Protesting

[Tristan]

If it really is as serious as they’re making out, surely they should make it as much of a right wing cause as a left wing one and worry about their other causes later.

“Wanna make loadsa money and get filthy rich??? Course you do! Who doesn’t? Now’s your opportunity to get in on this windfarm business”

“Don’t like immigrants coming over in small boats? We hear you. Problem is there’ll be loads more of ‘em when climate change gets worse. Coming over here, taking our jobs/council houses/benefits”

“Hate the big state getting in the way of progress and free enterprise? Totally agree with you, IEA! Have you seen how hard it is to get a small modular reactor built? Down with state bureaucracy getting in the way!”

etc etc.

[bjn]

Well yes, there are fortunes that could be made, quite a few people realise that and are trying. Octopus Energy for example.

However, fighting incumbents is bl..dy hard, you have to create new businesses, while developing new technologies and trying to change systemic issues all at the same time. On top of that the incumbents get indirect subsidies as they aren’t paying for pollution, or even getting direct subsidies. All that government support for high energy bills mostly went straight into the pockets of gas companies.

It’s why China is leading the world in electric cars for example, BMW, Toyota and the rest didn’t want to disrupt their nice little earners and see all their current capital assets turn to worthless dust. The Chinese didn’t have major car makers and figured they could own the new industry, and they are pretty much there. It also aligned with their geopolitical need to reduce dependence on oil imports.

You also need regulatory changes to help drive the change needed, but then fuckwits cry “FREEDOM!”, or “It will cost too much!”. Even more cynically, forcing costs onto others to save themselves money. For example house builders resisting improved energy efficiency for homes, along with heat pumps. Both of which add some cost to the house, but decrease the running costs as well lowering emission. They’d take a hit on their rather nice profits though.

And it’s not just swapping to a BEV or buying electricity from a wind farm, it’s systemic things like not building towns that require you to drive every bl..dy where (“15 minutes cities are a woke communist plot to lock you in your neighbourhood like a prison!!!!!”)

Edit: Bloomberg estimates that the G20 gave $1.1 trillion (with a T) in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry in 2020. That’s bl..dy hard to fight against and a massively tipped playing field. The game is rigged in their favour.

https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/si ... tbook1.pdf

[bjn]

Not that I want to live under their system.

And therein lies the problem. Very few people do. So if you tell them “yeah, so to fix climate change we need to change everything about how our society is structured” then you won’t get enough people onboard.

Better China than what happens with a climate collapse, which will be very very ugly. Not that we’ll have a choice.

[discovolante]

I might be a bit behind in what they've said about capitalism though, or maybe what some of their members have said . I've just looked on their website and they appear to have one 'demand' which is to establish the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which I'm not sure is inherently anti-capitalist? https://juststopoil.org/our-demand/ Quite possibly people have said things in public statements that I'm not aware of though.

JSO was founded by Roger Hallam, who co-founded Extinction Rebellion. He is inherently anti-capitalist: https://theecologist.org/2024/sep/11/xl-xr

Here's a quote from him: "Capitalism is at the root of the climate crisis. We need a radical transformation of our economic system to prioritize the planet and people over profit"

Here's one from Indigo Rumbelow: "The endless pursuit of profit under capitalism is destroying our planet. We must dismantle this system and build one that is sustainable and just".

I couldn't find any relevant quotes from Violet Radio-Rentals though.

Ok, I'll leave this one for you and bjn to sort out, although I do agree that there probably isn't time to dismantle capitalism in it's entirety before we get round to cutting emissions enough. But I also agree with bjn that the current system has been too slow. What do you think of my other question though?

[Tristan]

I might be a bit behind in what they've said about capitalism though, or maybe what some of their members have said . I've just looked on their website and they appear to have one 'demand' which is to establish the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which I'm not sure is inherently anti-capitalist? https://juststopoil.org/our-demand/ Quite possibly people have said things in public statements that I'm not aware of though.

JSO was founded by Roger Hallam, who co-founded Extinction Rebellion. He is inherently anti-capitalist: https://theecologist.org/2024/sep/11/xl-xr

Here's a quote from him: "Capitalism is at the root of the climate crisis. We need a radical transformation of our economic system to prioritize the planet and people over profit"

Here's one from Indigo Rumbelow: "The endless pursuit of profit under capitalism is destroying our planet. We must dismantle this system and build one that is sustainable and just".

I couldn't find any relevant quotes from Violet Radio-Rentals though.

Ok, I'll leave this one for you and bjn to sort out, although I do agree that there probably isn't time to dismantle capitalism in it's entirety before we get round to cutting emissions enough. But I also agree with bjn that the current system has been too slow. What do you think of my other question though?

Sorry, I might be missing the other question? Was it the “is it helpful, harmful or neutral?” one? Because I think it’s neutral at best.

Was there another one I’ve missed?

[discovolante]

JSO was founded by Roger Hallam, who co-founded Extinction Rebellion. He is inherently anti-capitalist: https://theecologist.org/2024/sep/11/xl-xr

Here's a quote from him: "Capitalism is at the root of the climate crisis. We need a radical transformation of our economic system to prioritize the planet and people over profit"

Here's one from Indigo Rumbelow: "The endless pursuit of profit under capitalism is destroying our planet. We must dismantle this system and build one that is sustainable and just".

I couldn't find any relevant quotes from Violet Radio-Rentals though.

Ok, I'll leave this one for you and bjn to sort out, although I do agree that there probably isn't time to dismantle capitalism in it's entirety before we get round to cutting emissions enough. But I also agree with bjn that the current system has been too slow. What do you think of my other question though?

Sorry, I might be missing the other question? Was it the “is it helpful, harmful or neutral?” one? Because I think it’s neutral at best.

Was there another one I’ve missed?

You answered in terms of whether or not you'd learned anything or changed your views about climate change based on what they'd done, I'm suggesting that might not be what they're trying to do anyway.

[Tristan]

Ok, I'll leave this one for you and bjn to sort out, although I do agree that there probably isn't time to dismantle capitalism in it's entirety before we get round to cutting emissions enough. But I also agree with bjn that the current system has been too slow. What do you think of my other question though?

Sorry, I might be missing the other question? Was it the “is it helpful, harmful or neutral?” one? Because I think it’s neutral at best.

Was there another one I’ve missed?

You answered in terms of whether or not you'd learned anything or changed your views about climate change based on what they'd done, I'm suggesting that might not be what they're trying to do anyway.

Well, my views on other forms of activism related to this haven't changed in either direction, so I guess we're still at the "neutral" answer.

[snoozeofreason]

I am sceptical about the extent to which the climate crisis can be pinned on the capitalist system. Capitalism thrives by selling things that people desire and turning a profit on the transaction. Critics, for sure, sometimes argue that capitalism also "manufactures" the desires that it satisfies, and just occasionally that's true - for example if an expensive fragrance sells simply because it's expensive and well-advertised. But, with most of the things we consume, it's not true. People don't buy dishwashers because they have been fooled by the system into thinking that this is preferable to washing up by hand. They don't flock to the dance halls of Ibiza because they've been fooled into thinking that's more fun than their everyday lives*.

When the glorious day comes and the workers control the means of production, no one is going to say "Great, we can stop producing all of that stuff we used to consume. Here's a tea towel comrade, get on with the washing up." People will still want dishwashers, and holidays, and all the other things that satisfy our short-term desires. Any society that is capable of meeting those short-term desires will be have a reason to try to do so, whatever it's economic basis. The problem is that those short-term desires can have catastrophic consequences in the long term, but our tendency to focus on the short-term is going to be with us whatever system we live under. That doesn't mean we can't fight it, but it would always be a fight, no matter how society is organised. The saving grace of non-capitalist societies in the past might have been that they didn't work very well, and couldn't produce as much. China seems to have cracked that but, notwithstanding it's prowess with photovoltaics, its per capita carbon emissions have shot up as a result and now exceed those of the UK (although they are considerably lower than UK emissions used to be back in the days before we worried about them).

*I'm talking about people in general here. I'd rather stick pins in myself than dance the night away in Ibiza. But the point is that I know that, so I don't buy Ibiza dance holidays, and even the most sophisticated blandishments of the capitalist system won't persuade me to do so.

[discovolante]

Just to say, seeing as I've been the one who's been annoying and posting away on this thread, I am genuinely busy now and potentially for the foreseeable so sorry if I don't reply for some time. I'm not trying to be rude!

[bjn]

Capitalism is generally about maximising returns on that capital. In other words, mostly rich f.cks using money to make money, some of that will be using that money to influence regulation and politics to tilt the field in their favour. So it’s not consumer choice that’s the controlling factors, as they’ll seek and often get monopoly and monopsony control if they can. The current term du jour is a “moat. If you live in a sprawling suburb of LA, that had most of its public transport ripped out decades ago by a cartel to encourage car usage and freeway building, you have no option but to drive a car to your job 40 miles away. Thatcher encouraged the same in the UK, remember you are a failure if you catch a bus. Rinse and repeat across industries.

Sure consumer choice matters, but a lot of it is systemic out of an individual’s control and needing change driven by politics. In some countries, that’s nigh on impossible, the US now being a case in point. Remember Trump saying to the oil barrons, give me a billion and I’ll let you do whatever the f.ck you want.

FWIW, I have dealt with the coal face of capitalism in my time and had to work with a lot of investors, mainly private equity, but the worse were US merchant banks.

That fire hose of money thrown at influencing politics allows for the drowning out of saner voices by shear repetition, even if it is all b.llsh.t. Lie and lie often, because it works. So the JSO or ER folks getting media coverage is all fine and dandy in my book, sure they are far from perfect, but just being there and getting heard matters to counter the consistent crap from what is the right in this country.

[snoozeofreason]

Capitalism isn't just about rich people using money to make money. Trillions of pounds of UK wealth are owned by pension funds. They also use money to make money, and I'd quite like them to carry on doing that, because I like getting my pension. From the perspective of a pensioner, I am also sceptical about the extent to which car use is driven by the state of public transport, because the system is trying quite hard to push me into leaving my car and getting on the bus, and I am not doing it much. There's a reasonable bus service where I live, and in most of the places I visit. What's more, I can now use it for free, and it's not me that has to worry about whether the buses need their MOTs or tax sorting out (and on top of that, I get significant reductions on the rather scenic train services that I would use to replicate most of my common car journeys). But I still don't do so. Even if the bus service were upgraded from "reasonable" to good, I'd still probably drive most of the time because driving has advantages that can't easily be replicated even by a good public transport system.

[Woodchopper]

I am sceptical about the extent to which the climate crisis can be pinned on the capitalist system. Capitalism thrives by selling things that people desire and turning a profit on the transaction. Critics, for sure, sometimes argue that capitalism also "manufactures" the desires that it satisfies, and just occasionally that's true - for example if an expensive fragrance sells simply because it's expensive and well-advertised. But, with most of the things we consume, it's not true. People don't buy dishwashers because they have been fooled by the system into thinking that this is preferable to washing up by hand. They don't flock to the dance halls of Ibiza because they've been fooled into thinking that's more fun than their everyday lives*.

When the glorious day comes and the workers control the means of production, no one is going to say "Great, we can stop producing all of that stuff we used to consume. Here's a tea towel comrade, get on with the washing up." People will still want dishwashers, and holidays, and all the other things that satisfy our short-term desires. Any society that is capable of meeting those short-term desires will be have a reason to try to do so, whatever it's economic basis. The problem is that those short-term desires can have catastrophic consequences in the long term, but our tendency to focus on the short-term is going to be with us whatever system we live under. That doesn't mean we can't fight it, but it would always be a fight, no matter how society is organised. The saving grace of non-capitalist societies in the past might have been that they didn't work very well, and couldn't produce as much. China seems to have cracked that but, notwithstanding it's prowess with photovoltaics, its per capita carbon emissions have shot up as a result and now exceed those of the UK (although they are considerably lower than UK emissions used to be back in the days before we worried about them).

*I'm talking about people in general here. I'd rather stick pins in myself than dance the night away in Ibiza. But the point is that I know that, so I don't buy Ibiza dance holidays, and even the most sophisticated blandishments of the capitalist system won't persuade me to do so.

I agree. We had a decades long natural experiment in which many countries rejected free markets and used command economies. The environmental record of the Soviet Union and other similar states was also pretty terrible. For example, almost hunting wales to extinction was as much soviet activity than a capitalist one.