Decarbonising transport

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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by ray245 »

K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-29 11:05am So once again, decarbonization and demise of personal air travel will limit the possibility of purchasing machines, electronics, etc. from China? Is that what you are saying? If people no longer fly to Halong bay Vietnam would be unable to buy electronics from China, or is Vietnam still perfectly capable of buying electronics, machine tools, heavy duty vehicles from China, or South Korea, or wherever else, if not able to make them locally? Explain yourself.
No. I am saying countries like Vietnam and etc still requires foreign investment or foreign borrowing to buy the equipment from other countries. Those equipments will not be given to more underdeveloped regions for free.

And? I mean, under globalization they won’t be able to achieve parity, without it they won’t be able to achieve parity. But in the second case they would have to build up diversified economies with a variety of experts in all fields of production, from agriculture to aviation, from computing to construction etc. In the first case they would have no engineers of their own, no scientists, being doomed to being the poor back-end of some global supply chain or worse. In the second case, they would be building up a diverse working class that has to specialize in various fields.
Not all industries scale easily. Some industries will still be more investment heavy, which means those countries will take a long time before they can build those up from scratch. Yes, ideally they should able to build up a diverse industries with local expertise in all necessary aspects of their economy. However, I have not seen a workable solution as to how they are able to achieve it other than sheer blind faith.
Dancing like a jester in front of the king won’t make the jester into a king, ever, either. So I guess you are saying, not only cement the status quo but also cement it in a way that won’t deprive the masters of their status abroad?
Right now, the only region that have managed to move from developing status to developed status are the East Asian economies that made use of a combination of protectionism and globalism to grow their domestic industry while at the same time attracting expertise and investment to flow into their economies.

If you want to deglobalise the world, then there needs to be a system that can still allow developing countries to gain the necessary investment and expertise from the countries that have developed. If not, all it does is to reinforce existing disparity.
Yes, of course it does. Governments can cooperate & agree to transfer knowledge and skills. Companies and cooperatives can also do so, if they are not hell-bent on protecting industrial secrets & monopoly domination, that is.
What incentive exist for governments to transfer their knowledge and skills? And without it being a form of neo-colonialism in which transfer of knowledge and skills shift from an economic/capitalist-incentive to a mere politically driven incentive. Companies, cooperatives and nation-states are not altruistic enough to do so without finding new and different ways to exploit the developing world.

Indeed they are separate, but connected to each other. Because the West rose on global-scale plunder, murder and destruction of environments and habitats, the other nations seeking to develop cannot utilize the same model. There are no other ten Earth to plunder for cheap forest, coal & oil, there are no other ten continents to enslave as colonies & suck dry to help your industries. So it naturally follows that the inequality which resulted from mass plunder, colonialism and Western global empire, or prior incidents of imperialism, can hardly be solved by applying the same solution, ie being imperialistic, because there are very few areas left where you can do so.
Solving sustainability does not necessarily solve global inequality. There is every reason to believe there will be those that seek to entrench or further global inequality on the basis of solving sustainability. Colonialism was built upon seeing the rest of the world as a mere market for the goods produced by the West. It was built upon the idea of preventing the colonised world from gaining the necessary technology to produce goods they would otherwise have.

If the developing nations are not able to develop, then many aspects of the more advanced technology will still be held solely by the developed world, and the developing nations are going to become even more dependent on the developed world as a mere market.

I fully agree with you, and yet you seem to have missed the point: tourism solves neither sustainability NOR equality issues, so even if these are separate issues as you say, seems your solution solves neither. The people from poor countries do not become equal to the people from rich countries due to tourism, as you might have noticed, and additionally mass air travel is destroying the planet for all people alike. This seems fairly evident. What is your actual point?
I am not necessarily defending the status quo, or saying I have a solution. I am simply critiquing the idea that eliminating tourism actually helps the people of the developing world by much. It reduces the environmental damage done to the developing countries and to the planet, but it also eliminates an entire industry that keeps a number of people employed. Eliminating the tourism industry does not magically translate greater industralisation or development of expertise in other more sustainable aspects of industries.

It still cost massive amount of investment to retrain someone working in the tourism industry to an engineer, scientists, and etc. Where is those investment going to come from if a country is heavily reliant on tourism for most of their GDP? More foreign borrowing from IMF or World Bank?

How are you going to ease the pain of the transition for the people that are going to find themselves out of work? Transition of economy is something that can be easily mishandled and wreck utter devastation onto the communities. They may not die from environmental damage, but the people are simply going to starve to death instead.

Yes, if you watch the news, the developing world is begging for action on climate change from rich nations - and in much stronger terms than any lf the rich nations themselves - but so far has gotten little reaction. Australia and the US, two apparently-wealthiest ones, sabotage all such requests and pleas. So the developed world is sabotaging action requested by those threatened most.
Yes they are. But the solutions offered by people from developed nations do not take their perspective into account when it comes to planning out a more sustainable economic model. Which means before one can cheer about the end of the aviation industry, we need to provide solutions for how to ease the transition for the developing countries first, developed countries second.
Exactly, and it seems were are in agreement here, because I said above: these things are matters of policy, of agreements. Nobody transfers expertise and knowledge while sipping pina coladas on a beach. People do so when executing government agreements or commercial agreements. Also, please google “path dependency” and come back to me explaining why we should remove extreme path dependency from our considerations. It necessarily follows that people will transition to other forms of occupation when certain industries are removed. We don’t use asbestos in construction and we don’t use lead in water pipelines, we don’t burn wood in house cheminees with few exceptions, and occupations related to this are of course no more existent, or severely curtailed in number. But so?
See my earlier point on political dependency. Political agreement are not done solely for the sake of altruistic reasons. Economic transition is easier said than done.
Why? The source of all wealth is transformative collective labour of humans, and human ideas. People will use their labour, and ideas, to improve their life. Governments and companies can order technology, and humans can also invent technology. But producing pina coladas for tourists is not actually inventing anything. It is servitude.
Those still requires an investment that has to come from somewhere, and ways of trying to gain access to new ideas and technology. And not all developing countries have the scale needed to build strong and self-reliant industries. What works for China due to its geography and population size might not work for smaller developing nations like East Timor.
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I see your criticism. But you also admit that globalism is not reducing the gap, and that it is not helping the countries build diversified and resilient economies (all the more obvious now when rona has shut everything down and locked all borders). Thirty years of globalism and non-diversified, fewer-goods-and-servics economies have made the countries vulnerable and weak, and oftentimes utterly dependent on the global “deciders”, the rich nations. This is not solving any issues, it is exacerbating them and perpetuating into infinity. Also it removes all agency from nations, forces them to make their economies carbon-copies of blueprints laid out by the rich nations, who hold them at gunpoint via control of debt, reserve currency arrangements, etc.
Vietnam is making use of globalism to buy themselves some breathing space, by basically emulating the Chinese model ( including protectionism). Incentivising MNCs to build factories in Vietnam still enables the country to be able to observe and gain first-hand experience and expertise. You have talked about agreements between nations. However I do not believe the developed world will be willing to share their expertise without gaining some forms of benefits in return. You cannot make agreements fair if the bargaining position still ultimately favours the developed world over the developing world.
The robber has gotten his huge share of wealth, but of course his victims cannot get this wealth, and cannot reach him.
The victim can seek to take advantage of the robber's greed to get the wealth back.
But do they? Is the level of wealth fundamentally important, or the quality of life of the citizens? If by purchasing power the citizens can afford all the same things they could in a rich nation, what is the ultimate difference? Why should China have a GDP or whatever other indicator you can come up with of 40k per person, if it has essentially the same living standards for most of its population at 20k per person?
That would depend on every rich country being happy not to take advantage of their wealth and expertise in further exploiting those that are not as well-off. Scale still matters to many countries, especially if they are smaller than their neighbours. A world in which East Timor cannot achieve parity of any kind is going to leave them even more vulnerable.
I challenge your narrative precisely because there are many points in it to be challenged. What good is wealth built, say, on exporting wholesale all the wood in your nation, cutting down all the forests to the last tree? This is a form of wealth that is based on plundering your own compatriots, privately appropriating profits & leaving an entire nation deforested at the end of the cycle, with no other sources of income to boot. So “wealth” should appear from strong, sustainable and diversified economies.
I agree. However, you are not proposing any concrete solutions that could allow a developing nation to build a strong and sustainable economy from where they are today. How is East Timor going to get from where they are now currently to having a strong, sustainable and diversified economy? What sort of bilateral agreements can they hope to get, without being subjected to unfair demands?

So far the West is failing that test, because its economies historically built on plunder, plentiful resources or stolen resources. It also fails sustainability. The East is doing better with diversified & resilient, but sometimes failing on sustainability as well.

We all have a lot to learn, but building one-shot poor economies that crumble at the first sight of crisis is untenable. It is untenable exactly because we are under capitalism. If the one shot or one thing these economies make fails or is no longer needed, then they are fucked. Nobody will care to do anything. When socialist nations phase out a factory, they would reassign the workers to different factories to make different goods. Under capitalism nobody will.

Indeed, previously existing phenomenon of “ghost towns” is being repeated on a much larger scale, there are entire “ghost nations” by now that lost a significant share of their able-bodied populations via labour force drain, useless and abandoned, making nothing important and bound to lose even more of their population in the future. Is this the way we want to go forward?

If yes, why?
You are making an argument for a developed world that can make the transition far less painful. My point has never been about saying the status quo is ideal by any stretch. My entire argument is that the vast majority of the proposed solutions stems from the perspective of the developed world, and not from the developing world.

You talk about socialist nations being able to phase out a factory and ease the transition for its workers. Sure, that sounds nice. However, that is still taking the perspective of a developed nation that have a factory in the first place. It is not taking the perspective of a developing nation that do not have a factory to begin with.

It's people's perspective that I take an issue with. Before we can talk about decarbonsing transport or ending the tourism industry, we need to ensure there are sufficient safeguard and measures in place for the developing world FIRST .

How is the developed world going to take the money they are spending on tourism and to spend it on the developing world in a more sustainable way. That needs to be the how policies are formulated and pushed forward. And not merely a rhetoric about how tourism itself is bad and we should end it.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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Look, you say „that presumes a factory was there in the first place“, but actually it does not.

All nations started without factories, and then they have built factories. They have built those factories many decades before any kind of mass tourism occurred. Tourism is like less than 5% of the workforce in Vietnam, if we take it as an example, and the nation has enough has diverse industries, as well.

You say they will have to go to the West to buy technology. But they have to do it now as well. I would say, now they are in a much better position than 100 years ago, because there is a counterweight: East Asia. You could buy these technologies from China. Probably in the nearest future you could buy some of them from Vietnam.

If East Timor needs to get some equipment, do you think they would procure from the West? Why? It makes more sense for them to buy from China, Korea or Vietnam.

The proliferation of some of the most advanced technologies to the Second World, first via Russia & later via China, have created a different world, and it is not 1900 where you could only buy ship engines from Western factories, y‘know.

There is a Western duopoly in civil aviation tech, but (1) East Asia is working diligently to break it (2) aviation is one of the sectors that is the least sustainable in the long run, so that has to be considered as well by nations planning large-scale investments in their future.

As I said, you say we have to consider the perspective of developing nations, but you say these nations won’t be able to do anything without the West. What has East Timor gotten from the West? Maybe a functioning industry? No, it hasn’t & East Timor imports most lf their cars. Even all its imports are from the East - its invader Indonesia, followed by China, Singapore, Vietnam.

So again, you have no plan and you don’t actually know what you are talking about.

And all of it is completely unrelated to the fact that tourism is not sustainable in the long run, so economies based on it are not planning sustainably and also force themselves on a path dependency where alternate industries are not developed because they are „not competitive“. Well, that is a straight way to destroying your nature, the planet - and STILL remaining destitute at the end of it.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-29 03:46pm Look, you say „that presumes a factory was there in the first place“, but actually it does not.

All nations started without factories, and then they have built factories. They have built those factories many decades before any kind of mass tourism occurred. Tourism is like less than 5% of the workforce in Vietnam, if we take it as an example, and the nation has enough has diverse industries, as well.

You say they will have to go to the West to buy technology. But they have to do it now as well. I would say, now they are in a much better position than 100 years ago, because there is a counterweight: East Asia. You could buy these technologies from China. Probably in the nearest future you could buy some of them from Vietnam.

If East Timor needs to get some equipment, do you think they would procure from the West? Why? It makes more sense for them to buy from China, Korea or Vietnam.

The proliferation of some of the most advanced technologies to the Second World, first via Russia & later via China, have created a different world, and it is not 1900 where you could only buy ship engines from Western factories, y‘know.

There is a Western duopoly in civil aviation tech, but (1) East Asia is working diligently to break it (2) aviation is one of the sectors that is the least sustainable in the long run, so that has to be considered as well by nations planning large-scale investments in their future.

As I said, you say we have to consider the perspective of developing nations, but you say these nations won’t be able to do anything without the West. What has East Timor gotten from the West? Maybe a functioning industry? No, it hasn’t & East Timor imports most lf their cars. Even all its imports are from the East - its invader Indonesia, followed by China, Singapore, Vietnam.

So again, you have no plan and you don’t actually know what you are talking about.
Developed world is not necessarily the same as the west. The East Asian nations are developed. China, while technically not a developed nation, has achieved sufficient technical expertise in many areas that matches and even surpass the "developed" world.

Buying stuff from the East as opposed to the West does not fundamentally resolve the issue I am talking about. It does not resolve the political and economic cost that a more underdeveloped nation had to pay as a result of their wealth disparity.

There is a number of different economic disparity I am talking about here. Yes, there is a East-West economic disparity, but the gap isn't as big if we are talking about the East Asian economies. But I am not talking about the economic disparity between the East and West. I am talking about the disparity between the countries that had made use of the second half of the 20th century to gain a massive advantage in terms of development ( i.e. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and etc) and the countries that have not ( East Timor, South Sudan, Bangladesh).

Even amongst developing nations, there are disparities. Vietnam has always been a more developed region, in part due to the politics of the cold war. Vietnam gained expertise from more advanced nations, like the Soviets during the Cold War. On the other hand, this is not the same for other countries like East Timor.

The developed East is not likely to be any more benevolent to the developing world than the developed West. Chinese investments in Africa is still about extracting resources away from the continent. China might have built more infrastructure in Africa than the West did, but it fundamentally an unequal relationship.
And all of it is completely unrelated to the fact that tourism is not sustainable in the long run, so economies based on it are not planning sustainably and also force themselves on a path dependency where alternate industries are not developed because they are „not competitive“. Well, that is a straight way to destroying your nature, the planet - and STILL remaining destitute at the end of it.
And you have completely ignored my point. I agree tourism is not sustainable in the long run. I am not calling for countries to rely on tourism in the long haul. My entire point has been about easing the transition away from tourism for the developing nations.

Nothing you have said so far has mentioned anything about easing the transition, and hence my critique towards the perspective many of you are taking. I think before anyone can talk about ending the tourism industry, you absolutely needs to offer measures and solutions for the developing world to ease the transition. Otherwise, you are merely exchanging one suffering for another.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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My entire point has been about easing the transition away from tourism for the developing nations.
If that is your entire point, then consider that tourism is (1) low-hanging fruit (2) not sustainable in the long run. So if given a choice between investing into anything complicated, any sort of fully integrated, advanced production chain, and tourism, a poor government will take the path of least resistance. Just as rich people take the path of least resistance when they keep burning up the planet instead of transitioning to carbon-neutral forms of travel (nuclear & renewable electrified overnight rail), or in other instances.

If you have a drug addiction, you don’t give the addict more drugs to try and wean him off the addiction. Decarbonization btw, if ever implemented widely as a serious strategy, would disproportionately impact the developed nations. Much more than the undeveloped ones, because the carbon impact of the undeveloped nations per capita is small, and they don’t have a massive carbon-reliant infrastructure in place.

Also as I explained before, being “developed” but destroying the planet is not the goal. Developed nations should actually remove themselves from the process if they can’t contribute anything worthwhile and only obstruct and put hurdles. They are bad actors, then.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-29 05:37pmIf that is your entire point, then consider that tourism is (1) low-hanging fruit (2) not sustainable in the long run. So if given a choice between investing into anything complicated, any sort of fully integrated, advanced production chain, and tourism, a poor government will take the path of least resistance. Just as rich people take the path of least resistance when they keep burning up the planet instead of transitioning to carbon-neutral forms of travel (nuclear & renewable electrified overnight rail), or in other instances.
I agree with you that tourism is a low-hanging fruit and it is not sustainable in the long-run. But the transition and the benefits of achieving such transition is something that benefits the developing countries in the medium or in the long-term. It does not help ease their short-term transition, nor could we say a successful transition could be achieve in most cases.

Before you talk about long-term or medium-term change, you absolutely needs to talk about how to ease the short-term pain. If not, it will hinder and handicap the ability of the developing countries to make a successful transition.
If you have a drug addiction, you don’t give the addict more drugs to try and wean him off the addiction. Decarbonization btw, if ever implemented widely as a serious strategy, would disproportionately impact the developed nations. Much more than the undeveloped ones, because the carbon impact of the undeveloped nations per capita is small, and they don’t have a massive carbon-reliant infrastructure in place.
This utterly ignores how many people that will die during the transition. Decarbonising polices that fail to take into account on how to ease the pain for the developing world will make them more vulnerable for exploitation. Developed countries will be disproportionately impacted, but it does not remove the wealth inequality that allows them to buy up resources from the developing world. Food insecurity and lack of sufficient healthcare infrastructure are already problems that severely impacts the developing world today. A painful transition will only make it worse.

I think there needs to be a transition. But that transition needs to be made with the minimum damage being done to the developing world. I fail to see why you find that a hard concept to grasp.

Also as I explained before, being “developed” but destroying the planet is not the goal. Developed nations should actually remove themselves from the process if they can’t contribute anything worthwhile and only obstruct and put hurdles. They are bad actors, then.
There is utterly no mechanism in place that can push the developed world to remove themselves from the process.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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Before you talk about long-term or medium-term change, you absolutely needs to talk about how to ease the short-term pain.
Look, I said before capitalism is crap at adapting to long-term necessities of mankind, so the reality is such that climate change will run rampant, decarbonization is a pipe dream and nobody gives a shit about anyone else, because we live in societies of extreme individualism, that preach it and live according to it, both politically and on the level of individual relations.

What do you need me to say?
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-30 08:44am Look, I said before capitalism is crap at adapting to long-term necessities of mankind, so the reality is such that climate change will run rampant, decarbonization is a pipe dream and nobody gives a shit about anyone else, because we live in societies of extreme individualism, that preach it and live according to it, both politically and on the level of individual relations.

What do you need me to say?
Say you will try and find ways to ease the transition if you hope for a better future? Or simply acknowledge the need to do so? Saying what we are doing right now is bad, but refuse to even acknowledge the need to ease the transition for developing countries is one of the biggest hindrance to convince people to make any meaningful change.

Capitalism strongest claims against taking decisive actions has always been about creating an image that they are benefiting people in the short-term. If those arguing against it is unwilling to acknowledge the need to reduce the short-term pains and solely focus on the long-term need, then capitalism will always win.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 09:08amSay you will try and find ways to ease the transition if you hope for a better future? Or simply acknowledge the need to do so? Saying what we are doing right now is bad, but refuse to even acknowledge the need to ease the transition for developing countries is one of the biggest hindrance to convince people to make any meaningful change.

Capitalism strongest claims against taking decisive actions has always been about creating an image that they are benefiting people in the short-term. If those arguing against it is unwilling to acknowledge the need to reduce the short-term pains and solely focus on the long-term need, then capitalism will always win.
Yes. But there is no magic bullet, no magic wand to suddenly solve all issues. If people suck at long term planning because they are captivated by a false consciousness, the task is to demolish the false consciousness.

If people are so bad at long term planning that they are willing to accept existential risks only not to jeopardize quarterly profits of some companies, then I am sorry, but there is nothing I can say to ease their minds.

I am not a big fan of lies, and if we say everything will be OK, we will be telling a lie.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-30 12:53pm Yes. But there is no magic bullet, no magic wand to suddenly solve all issues. If people suck at long term planning because they are captivated by a false consciousness, the task is to demolish the false consciousness.

If people are so bad at long term planning that they are willing to accept existential risks only not to jeopardize quarterly profits of some companies, then I am sorry, but there is nothing I can say to ease their minds.

I am not a big fan of lies, and if we say everything will be OK, we will be telling a lie.
There is no magic bullet, but you are unwilling to even discuss measures to ease some of the pain, then you are only making people more hostile and more resistant towards change. No one is asking you to ease their minds. I am simply saying you need to ease their actual pain that comes from economic disruption, that will result in people simply starving to death.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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[/quote]
K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-30 12:53pmYes. But there is no magic bullet, no magic wand to suddenly solve all issues. If people suck at long term planning because they are captivated by a false consciousness, the task is to demolish the false consciousness.

If people are so bad at long term planning that they are willing to accept existential risks only not to jeopardize quarterly profits of some companies, then I am sorry, but there is nothing I can say to ease their minds.

I am not a big fan of lies, and if we say everything will be OK, we will be telling a lie.
We may sometimes disagree on the specifics of how a change should be made but I 100% agree with the above. We shouldn't sugar coat that any transition away from the current model is going to hurt people and very likely hurt the developing world the most. Unless there is a drastic shift in thinking this is an immutable fact.

Accepting it isn't the same as liking it.
ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 01:13pmThere is no magic bullet, but you are unwilling to even discuss measures to ease some of the pain, then you are only making people more hostile and more resistant towards change. No one is asking you to ease their minds. I am simply saying you need to ease their actual pain that comes from economic disruption, that will result in people simply starving to death.
What do sweet little nothings whispered tenderly on a message board have to do with the entrenched power structures that are going favor the global elite over the developing world? The reality is that it's easy to distract people from suffering in other nations and thus there's very little incentive for those in power to care about them unless they stand to gain by keeping them sheltered.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 01:20pm What do sweet little nothings whispered tenderly on a message board have to do with the entrenched power structures that are going favor the global elite over the developing world? The reality is that it's easy to distract people from suffering in other nations and thus there's very little incentive for those in power to care about them unless they stand to gain by keeping them sheltered.
It's the rhetoric that matters, as it shapes the way people approach the problem and attempts to offer solutions. The reality is capitalism thrives by promising people short-term benefits and gains, which matters a great deal more when developing countries is desperate to find any way they can to gain the resources to keep people paid and fed.

The number 1 argument capitalism will make against any transition is "What about people's jobs?" Any rhetoric that fails or simply ignores that problem is going to fall on deaf ears, because the only people prepared to make the sacrifice are the people who will not bear the brunt of the pain during the transition.

People who fears going hungry in the short-term is not likely to care about any long-term harm.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by Jub »

ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 01:39pmIt's the rhetoric that matters, as it shapes the way people approach the problem and attempts to offer solutions. The reality is capitalism thrives by promising people short-term benefits and gains, which matters a great deal more when developing countries is desperate to find any way they can to gain the resources to keep people paid and fed.

The number 1 argument capitalism will make against any transition is "What about people's jobs?" Any rhetoric that fails or simply ignores that problem is going to fall on deaf ears, because the only people prepared to make the sacrifice are the people who will not bear the brunt of the pain during the transition.

People who fears going hungry in the short-term is not likely to care about any long-term harm.
It doesn't matter how we on this messageboard frame the issue because we don't control the mechanisms by which the rhetoric and discourse are spread. As individuals, even if we spent as much time as possible devoted to spreading this message we wouldn't make a dent. Those are facts.

Also, you're treating us talking the facts of what is likely to happen as if we want it to happen. I don't think K. A. Pital wants the people in less developed nations to suffer so much as he's resigned himself to it happening based on the past and present actions of the developed nations of the world. That's certainly my take on things.

We can discuss happy hypotheticals and what should happen until our fingers bleed but that doesn't change what will happen.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by K. A. Pital »

Look ray. It is a fact that „jobs“ are more secure under any form of socialism or social democracy that they are under capitalism. Soviet type societies had zero unemployment. European social democracy has seen only slight increases in the jobless rate even in the pandemic, because people are on state payroll until the crisis subsides.

The US has 25+ million unemployed in a few weeks.

Who is better situated to face the transition that causes job losses? Sure it ain’t those who want to model their society on the US: no guarantees, no job security, nothing. Just pure capitalism.

So the truth is not „jobs“ are the concern, oh no. If they were people would be supporting socialism or social democracy, but not the neoliberal „work or die at my whim“ regime of the last decades.

Truth is, everyone is just concerned only, exclusively about THEMSELVES. Full, unrestrained individualism. That’s the real reason. Everyone wants to get his and run off, get his cut, win, cheat, MAKE IT BIG any way possible.

And now, we all will pay the price. But yes, the poor will pay more. Their masters are better prepared.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by ray245 »

Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 02:21pm It doesn't matter how we on this messageboard frame the issue because we don't control the mechanisms by which the rhetoric and discourse are spread. As individuals, even if we spent as much time as possible devoted to spreading this message we wouldn't make a dent. Those are facts.

Also, you're treating us talking the facts of what is likely to happen as if we want it to happen. I don't think K. A. Pital wants the people in less developed nations to suffer so much as he's resigned himself to it happening based on the past and present actions of the developed nations of the world. That's certainly my take on things.

We can discuss happy hypotheticals and what should happen until our fingers bleed but that doesn't change what will happen.
No, but the way we approach such topics is an important part of the conversation. It's about changing our pattern of thinking to one that is more focused on the developing world's perspective.
K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-30 03:54pm Look ray. It is a fact that „jobs“ are more secure under any form of socialism or social democracy that they are under capitalism. Soviet type societies had zero unemployment. European social democracy has seen only slight increases in the jobless rate even in the pandemic, because people are on state payroll until the crisis subsides.

The US has 25+ million unemployed in a few weeks.

Who is better situated to face the transition that causes job losses? Sure it ain’t those who want to model their society on the US: no guarantees, no job security, nothing. Just pure capitalism.

So the truth is not „jobs“ are the concern, oh no. If they were people would be supporting socialism or social democracy, but not the neoliberal „work or die at my whim“ regime of the last decades.

Truth is, everyone is just concerned only, exclusively about THEMSELVES. Full, unrestrained individualism. That’s the real reason. Everyone wants to get his and run off, get his cut, win, cheat, MAKE IT BIG any way possible.

And now, we all will pay the price. But yes, the poor will pay more. Their masters are better prepared.
That is not the point. Vietnam despite being a socialist country is still going to have massive economic problems if they end an industry that accounts for 10 percent of their GDP overnight. Whether jobs are more secure under one system over another does not negate the disruption.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by K. A. Pital »

Tourism is less than 5% of employment; Vietnam may have problems, but it can overcome them (unlike Seychelles or Maldives which are trapped in a Catch-22 of self-destruction: you only have tourism, only by air, but flying will destroy them via sea level rise). So if you are serious, you would have picked these as an example.

As for your casual dismissal of the point that jobs are not actually in any way secure under capitalism, and thus always at risk... I have made my point. Capitalism promises individual success at the expense of others. To people. To nations. It does not promise secure jobs and permanent employment.

If people are willing to gamble away their future in a casino, what can I do? I can only explain that the casino is a bad system. I can’t stop them from entering.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by Jub »

ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 04:16pmNo, but the way we approach such topics is an important part of the conversation. It's about changing our pattern of thinking to one that is more focused on the developing world's perspective.
What does that accomplish when it's less than a dozen people on an old messageboard changing their patterns of thinking? It's not us you need to convince it's the politicians, billionaires, and media empires. Without convincing any two of them you'll never get enough people on board to make a difference.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by madd0ct0r »

Some data. List of countries by % of their GDP that is tied up in tourism (which isn't the same as flights and cruises but for the islands that top the list, big correlation)
https://www.google.com/amp/knoema.com/a ... 3fmode=amp

I can't find an equally extensive set for people employed. I will note that in Vietnam the resort and golf course development s I was building provided less jobs then the farms and fishing village had.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2020-04-30 04:32pm Tourism is less than 5% of employment; Vietnam may have problems, but it can overcome them (unlike Seychelles or Maldives which are trapped in a Catch-22 of self-destruction: you only have tourism, only by air, but flying will destroy them via sea level rise). So if you are serious, you would have picked these as an example.
Yes, Maldvies and Seychelles are better examples. But I picked Vietnam to understate the point that even for developing countries that far better equipped to handle the transition, it is STILL going to be very painful for people that dependent on those sectors for their current livelihoods.
As for your casual dismissal of the point that jobs are not actually in any way secure under capitalism, and thus always at risk... I have made my point. Capitalism promises individual success at the expense of others. To people. To nations. It does not promise secure jobs and permanent employment.
I never said those are any way more secure under capitalism. That is not my point.
If people are willing to gamble away their future in a casino, what can I do? I can only explain that the casino is a bad system. I can’t stop them from entering.
You can at the very least provide them with solutions to ease the transition. You don't treat a drug addict simply by taking drugs immediately away from them and telling them drugs is bad, and tell them you can't stop them from getting addicted to drugs in the first place.
Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 05:34pm What does that accomplish when it's less than a dozen people on an old messageboard changing their patterns of thinking? It's not us you need to convince it's the politicians, billionaires, and media empires. Without convincing any two of them you'll never get enough people on board to make a difference.
Of course not. The impact is going to be minimal, but I will argue the need to do so anyway because changing every small bitin how people approach the topic helps. The points I am making is not merely addressed to internet board users, but it's the same point I am making in public forums, at university and etc. Where I am currently working at provides me with ample platform to engage with various key stakeholders on a very regular basis. But that does not mean making the exact same point I make to people anonymously online isn't important.

If you want to develop a stronger message that can resonate better with people, then you need to at the very least try and reframe your approach. Otherwise the message itself will be useless filter.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by Jub »

ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 06:30pm <snip>
You realize that we agree with you, right? We just don't think that what you want to happen is going to happen regardless and thus feel it's a net benefit to let airlines collapse now rather than kicking the can down the road a few more years (decades) and allowing developing economies to be further enraptured by the easy money of tourism.

Going back to the drug example, is it better to stop the junkie from having drugs or to supply them with drugs and no other support until they OD?
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 06:42pm You realize that we agree with you, right? We just don't think that what you want to happen is going to happen regardless and thus feel it's a net benefit to let airlines collapse now rather than kicking the can down the road a few more years (decades) and allowing developing economies to be further enraptured by the easy money of tourism.
Yes. My contention is that before you let airlines and the tourism industry collapse, you need to make sure there are enough safety net for the people whose livelihood depends on those sectors first. Failure to do so will just make you come across as being cold-hearted, and increase resistance towards such proposal.
Going back to the drug example, is it better to stop the junkie from having drugs or to supply them with drugs and no other support until they OD?
That's a false dilemma and you know it. Have you not heard of detox? You need to approach economic transition the same way you help to detox a drug addict, by doing it carefully and with enough social support in the meantime.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by Jub »

ray245 wrote: 2020-04-30 07:19pm
Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 06:42pm You realize that we agree with you, right? We just don't think that what you want to happen is going to happen regardless and thus feel it's a net benefit to let airlines collapse now rather than kicking the can down the road a few more years (decades) and allowing developing economies to be further enraptured by the easy money of tourism.
Yes. My contention is that before you let airlines and the tourism industry collapse, you need to make sure there are enough safety net for the people whose livelihood depends on those sectors first. Failure to do so will just make you come across as being cold-hearted, and increase resistance towards such proposal.
Going back to the drug example, is it better to stop the junkie from having drugs or to supply them with drugs and no other support until they OD?
That's a false dilemma and you know it. Have you not heard of detox? You need to approach economic transition the same way you help to detox a drug addict, by doing it carefully and with enough social support in the meantime.
Ray, I think we can both agree that in an ideal world that is what happens, but we don't live in an ideal world. In a world where the only two options are to continue as things are at present or drastically curtail global travel due to a major die-off of airlines and a depressed global economy; which would you favor?
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by chimericoncogene »

Guys, transport - especially air transport - should be the last thing we decarbonize.

Until batteries get more energy density than hydrocarbon, or we transition to nuclear-generated ammonia or something (which has its own problems), or we somehow finally build aircraft nuclear reactors (yeah, right)...

I see mankind hydrogenating coal to provide jets with kerosene well after the rest of the economy has gone 100% green and cargo ships are all powered by nuclear reactors, wind, or batteries. Or pump the oil that nobody wants anymore. Heck, if people are so worried about the planet, they can do the obvious thing and use biofuel, or directly extract CO2 from the air or generated by concrete production to make kerosene via whatever industrial process is cheapest.

It's just not going to happen. Hydrocarbons have too many energy density and handling advantages to be surrendered.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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chimericoncogene wrote: 2020-04-30 10:03pm Guys, transport - especially air transport - should be the last thing we decarbonize.

Until batteries get more energy density than hydrocarbon, or we transition to nuclear-generated ammonia or something (which has its own problems), or we somehow finally build aircraft nuclear reactors (yeah, right)...

I see mankind hydrogenating coal to provide jets with kerosene well after the rest of the economy has gone 100% green and cargo ships are all powered by nuclear reactors, wind, or batteries. Or pump the oil that nobody wants anymore. Heck, if people are so worried about the planet, they can do the obvious thing and use biofuel, or directly extract CO2 from the air or generated by concrete production to make kerosene via whatever industrial process is cheapest.

It's just not going to happen. Hydrocarbons have too many energy density and handling advantages to be surrendered.
The thing is, we don't really need flight all that much and all other forms of transport can be made much greener in the near future.

Flight is nice for getting to a place quickly and, near term, cheaply, but we have alternatives for getting between nations and continents. There are things that we'll still want to use planes to transport and that's fine, but we don't need the sheer volume of passenger flights we have and if some airlines go tits up during the current pandemic I won't much cry over them.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

Post by madd0ct0r »

chimericoncogene wrote: 2020-04-30 10:03pm Guys, transport - especially air transport - should be the last thing we decarbonize.

Until batteries get more energy density than hydrocarbon, or we transition to nuclear-generated ammonia or something (which has its own problems), or we somehow finally build aircraft nuclear reactors (yeah, right)...

I see mankind hydrogenating coal to provide jets with kerosene well after the rest of the economy has gone 100% green and cargo ships are all powered by nuclear reactors, wind, or batteries. Or pump the oil that nobody wants anymore. Heck, if people are so worried about the planet, they can do the obvious thing and use biofuel, or directly extract CO2 from the air or generated by concrete production to make kerosene via whatever industrial process is cheapest.

It's just not going to happen. Hydrocarbons have too many energy density and handling advantages to be surrendered.
Last thing we decarbonise is only a couple of decades away for the UK. It means planning and setting up now.
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Re: Decarbonising transport

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Jub wrote: 2020-04-30 09:18pm Ray, I think we can both agree that in an ideal world that is what happens, but we don't live in an ideal world. In a world where the only two options are to continue as things are at present or drastically curtail global travel due to a major die-off of airlines and a depressed global economy; which would you favor?
I do not think there is only two option that you are presenting. Presenting it as only two option is going to make people more resistant to change, and that is my entire point all this time. It is a false dilemma created by people coming from the developed world's perspective.

A better alternative option is to find ways to shift the money that we are currently spending on things like tourism and find ways to invest it in the developing world in a sustainable way. Simply hoarding the money that we would otherwise spend on tourism is not a solution people will buy into.
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