alt Hacker NewsThe idea of average individuals being the relevant actors in global carbon emissions is pure misdirection. They're not, it's systemic with industry being the main culprit and the rich being the ones who benefit from that socialization of pollution costs.
The AMOC shutdown isn't merely "possible" and due "this century" either. The math of the dynamics of complex systems shows the current behavior to be signs of a phase transition in the process of happening. The speed of that shutdown isn't "decades" either, it's more likely just years.
The voices of "experts" telling you it was all some incomprehensible conundrum should deeply worry you. They're either not being honest or they're no experts.
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This isn't true at all. If all of the global rich immediately became carbonless monks....we would cut only a portion of emissions. And continuing to emit increases global warming. Even if you estimate that the top 1% use 70% of our carbon (implausible) that still just pushes threshold back a few decades.
And if industry stopped producing with carbon billions would starve. Industry makes stuff for people. Energy is useful, we aren't just taking oil, coal and gas and burning it in factories for fun.
> They're not, it's systemic with industry being the main culprit and the rich being the ones who benefit from that socialization of pollution costs.
You two might agree if we consider that when you say "rich" you might describe the average individual on this website (if we consider all people alive).
I do believe that 90% of the people would not want to actually destroy the planet the way it seems to be happening, but I also believe that 90% of the people can't refrain themselves from bad health habits either. So, to fix the root cause I would discuss more about people's bad emotional/impulse control, otherwise we will just change one issue (climate) to any of the others (violence, unhappiness, etc.)