@hosford42 @ErikUden The thing is, we are already aware of the problem. We already want to fix it. We are even aware of the hypocrisy. That’s not the knob that needs to be turned.

We need to be activated toward effective action. Not just activated. What is the effective action? What is the next step to take? That’s what we should be talking about.

@hosford42 @abhayakara @ErikUden
1. Participate in a climate demonstration at least once a month.
2. Vote for the party/candidate that has the best and most radical climate politics where you live, on all political levels.
3. Talk about your fear of climate change in different situations, for example with friends and colleagues.
4. Try to reduce your own emissions as much as possible.

In this order.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

Unfortunately these are all things we've been doing since 1970 that haven't worked:

Moreover, several of them are actually tactics that have made us less effective.

Protests can be useful, mostly because they are a way to foster movements. They are effective when they gather popular support. They usually are used to discredit the movement, because they are so easy to misrepresent in the news. One person breaking a bottle and it's a violent protest.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

Voting only works if you are tactical about it. Voting does two things: it makes people who aren't really on your side but aren't against you take you seriously (if you do it right). And if you vote in primaries (in the U.S.), it allows you to change who is actually running in the general election, and then you might actually get to vote for someone who doesn't suck.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

But e.g. third parties in the U.S., which is not really a democracy, absolutely can't win elections. The whole system is set up to prevent that. Parties sometimes use third party voters to draw votes away from the other party. So voting third party in the U.S. at least is always a net lose. It literally can't do anytihng except the opposite of what you want.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

Talking about fear makes people feel hopeless. And then they don't show up. So no, taliking about your fears about climate change doesn't help. Poeple are already more than afraid enough of climate change. Doing something about climate change is /hugely/ popular. The problem isn't that people don't want to do somethign about it.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

And the last one, "making good choices," suggests that we are the problem and we need to change. But really we aren't the problem. The problem is systemic. The system needs to change.

I'm sure you've heard of the Jevons paradox. It's a real thing. Markets adjust. If 30% of the population conserves energy, the price of fuel drops, and the other 70% start consuming more. Youve done a lot of work and accomplished nothing.

@abhayakara @hosford42 @ErikUden You seem to have missed the fact that three of the four points are about system change, and only one, the last, of them is about personal change.

Your argument is very similar to the argument “it doesn’t matter if I own shares in a company that does bad things, because if I sell, someone else will buy the shares because they were cheap”. The argument is flawed. From an economics point of view, the *point* is that it becomes cheaper and therefore less attractive.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

I think oil producers at this point just want to keep making money. If prices drop they can always cut production. What they don't want is stranded assets. They don't want a shift so great that it decimates their business suddenly.

That shift is coming regardless, though. Me switching to an electric car (minimal benefit) or moving to a city (much more benefit) will not even make a dent in that.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

The problem is that they will produce as much as they can sell—the reason to slow production is to raise the price, but they don't slow it enough to make a difference. They can't. The variance is in the noise, because most traffic is compulsory.

So the reason I want to stop driving is because I hate driving. It's stressful and unsafe. I'm happy if that makes a tiny difference in the global oil consumption, but the difference isn't enough to fix anything.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden

There are two reasons why I think letting go of this is important. First, just do what makes sense to you. There are lots of good reasons to stop driving. That way you don't feel satisfied. Feeling satisfied is a bad idea, because what you did didn't fix the problem.

Second, when I think of my personal choices as actually mattering, and I see someone who isn't doing the same, I tend to judge them. This creates division, which is counterproductive.

@ahltorp @hosford42 @ErikUden Why do you see this as a problem?

Seriously, being able to complain about others’ behavior doesn’t do much, does it?

If we want to actually solve this problem, we need to do things that address the problem. Complaining about your neighbors’ individual behavior is not such a thing.