People will be using green and ecological products, if such products will be better or at least comparable than what common folks currently have. No amount of hissy fits on demonstrations will change that. No amount of temper tantrums with gluing yourself to a road will change that. No amount of destroyed art for your virtue signaling will change that.
Assuming this comment is true, it's a pretty elegant argument for the necessity of regulation. If the most efficient consumer products are deleterious to the environment, they need to be regulated or banned until they are no longer the best purchase option. Markets can't solve this issue because the incentives are cross-aligned.
If your regulated replacement is unaffordable for poor people (which are majority in the society), they will vote for populists, who will build their raise to power on cancelation of such regulations. That's the reason why aggressive green policies will not propel us forward, but will eventually implode under social pressure.
There's one option we all don't want to accept-- maybe democracy is just too flawed for this world. Democracies reach the right conclusion only given enough time, which can be very long. In a world with limited resources that won't always work. Basically in our modern democracy where if green equivalents to our current technology don't show up, we are gonna vote for a populist to tell us comforting lies instead of taking the difficult route. The only policy that will move is forward is hoping someone figures out how to make affordable green energy
This has definitely happened in the past. It's arguably happening to US Democrats now, with pickup trucks getting more expensive to drive. This is an indictment of the political system rather than an argument against regulation, however.
Solar has been affordable compared to fossil fuels and has had the benefits of mass production available to reduce costs for over a century (see george cove). We just spend endless amounts on subsidizing fossil fuels and nuclear.We've also had energy reduction measures like insulation or more efficient heating or sodium lamps for lighting or electrified transport or heat pumps for decades or centuries. The current renewed push for nuclear is just a way to make sure the green energy money is spent as inefficiently as possible to keep gas and coal viable for another decade or two and to keep centralized middle men in power after fossil fuels become se economically irrelevant that trillions in subsidies can't keep them afloat.
That's not true, there are no subsidies for fossil fuels in Europe, just massive taxes, starting with 60% tax on fuels.
Solar is not being used by general population because installation costs are high, with battery even higher and then it is usable only during the summer and you need to be connected to the grid, because you would run out of energy during winter. Additionally you need space for solar installation, which is kind of hard to get when you are living in an apartment, as 50% of Europeans do.
The subsidies and tax breaks are endless. Subsidies on gas boilers, peying for upgrades and maintenance on electricity plants, subsidizing exploration, spending vast amounts to secure sources and prevent the countries who own it from making bp or shell pay fair value or fair wages, preferential land taxes etc etc.
Cars paying for a small fraction of the infrastructure they use via fuel tax isn't the slam dunk you think it is. It's actually just another example of subsidy because much of the roads, and parking, and port facilities and pipelines are paid for by vat and income tax. With further communal resources being spent via space reserved on every private and commercial property for the benefit of cars such as setbacks and parking minimums.
A tiny fraction of the public resources we have spent on fossil fuels, and later nuclear could have completed a green transition at any time in the last century.
I am not willing to find more examples. It was the first fossil fuel project that came to my mind and after minimal googling i found there was massive government support. However even just googling returns results which disprove your assertion https://odi.org/en/press/europe-providing-more-than-112-bill....
You have to be careful with some of those analyses. They have a strong tendency to double count, and include things that wouldn't be taxed anyway because they're business expenses.
Incredibly frustrating and undermines the point because it allows the shills to dismiss them out of hand and lump in the real subsidies.
Let's hope the art can survive the 4C warming then.
The "no change, cheapest option only" view has long term consequences which will also be bad for people. This is why "red-green" politics is such a common match: there will be costs, but we need to ensure they are borne by people who can afford them.
Imagine a politician doing a campaign by constantly annoying its voters. That would definitely guarantee a win. /s
What XR is doing is counterproductive as normal folks will just label them as deranged ecoterrorists living in their parent's basement and have no idea how real world works and that bills needs to be paid or you will end up on the streets.
Only thing which XR is doing is to raise anger when moderate greens will try to come up with rational policies. They can't. XR already turned it into emotionally charged debate.
> normal folks will just label them as deranged ecoterrorists
The press chooses the labelling, depending on who they support. We can see this with things like the Canadian trucker convoy who are "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" depending on which media you consume.
In my country (Easter part of EU) press is just reporting what they are doing. I.e. Ecological movement ABC was sitting on the road and blocking traffic output from the main city tunnel.
People are then getting angry. In discussions, on social media in regular conversations, because they don't understand purpose of such actions - targeting commuting civilians because government does not do what they want.
I hate articles like this. The thesis is basically that radical activists have a platform which would never work to achieve reasonable policy goals. Well no shit. That's not the purpose of radical advocacy.
The underlying assumption of the author, which is so naively incorrect as to almost surely be in bad faith, is that groups like XR have the ultimate goal or function of taking over the apparatus of government (or society or whatever) and implementing an agenda. Their ultimate goal is to exert pressure on the policy and societal paradigms by pushing against broad assumptions that nobody else in the space is willing to challenge.
One thing that is mentioned here is degrowth. That's a great example: We have activists saying that if the precept of infinite economic growth is getting in the way of the climate goal, we should reconsider our assumptions about growth. This is a key element to honest intellectual/political discourse but it doesn't map onto a policy at all. An idea is that in some later political cycle, we will have a decision-maker who studied degrowth and found it more persuasive than yolo capitalism and fashions a responsive policy platform.
Articles like this are akin to an argument that we should close universities because people can't eat books. Return to farming! It's the only thing guaranteed to put food on the table!
