Look at Europe right now, having pursued ESG policies their economy and industry is becoming much weaker than US and China. What if US and China don't care about carbon footprint? They win, Europe loses. Same with wealthy vs middle class etc. Too much incentive not to subscribe to energy policy of "less" and "weakness".
Just consider that anyone who cares deeply about this problem must organize with like minded people and wield power against the holdouts. Even if what you stated above sounds like "insanity", the only question is...will it exist?
Will there be those that pursue power and self interest in opposition to long term policy of "less" and "weakness", even if we all were to agree that long term it's mutually assured destruction (I'm not saying I agree with that though..). Then what?
Yes, it’s entirely on their ESG policies and not at all related to their quickly ageing population and the fact that their main provider of gas started a war on their border and cut their supply. That’s a very good take.
No not entirely the ESG policies. They cut their own supply when they cancelled Nord Stream 2 and confiscated Russian Euro reserves, essentially ending their ability to "print" a petro-euro for cheap energy. This was certainly a move in response to the war, but it was still their own choice.
Putin wanted to wage the war in Ukraine and still sell energy to Europe. Europe chose not to continue the 2nd part by various sanctions. Now Putin escalates by cutting further supply in response to sanctions (i.e. not getting paid for the energy he was shipping through pipelines)
As far as I'm concerned, humanity's most fundamental responsibility is to lower its emissions, as much and as permanently as possible.
I am sick and tired of seeing the focus of this task muddied by instead focusing on who's responsible, mixing social justice with climate science, etc. I could not agree more with the spirit of this stuff, but however well-intentioned it may well be, it only serves to distract and fracture and slow us down.
Yes, 10 corporations are responsible for 75% of emissions (or whatever the meme statistic is); yes, celebrities flying short distances on private planes is egregious; yes, your own personal carbon footprint pales in comparison. And yes, it feels nice to abdicate personal responsibility and say "those corporations/rich people should be responsible." Great, now what?
To all of that I say: all of the above. We need everything from sweeping legislation to individual action, and everything in between, with as little bickering or blame-shifting as possible.